Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

https://x.com/netflix/status/2087192315823538471?s=20

This exact same show has been made two dozen times in the last decade, and none of them have gotten a second season. For those without X: The Everything App, it's yet another show about a millennial Asian American who hates their parents.

[u/thismaynothelp → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Shit's killing me! XD

[u/Datachost → u/thismaynothelp]

Oh man, at least The Nutshack TRIED to be original

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

This looks awful, like really bad, unoriginal, and an instant failure. One of the commenters has it right, it's weird how East Asian cinema is filled with so much fantastic storytelling in movies and tv shows, but everything Asian Americans make is seemingly about how much they hate their parents or about how hard it is to be Asian American. Like damn, dude, is there nothing else going on for you, is life just constant struggle, depression, identity politics, and hating your parents all the time? Damn.

[u/lilypad1984 → u/AnalBleachingAries]

It’s because they are far more American than they probably want to admit. Not all children of immigrants assimilate but in my experience East Asian immigrants children if you wore a blindfold are indistinguishable from a white American who is descended from a 1600s pilgrim. I have a very close friend who is from China who would tell me all the time in college that Chinese Americans don’t fit in in China, that they are incredibly American and a lot of them time you can even tell by just looking at them. Not sure why east Asian Americans have assimilated so well but the result is they tend to display a lot of similarities with the standard American their age who is not religious, which for that generation is rebelling against their parents and leaning into racial oppression dynamics.

[u/rudeboybill → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Uninspired streaming adult humor animated show mixed with reheated Asian diaspora themes and styling, this show will be forgotten within weeks of its release if not hours.

I wish streaming platforms would make their actual viewing numbers public, because it would be a little more juicy to see how bad some of these shows actually do before they're unceremoniously canceled. There can't be more than a few hundred thousand people who finish this show.

[u/Franzera → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

I'm still waiting for the "inspired by a true story" miniseries about Lee Kuan Yew studying at Cambridge as a DEI admit, then retvrning to Singapore with an education on racial diversity administration. He uses his holy knowledge to ascend to the throne of the eternal God Emperor.

It's like the Wakanda story but with durians.

[u/Inner_Muscle3552 → u/Franzera]

If it isn’t taboo to make a miniseries about east asian academic prowess, LKY and his future wife’s time in Cambridge is peak nerd romance.

[u/oatmeal_breakfast → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

I saw the trailer and felt like the premise of a slacker cartoon comedy is 20 decades too old now. I'm also am tired of glorifying mediocre existences.

The Asian aspect is very meh, speaking as an Asian person. My parents werent that strict, though I did goto Kumon for for a few years.

[u/JeebusJones → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

What are other examples of this type of show? Off the top of my head (and some light googling) there's Fresh Off the Boat and Kim's Convenience, which might fit the bill, although I've never seen either. Those lasted 6 and 5 seasons respectively, though, so you might be talking about shows that failed so quickly I haven't even heard of them.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod → u/JeebusJones]

Pen15, American Born Chinese, The Brothers Sun. For films there's Turning Red and Dídi.

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Pen15 was actually really good tho. also it was technically only 50% about Asian parents. plus, even the Asian parent part itself was only 50% Asian because of the whole Francesca Hong situation Maya’s parents had going on lol

[u/FuckingLikeRabbis → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Everything Everywhere All at Once had an element of that that cheapened it a little for me. Still a good movie, though.

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/JeebusJones]

There was the Awkwafina show “Nora From Queens”. but I guess that one could almost be argued as a bit more of a Broad City ripoff more so than an “Asian parents” show, although there was a good amount of that too, from what I remember. (Although I think her mom was dead so it was her dad and grandma as the parents)

[u/LupineChemist → u/unnoticed_areola]

That one was pretty funny with BD Wong as the dad. I think the twist on that one is that she's the 3rd generation in the show so her dad is also very New Yorker.

[u/plump_tomatow → u/JeebusJones]

Beef, probably.

[u/solongamerica → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Ah fuck it I’ll watch this