‘Asian fail’: Chinese Canadian men talk about race, masculinity, and the nerd stereotype

Abstract

Popular representations of Asians – and especially Asian men – often stereotype them as nerds. Drawing on qualitative field studies of Chinese Canadians' beliefs about ‘authentic’ identity and of an urban ‘nerd-culture scene,’ this article examines the perceived nerdiness of Asians. Membership Categorization Analysis is used as a framework to analyze two Chinese Canadian men's self-categorizing discourses. One embraces his nerdiness but is ambivalent about his racial/ethnic identity; the other is comfortable being categorized as Asian but distances himself from what he describes as the ‘typical’ nerdy Asian male. Although orientations to their presumptive categorization as Chinese or Asian differ, both design their self-presentations to manage inferences made about them. We argue that Canadian multiculturalism complicates these processes by discursively transforming racial difference into ‘cultural diversity’. This produces systematic errors in categorization, leading to inaccurate inferences of cultural competences or stereotypes social attributes from perceptions of physical difference. Under these conditions, the linking of nerds and Asians not only constrains individual life projects but can function as the ‘benign discourse’ that hides a racial subtext, reproducing historic, anti-Asian stereotypes in a seemingly neutral guise.

Keywords:

• Asians in diaspora
• nerds and geeks
• race
• masculinity
• multiculturalism
• Membership Categorization Analysis

Notes

1. ‘Asian’ is a term that belies its many, diverse and heterogenous referents (Lowe, 1996) and that is necessarily continually deconstructed in use (Chuh, 2003). This analysis addresses the experiences of specific individuals who, in Canada, would likely be categorized as Asian and does not seek to represent a reified concept of Asian identity. We are describing a particular set of conditions faced by some Asians in a particular context, and their experience is not reflective of all who could be categorized with the term.

2. The nerd stereotype also hounds women of Asian descent, though it contests with other powerful ideas of how Asian women ‘are’ in distinct ways. While racial stereotypes exclude Asian men from hegemonic masculinity, Asian women are often positioned at the extreme of ‘emphasized femininity’ (Connell, 1987, p. 187). Similarly, the distinctive experiences of female participants in nerd cultures are beyond the scope of this article (see, e.g., Busse, 2013).

3. According to the collaboratively edited guide to Internet culture, Know Your Meme, ‘FAIL is turn-of-the-century internet slang that came to popularity through image macros and short videos depicting situations with unfortunate outcomes.’ It is ‘commonly used as an interjection to point out a person's mistake or shortcoming,’ and, as in the example of ‘Asian fail,’ often qualified with a particular domain of failure (2009, About section).

4. A pseudonym.

5. Peters is a successful Canadian stand-up comedian who uses his own South Asian background and other ethnic stereotypes as material in his act.