Saturday, March 31, 2012

Asian-American Interracial Marriages Declining - The Next Episode

Earlier this month I blogged about the declining trend of Asian-American interracial marriages in the US. I wrote that blog up, because I began seeing a noticeable reduction in Asian-American women dating non-Asians since last year. What's funnier is that I wrote up a blog with a similar title almost 2 years ago and didn't even remember! Wow.

Now this is going to sound lame or arguably inaccurate, but two out of the many samples of classes I used as the barometer for Asian-American interracial dating trends is extrapolated from Craigslist and night clubs. Both forums are a reflection of popular culture in America. So when I used to scour Craigslist, I'd see tons of Asian female for white male classified ads. And then, when I'd go clubbing or hit up bars, I'd see or hear about the same kind of self-afflicting nonsense, "Ummm sorry. I only go for white guys." My response has always been the same. "I totally understand. I only go for pretty girls", and that usually leaves them with nothing to say.

So here I am surfing the web on a Friday afternoon and next thing I know, Rachel Swarns from the NY Times decides to copy me with her own article on behalf of this declining phenomenon. You motherfuckin' biters...Haha. Just kidding.


Honestly, I'm glad they put it out there because the NY Times is a lot more far-reaching than my Destroy & Rebuild blog ever will be. This is some really great stuff by Rachel. It reaffirms that 1) I'm not crazy in noticing this AA trend 2) there's factual proof that indeed AA women are waking up and seeing that dating a white guy, mainly because of his race, is futile and foundation-less when it comes to marriage. Moreover, I'm surprised that the NY Times didn't allude to this, but the declining trend in marrying out - once equivalent to marrying up - is longer necessary or may not be as glamourous as once believed.  

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Too Much Deception In Online Dating

If there's one thing I cannot stand with a fervent passion, it is the widespread amount of deceptive profile pictures running rampant in social networking and online dating. Heck, Congress should pass a bill to prohibit the usage of deceptive profile pictures. Don't think any gender is exonerated from this past time of photo fibbing either. This is just as applicable to the fellas as much as it is to the ladies.
Liars have fucked up the online dating game horribly.

Now I have to admit that I've dabbled in online dating a few times, and though I've had some decent encounters in total, my so-called "as expected" meetings were few and far between to the point where I could probably count them all on one hand. The point is, if you're serious about meeting new people, it's probably a waste your time trying to meet them online. It's one thing if you go online strictly looking to make new friends, but let's all be honest with ourselves for just one second, shall we? If you had a choice, would you want a good looking friend or an ugly one, irrespective of gender? Unless the ugly friend has an AMAZING personality (such as myself...LOL) I'm sure we'd all opt for good looking friends over ugly ones.

Call me an asshole for placing so much emphasis on physical appearance, but I am keeping it REAL, and this is where America has an issue with facing itself in the mirror and saying, "You're unhealthy and fat. Stop eating so much junk food and get your ass in the gym", unlike those lying sons of bitches out there - men are not excluded from this category - ruining the integrity of social networking and online dating by lying about all attributes physical on their profile: height, weight, body type, face, age...


C'mon now, don't act like you've never been a victim of something like this.
If indeed these individuals profusely claim that they're so happy with who they are, and society should just accept their physical condition, then why bother posting such deceptive pictures? Why not lie about something that isn't so superficial like how amazingly high your IQ is or how much volunteer work you've done? I'll tell you why. Because at the end of the day, people do care about physical appearance whether they want to admit it or reluctantly not. One of my friends who broke up with his girlfriend asked me several times recently if he should give it a shot, and of course I told him that I wouldn't do it since it's a bait and switch market. But hey, it's ultimately his decision so for those of you, men especially, who still believe in online dating, here's few set of rules you should abide by. I call these MaSir's 9 Rules of Online Dating.
  1. DO NOT BELIEVE anyone who only has pictures of their face or upper body. 9 times out of the 10 these motherfuckers are being dishonest, not just with you, but more so themselves. MaSir's Rule #1: Anyone who has pictures showing only their upper half is playing sleight of hand. Request a centerfold that is no less than a month old (see #7). Topless photos are ideal for both sexes.
  2. DO NOT BELIEVE in anyone's age. You cannot accept their age as fact because this one is probably the easiest one to lie over. People look older or younger than they actually are. The only way to truly verify someone's age is by examining their government issued ID. MaSir's Rule #2: Take their age and multiply it by a factor of 2. Yes if they say they're 23 years old, they're probably 46!!
  3. DO NOT BELIEVE in anyone's weight. This applies to females more than males. Women are pathological liars when it comes to their weight. Frankly, men have a hard time mapping body-weight proportions anyway so it's best to look at body type. MaSir's Rule #3: Find the average weight for that person's age bracket and add at least 0.5 standard deviation to the person's listed weight.
  4. DO NOT BELIEVE in anyone's body type unless they have a photo to accompany this attribute. So for instance, if the girl says she's "voluptuous", "average" or "thick" and she has no accompanying photo to validate this physical attribute, assume the opposite. Now what if she has listed, "athletic" or "skinny" but no centerfold body shot? Chances are she's telling the truth. A female would not be brazen enough to make such a lofty claim and be completely guiltless about doing so. MaSir's Rule #4: Be suspicious of anyone who is besides "skinny" and "athletic".
  5. DO NOT BELIEVE in anyone's height. Women, you know what I'm talking about!! How many times have you met up with a guy and he turned out to be 2-3 inches shorter than what he had listed. MaSir's Rule #5: Take his height and subtract 5 inches. This may seem excessive, but it's better to expect worse and be pleasantly surprised than to find out your virtual "tall, dark and handsome" guy is "short, pale and soft" in person.
  6. DO NOT BELIEVE in their listed income. This one applies more to men than women. Men will lie about their income because we know it's an attraction switch. There was even a psychology experiment done where they took a bunch of average looking photos of men and one photo listed them with a low 5-figure income contrasted by the same photo with high 6-figure income. The attraction levels went up by 2-3 points on a scale of 1-10 for the latter photos with a higher incomes listed. MaSir's Rule #6: Take their listed annual income and subtract at least $20,000. If he makes over $150,000, he's probably not lying. By the way, did I mention I make over $150,000?
  7. DO NOT BELIEVE in the recency of their pictures, period. Should have listed this one first, but it just dawned on me now that most of the posted pictures are probably are anywhere from 5 months to 5 years old. MaSir's Rule #7: Request a photo that was taken within the last week. If they say they don't have one, demand they take a picture with their phone. Almost every phone these days can take pictures and send via SMS. Absolutely no excuses!
  8. DO NOT BELIEVE in women who claim that they're bisexual. Oh my God, if I had a dollar for every time I heard this one, I would be a mega-millionaire. Ladies, men don't give a shit if you're bisexual. We know you do this on purpose to garner our attention and interest in your bisexual exoticness scam. Guess what, unless you are inviting us to turn your girl-girl action into girl-guy-girl action, we don't fucking care. MaSir's Rule #8: Attention whores. No rule necessary.
Finally, this one deserves a paragraph all by itself. DO NOT BELIEVE in anyone who states they're openminded or want someone openminded. The over usage of this one makes me cry out of laughter. In fact, I don't even need to tell you not to believe it when someone claims to be openminded since it becomes quickly noticeable just by scanning through their likes, dislikes, dating requirements, perfect match or ideal partner. How many times have you seen shit like, 
"I just want someone who is over 6'3" tall, athletic, handsome, ambitious, has a great sense of humor, financially stable making over 9 figure salary and isn't into playing games. Not looking for a one-night stand. Do not contact me if you're just looking for sex. Do not contact me if you only have one word messages...you should be writing me a 20 page novel about why I'm the best girl on here. Mainly attracted to white guys. Oh yeah...please be openminded." 
MaSir's Rule #9: Discount everything listed in their profile as a lie. Openminded. LOL. 

There you have it, MaSir's 9 Rules to online dating. If you feel that I've accidentally omitted anything you deem as important. Please help me make this online world a better one by adding to this list. Kudos to those keeping it real.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Asian-American Interracial Marriages Declining

Here's some encouraging news for those Asian-American guys out there who feel like they're getting shafted by their Asian/Asian-American sisters. Joan Walsh of Salon writes a fascinating article regarding the changing economic landscape of white America**. So what does this have to do with declining Asian-American out-marriage rates? Keep reading.
Walsh asserts that outside the top 1% of America's wealthy, which I think is grossly exaggerated considering how many white Americans are upper middle class earning high incomes, the rest of the 99% of the working white class is riding an economic decline. On top of that, by the mid-century white Americans will technically be a minority. Assume these two observations as fact and one can extrapolate the following implications.

If indeed white Americans end up becoming a minority, they may find it harder to lean on their social crutches of "white privilege" which has given them exposure to countless opportunities that people of color are disadvantageously denied from. I do understand that just because you're white doesn't mean you automatically got it made. Remember that scene from Higher Learning where the white guy struggles in his engineering math class because all the Asian students are destroying their exams? Or what about all those white guys who are terrible on the dance floor? In all seriousness though, consider white Americans born and raised in communities like Chisago County where lower middle class to poverty-stricken is the norm. These same white folks are in their own unique struggle, though it is ironic that they criticize big government while they also depend on their handouts for sustenance! That's a whole other issue worth blogging.

However, the second implication is all the more interesting and pleasantly surprising. As the Asian-American minority continues it's economic ascendancy, fewer Asian-Americans are marrying outside of their race (I'll assume what she means is that AA women are not out-marrying as much). Walsh writes,
Asian-American median income is higher that white median income, and growing faster. Asian-Americans have higher college completion rates than whites, and the gulf is widening. In California, Asian kids are twice as likely than whites to earn grades that make them eligible for the University of California system, and they now make up a majority of the flagship UC-Berkeley campus, where just under a third of students are white...
MaSir's Commentary: Asians (29.4%) are twice as likely than whites (14.6%) to earn grades making them UC eligible. That means 60% of the other Asians are probably going to community college to save money and the remaining 10.6% are getting their ass beat by their parents right now as we speak.
In “Suicide of a Superpower,” poor Pat Buchanan seemed to believe that the rapidly growing number of Asian-Americans in the nation’s top schools had to do with affirmative action. I used to hear the same thing from clueless white people back before the passage of Ward Connerly’s Prop. 209 in 1997, which abolished affirmative action. Of course they were wrong — Asian-American students were succeeding the old-fashioned way, with hard work. Since then, of course, the white proportion of UC students has continued to decline, even without affirmative action.
Living in California it’s easy to see subtle and not so subtle signs of white status anxiety, real and imagined, even beyond school enrollment issues. I was intrigued to see, in a recent Pew Research Center survey of intermarriage trends, that intermarriage rates are going up for every group, except for Asian-Americans, whose rates have long been among the highest, but which are now coming down. Twenty years ago, when I was first writing about California’s racial frontier, sociologists explained high rates of Asian “out-marriage” as a kind of status-seeking: “marrying out” was a way of “marrying up.” Whites sought out Asian partners, in this analysis, as the closest surrogate for whites and as partners who in some settings might even represent their “marrying up.” Whatever the motive behind their pairings, white/Asian couples have the highest income of any pairings, Pew found, including white/white and Asian/Asian, and were far more likely than any other group to have college degrees. But it’s noteworthy to me that the Asian “outmarriage” rate has dropped significantly over the last few years; from just 2010 to 2008, the percentage of American-born Asians newlyweds who married whites dropped from 47% to 38% — a result of a larger Asian population in the U.S., as well as a sign Asian-Americans may no longer need to marry out to marry up. 
MaSir's Commentary: What a hot couple! HANDLE IT.
Now for some of you, a 9% decrease may seem negligible, but that is hardly the case. A decline like this is staggering when considering that it's happened in a span of just two years. What this tells me is that Asian-American men are finally gaining some socioeconomic steam which is trickling over to the mainstream, and those Asian-American women who would've given their Asian-American brothers the cold shoulder beforehand are finally taking notice.

As my dad once told me that as an Asian-American, I would have to deal with racism throughout my life, and in order to turn that negativity into something positive, I would have to excel a lot more than the average hard working white person in order to gain the same level of respect due to what Walsh and sociologists label as "white privilege". Asian-Americans must prove their value through performance, not just by complaining. But once the number of successful and upper middle class Asians reach that certain critical mass, that is when they will galvanize to raise their voice and become a force to be reckoned with.

**http://www.salon.com/2012/03/04/whats_the_matter_with_white_people/singleton/

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Swizz Beatz to Bring K-Pop to America?

Word has it that Swizz Beatz is trying to bring K-Pop over to the states. I think he's trying to be Teddy Riley and Will.I.Am to the punch. He might be a little late but K-Pop songs still aren't in rotation on American radio stations or clubs. Once that happens, open up the flood gates!
“Bridging the gaps with collaborations can be the start of a global phenomenon. We’ve got this group called Big Bang, they dropped a song called 'Blue,' and I’m like, everybody should know about that,” he continued. “So how do you keep communication going? When you’re a big artist in the states, they roll out the red carpets for you, and I don’t feel that love for artists from other countries when they come here. I’m like, wait a minute, that’s not fair. Why can’t they get some respect?"
The thing I like about Sweezy is that he makes some monster club tracks and has an appreciation for the K-Pop scene as an artist. He also probably feels that American artists are always on a high horse of getting treated like kings and queens on the red carpet but when an artist from Asia comes over to the states, they're not reciprocated with the same treatment.


It's not surprising however. America has the largest market outside of Japan when it comes to music. However, as Sweezy commented that doesn't mean we shouldn't know about groups like Big Bang droppin' Blue when they're such a global phenomenon. Heck, they even beat out Brittany Spears for best world artist at the MTV music awards~!!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Breaking Through Stereotypes Through Action, Not Discourse

If there's one thing I must say that is critical to the advancement of any ethnic minority group it is to take action. Nothing could possibly be more stifling to a community, regardless of being Asian, Black, Latino, etc. crying foul without taking, consistent physical action.

I blog from time to time on Destroy & Rebuild along with other Asian-related sites but importantly, I try to take action even at the expense of my ego, because I coddle "the self" way too much as it is. I don't think I'm the only one here either. I'm just the first to admit it. To outwardly say, "I admit defeat. I was wrong. I screwed up." is not as easy as it seems.

That's why when I see Asian-American guys like Asian Playboy who've managed to build an empire for himself while teaching Asian-American guys how to build confidence, it's inspiring. Other Asian bloggers out there can trash talk him all they want but the fact is, he has helped a lot of Asian-American men and built a nice business for himself in the process. Even if you discount one, you can't necessarily discount the other.

Albeit I've never been to a bootcamp of his, three of my friends have and they say it was one of the best experiences for them to grow as a person. Through the techniques they learned and deployed, one of them is dating, the other has a few women in rotation per week and I have learned through just watching them.

Scanning through my previous posts you'd probably think to yourself that the Game is BS. You either have it or you don't. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just never posted about my in-field successes. Allow me to digress for a moment. About a month ago I opened up two girls at a club and got some backup from my friend's girlfriend who served as wing woman. Next thing you know we had nine cute Asian-American chicks around us with all these guys (mainly White, few Asians) trying to pick them off because they were all attractive 8+'s. The one I was gaming was an 8.5. My friends kept telling me how hot she was considering A) she was very toned with a sexy face B) filled up a nice C-cup and C) a nice perky ass which made it even better when we started making out and rubbing up each other on the dance floor.

Two additional comments:
  1. I LOVE plucking a woman's thong strap when things heat up. It stimulates them and show's you can be playfully aggressive.
  2. Had there been some hot non-Asian girls I would've approached them as well, but I'm not going to talk to a girl just because of her ethnicity. She has to be hot first! If there was a hotter black or latina chick I would've opened her up instead.
Guys were approaching them left and right and they were getting blown out. These guys were taller. Some probably even better looking, but the point is you shouldn't be afraid of speaking to women. No matter how hot they are. At the end of the day they're not immortals who can take bullets and have them ricochet off the dome like some Marvel comic superhero. They're human beings like you and me. They have feelings and insecurities just like men do. Never forget that.