This week, we're taking it back to one our favourite interviews. On this episode, we are joined by the founders of Subtle Asian Traits, Angela and Kerry Kang.

In late 2018, the Kang siblings and their friends started a Facebook group during a weekend Chinese class.

What was meant to be fun turned into a cultural phenomenon. Hundreds of thousands of Asian millennials joined the Facebook group in a matter of days.

The group is now the biggest Asian community on Facebook but with more than 1.5 million members, SAT is also one of the biggest Facebook groups in the world.

From juicy unposted memes to being invited to speak at Facebook, we talk about everything with co-founders of Subtle Asian Traits, Kerry and Angela. We discuss the humble beginnings of Subtle Asian Traits which was only founded a year ago by a group of friends that met at Chinese School. Was this the only useful that has come out of Chinese School? What started out as memes about collecting toothpicks and serviettes at restaurants became the biggest community on Facebook. This immense response was because this was the first time there really was something relatable for Asian-Australians and Asian-Americans.

Subtle Asian Traits didn’t just become a safe place for bubble tea addicts to find one another, but it became a comfortable place to share life experiences. Who else could relate to the strict career expectations that migrant parents place on their children? These posts harvest great love and support by other members of the group, where strangers often comment encouragement and advice as they feel a sense of bond and connectedness with other members in the community.

Despite the highs, Angela and Kerry share the difficulties the group has had. This includes thriving for more diverse representation of all Asian ethnicities within the groups, and, the struggles of monitoring and approving every single post to ensure quality memes.

Subtle Asian Traits: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1343933772408499/

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lemonpodcast

Follow on Instagram: http://instagram.com/lemonpodcast

Hosted by:

Phillip Kuoch: https://www.instagram.com/sirkuoch/

Tom Tan: https://www.instagram.com/tommayo/

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lemon.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.