+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
Joy

Ronny Chieng’s joke about Asian identity inspired a compelling debate about labels

"The Daily Show" correspondent's comments were about Rishi Sunak's appointment as U.K. prime minister.

ronny chieng, rishi sunak, asia
via The Daily Show/Twitter

Ronny Chieng on "The Daily Show."

Rishi Sunak made history on Tuesday, October 25 by becoming the first Asian and Hindu prime minister in the history of the United Kingdom. His appointment is seen by many in the U.K. as an important step toward representation in a country that is 7.5% Asian.

Sunak’s grandparents migrated to the U.K. in the 1960s from India and his maternal grandmother was born in Africa.

However, this issue is a little more complicated from an American perspective where people of Indian descent are rarely referred to as Asian. We reserve the label for people of the Far East such as Japan, China, Vietnam and Korea.

To complicate things further, if you go by what the U.S. government has to say, Asian refers to people “having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.”

Things get a little vaguer when you consider the different ways people divide one another by race and ethnicity throughout the world. For example, even the term “American” is up for debate worldwide. We consider ourselves American in the United States, but in Latin America, an American is someone from Latin America.

Comedian Ronny Chieng had some fun with the nuanced topic of racial classifications on “The Daily Show” in a bit called “Don’t call Rishi Sunak the U.K.’s first Asian PM in front of Ronny Chieng.” Chieng was born in Malaysia.

In the bit, he made fun of how the term Asian means something different throughout the world. “Indians are not Asians. I love how Indians try to have it both ways, like being Indian and Asian. Pick a lane, OK,” Chieng joked.

The bit was funny because Chieng’s mock rage pokes fun at how we can be adamant about our identities even though, in many ways, they’re rather arbitrary. It’s all just lines on a map. Further, the concept of Asia wasn’t even created by Asians themselves, it was foisted on them by the Greeks.

Some folks thought Chieng’s jokes were spot-on.

But not everyone agreed on whether the joke was accurate or funny and the piece received a lot of serious responses. Such is the way of Twitter, if you make a joke, you get serious responses. If you say something serious, you get jokes.

Also, it was a joke, meaning, he wasn't being serious.

In the end, what’s important is that the U.K. government and its people have progressed to the point where it has appointed the first person of color to represent their entire country. That’s a big step toward the ultimate goal of living in a world where people are judged by their abilities rather than the color of their skin.

This point got a bit lost in the discussion surrounding Chieng’s joke, where he made fun of the fact that people are so keen to define one another by race, they lose sight of what matters.

From Your Site Articles
asia
Badge
Classy Awards
Classy Awards
Joy

Meet the 11 outstanding nonprofits that took home this year’s Classy Awards

Each organization has gone above and beyond to make our world a better place.

All images provided by the Classy Awards, used with permission

Give these organizations all the awards

True

Since 2009, the Classy Awards have celebrated nonprofits for their unique approaches to making our world a better place for everyone. Winners are given a platform to amplify their cause and showcase the positive impact of their programs.

This year, we are proud to announce that the Classy Awards have partnered with Upworthy, and we are thrilled to shine a spotlight on the 2023 winners.

From championing gender equality, to massively reducing food waste, to providing trade-based skills training to the neurodivergent community, each organization has made an incredible contribution to the betterment of our world.

Collectively through their efforts, nearly 1.5 million people and animals were served across 34 countries worldwide last year alone. That’s a win in itself.

Check out the 11 winners for 2023 below:


​412 Food Rescue

1/11

In an effort to address the growing concern of food waste, hunger, and environmental sustainability, 412 Food Rescue uses an innovative app to match volunteers, aka Food Heroes, with other organizations that might have a surplus of perfectly good but unsellable food that would otherwise be wasted and redirect it to people who need it.

Food Heroes has redirected 137 million pounds of edible food from landfills to the people who need it most.

From Your Site Articles
best of humanity
Joy

Cat owner put a first person camera on their collar and accidentally filled the world with delight

Mr. Kitters' point of view is highly entertaining.

@mr.kitters.the.cat/TikTok

We get to see the world through Mr. Kitters' eyes.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a cat? To watch the world from less than a foot off the ground, seeing and hearing things humans completely miss, staring out the window for hours while contemplating one of your nine lives?

Well, thanks to one person, we need wonder no more—at least about what-they're-seeing part.

The TikTok channel Mr. Kitters the Cat (@mr.kitters.the.cat) gives us a cat's-eye view of the world with a camera attached to Mr. Kitters' collar. And the result is an utterly delightful POV experience that takes us through the daily adventuring of the frisky feline as he wanders the yard.

Keep ReadingShow less
cats
Pop Culture

People are sharing the ’90s trends they totally want back and it’s an oasis of nostalgia

What trends would you bring back? Cheap gas? Hypercolor shirts?

via Pexels

If you know how to fix this tape, you grew up in the 1990s.

There are a lot of reasons to feel a twinge of nostalgia for the final days of the 20th century. Rampant inflation, a global pandemic and political unrest have created a sense of uneasiness about the future that has everyone feeling a bit down.

There’s also a feeling that the current state of pop culture is lacking as well. Nobody listens to new music anymore and unless you’re into superheroes, it seems like creativity is seriously missing from the silver screen.


Keep ReadingShow less
1990s
Pop Culture

'Spider-verse' filmmakers were so wowed by a 14-yr-old's Lego trailer remake, they hired him

“It blew us all away, including some of the best animators in the world," producer Phil Miller told the New York Times.

LegoMe_TheOG/YouTube

Preston Mutanga's Lego trailer impressed the industry's top animators and he's only 14.

Marvel's 2018 animated feature film, "Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse," was incredibly well-received by fans and critics alike, and its sequel, "Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse" is being touted as just as good if not better.

The films follow a young teen, Miles Morales, as he discovers his superpowers and learns to wield them. But it has now been revealed that, behind the scenes of the new film, another young superhero was being discovered—a real kid with genuinely impressive 3D animation powers that even wowed some of the world's best animators.

At just 14 years old, Preston Mutanga recreated the trailer for "Across the Spider-verse" using Legos and shared his creation on social media in January of 2023. He tagged the producers of the film and wrote, "I recreated the entire Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse trailer in LEGO!"

Keep ReadingShow less
across the spider-verse
Pop Culture

Characters from 'Encanto' get made into portraits so lifelike they look like real people

Digital portraits as magical as the Madrigal family.

Instagram, YouTube

Where is the live action movie already?

What do you get when you mix artificial intelligence with editing software?

Mind-blowing images, apparently.

Brazilian digital artist Hidreley Leli Dião creates ultra realistic portraits of beloved cartoon characters as well as historical figures.

Keep ReadingShow less
artist uses ai to create digital encanto portraits
Identity

Nine out of 10 Americans now believe that LGBTQ people should live without discrimination

A few folks may be boycotting beer. But nearly all of us want equality.

via Rosemary Ketchum/Pexels

Love is love. Enough said.

There have been numerous high-profile controversies surrounding LGBTQ rights recently that make it appear as though there has been a considerable backlash in acceptance of the LGBTQ community among Americans.

There’s the Bud Light backlash after the popular beer brand used trans activist Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson. There was an uproar after the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on LGBTQ Pride Night. There has also been an ongoing controversy surrounding Target selling LGBTQ-friendly merchandise.

Clearly, if people are getting riled up over the normalization of LGBTQ culture throughout America, we must be amid a considerable backlash, right? In reality, the truth is the exact opposite.

A new poll by GLAAD has found that non-LGBTQ Americans are more accepting of the LGBTQ community than ever and want them to be treated like everyone else. So, even though there is a loud contingent of political activists pushing back against LGBTQ progress, they don’t seem to significantly impact the growing movement toward acceptance.

Simply put, the opposition to LGBTQ people may be loud, but it’s only getting smaller.

The survey of over 25,000 non-LGBTQ Americans found three encouraging facts:

  • A 96% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that school should be a safe and accepting place for all youth.
  • A 91% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their lives and not be discriminated against.
  • An 84% supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community.

The study also found that despite outrage over Dylan Mulvaney appearing in a Bud Light promotion, the vast majority of Americans are okay with seeing LGBTQ people and families represented in the media.

This corresponds with the fact that on the 2021 to 2022 TV season nearly 12% of all regular characters on prime-time television were LGBTQ. That’s a sea change over the 2005 to 2006 report that found only 2% of all characters were LGBTQ.

  • 75% of non-LGBTQ adults feel comfortable seeing LGBTQ people in advertisements.
  • 73% of non-LGBTQ adults report feeling comfortable seeing LGBTQ characters included in TV shows or movies.
  • 68% of non-LGBTQ adults feel comfortable seeing an LGBTQ family with children included in an advertisement.

The strange state of affairs in America is that even though an increasing number of Americans want LGBTQ people to have equal rights, there has been a staggering number of new laws aimed at disenfranchising them that have been proposed over the past three years.

GLAAD estimates that over 500-plus anti-LGBTQ laws have been proposed in 2023 alone.

“Support for LGBTQ equality has reached an all-time high, but allyship must turn into action,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “Media, content creators, and corporate leaders need to lead and respond to hate with undeterred support for the LGBTQ community, including LGBTQ employees, shareholders and consumers. Allyship is not easy, but when values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are tested, we must defend them unequivocally."

From Your Site Articles
lgbtq rights
Health

Woman 'triggered' by an attractive friend in a swimsuit asked her to cover up. Was she right?

The woman has body dysmorphia and got upset.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A woman in a white bikini relaxing in a pool.

A post on Reddit’s AITA subforum brought up a compelling debate about how people approach the mental health of others. As friends, coworkers and family members of people with mental health issues, how far is too far when it comes to accommodating their unique needs and requests?

It all started when a person with the username GlumDemand, 30, went with his girlfriend Alex, 27, to a friend’s pool party and barbecue. Also attending that party was their friend, Christine, 37, who had recently had a child and was struggling with postpartum depression. She hoped that attending the party would help to “lighten her mood.”

Postpartum depression happens to some women after giving birth and can cause mood swings, a loss of appetite, low energy and feelings of inadequacy. In severe cases, it can lead to major depression or postpartum psychosis.

Keep ReadingShow less
mental health
Trending Stories