Kei Ibaraki is one of the founders of Asian Boss, a popular Youtube channel that seeks to provide authentic Asian perspectives.

Asia is host to innumerable, nuanced cultures, but mainstream, Hollywood-oriented pop culture fails to show the whole picture.

Times are changing, and Asian representation is slowly increasing worldwide, but stereotypes still abound about the region and its peoples.

Japan, for example, is known for its blend of technological wonders and old-world traditions. YouTube has an abundance of videos on ninjas and samurai but far fewer about, for example, the experiences of a biracial schoolgirl.

Those seeking a side of Asia rarely captured on screen may enjoy Asian Boss’ YouTube channel. It features quirky characters like a Japanese professional apologizer alongside on-the-street interviews about topics such as Peppa Pig’s unexpected popularity in China.

The brainchild of Stephen Park and Kei Ibaraki, Asian Boss got its start in 2013 with a street interview asking young Asian women in Australia whether they preferred dating Asian or Caucasian men. While the channel’s focus was on relationship topics at first, after six months it branched out to other kinds of stories.

Ibaraki, who spoke at Jakarta’s recent Ideafest, said his team eventually realized that as the numbers of subscribers grew, the channel had to grow too.

“At the beginning, we’d make a video and then there’d be two additional views. Then, Stephen would ask me like, ‘who watches these videos?’ And I’d say that my mom probably watched it. That was the kind of level we were talking about back then,” he said.

Coming from an architectural background, Ibaraki did not have much experience in the media or its technical aspects. He said, rather gleefully, that the only skill he knew was how to turn on the camera.

The turning point came with a street interview that did well, which encouraged he and Park both to explore different formats and to make more videos with the format that worked.

Ibaraki noted that there was significant bias in the media on certain topics. He insisted on staying as neutral as possible to allow the subjects speak freely. This principle is expressed in Asian Boss’ tagline: “Real people. Real opinions. Real insight from Asia.”

“Even when it’s really hard to find opposing opinions, we’ll go to great lengths to find that person, even if it takes days,” he said.

The channel finds its subjects with fixers, but Ibaraki would rather not to spend US$500 a day for a professional. He prefers to use volunteer fixers.

Ibaraki described the Asian Boss approach as “bottom-up”, as opposed to the “top-down” approach of traditional media companies. This means a grassroots style of reporting, where anyone can apply to become a reporter.

The Asian Boss headquarters is located in Seoul and has 12 staff members, 50 contractors and 400 volunteers.

The company has about 3,000 people around the world. Park oversees the business and tech side while Ibaraki handles the content.                                                       

Although most Asian Boss videos take place in South Korea and Japan — where Park and Ibaraki hail from — newer videos have expanded to other Asian countries. These include an interview with an Indonesian cosplayer and gravure model and a visit to Kashmir amid heavy militarization and repression.

“We wanted to get authentic insights from the people of Asia because back in Australia there were a lot of stereotypes. People just weren’t informed about Asia,” Ibaraki explained, adding that some people thought Samsung was a Japanese company.

“What we wanted to do was break stereotypes. We wanted to get different opinions so that people could hear opposing ideas and utilize their critical thinking skills to decide what was right.”

Content-wise, the topics are carefully chosen to ensure the videos are relatable. Ibaraki noted that a good indicator of the topic’s appeal is whether viewers would find it interesting in Ghana, for example.

“Our target audience right now is an English-speaking global audience who is interested in Asia. To be honest, if the video isn’t relatable to those people, we’re not going to launch it,” he said.

“If you’re making content in Australia, a lot of Asian people are watching because that’s the target audience. But once you come to Asia, it’s more American audiences,” Ibaraki said, adding that 30 percent of Asian Boss’ views come from the United States.

Making videos for YouTube can be rather draining between shooting content all day and editing it all night.

Ibaraki said the hardest part of his journey was the transition to South Korea, where he found himself without money or friends while working in coffee shops and falling into debt. 

Ibaraki has not taken a week off for the past six years, but he is content with what he is doing and enjoys its pace.

“I think the biggest reason for me doing Asian Boss is that it’s about — you wake up in the morning and think, ‘how can I actually help the world?’ Like what kinds of social issues can I showcase in the videos?”

“You can literally make a change. You can affect millions of people’s minds and potentially do a crowd fund or something and help people too. I think those are the most meaningful moments that get me up in the
morning.”

— Photos courtesy of instagram.com/asianbossk

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