Sleepy Asians

The Sleepy Asian emerged as a strange and humorous figure of ubiquitous computing about a decade after the advent of Web 2.0. Microblogs, Facebook pages, subreddits, and Snapchats documented Asians dozing off in public (and semi-public) spaces like libraries, buses, airports, and even at Ikea. This...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRepresentations (Berkeley, Calif.) Vol. 168; no. 1; pp. 202 - 210
Main Author Wong, Danielle
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berkeley University of California Press Books Division 01.11.2024
Subjects
Asian cultural groups
Blogs
Crowdsourcing
Libraries
Mobile phones
Social media
Transportation
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Summary:The Sleepy Asian emerged as a strange and humorous figure of ubiquitous computing about a decade after the advent of Web 2.0. Microblogs, Facebook pages, subreddits, and Snapchats documented Asians dozing off in public (and semi-public) spaces like libraries, buses, airports, and even at Ikea. This photo fad was most popular on Tumblr, where pages like “Asians Sleeping on Public Transit,” “Asians Sleeping @ NYU,” and “Asians Sleeping in the Library” crowdsourced photos taken on cellphone cameras, often without the sleepers’ knowledge, and spectacularized the apparent memetic qualities of Asian sleep. The “Asians Sleeping on Public Transit” Tumblr page, which is still online but now inactive, features anonymous contributors’ photos of Asians sleeping on buses and trains in California and suggests in its tagline that perhaps Asians have a “Genetic Predisposition to Narcolepsy.” Accompanying these photos are captions that are mocking or comical in tone, starting with the blog’s very
ISSN:0734-6018
1533-855X
DOI:10.1525/rep.2024.168.13.202