Since its earliest days, American television screens have never looked much like American reality. Network executives have apparently never been comfortable with too many Asians being on the small screen at one time. Asian sidekicks are cool, Asian guest stars too, maybe an Asian love interest (provided the character is female) There have been only a handful of television shows starring Asians and even fewer with primarily Asian casts.
Meanwhile, the internet has become the great democratizer, allowing Asian-Americans (and Canadians) like Christine Gambito, Michelle Phan, Freddie W, Fung Bros, Jessica Lizama, Kev Jumba, Kevin Wu, Nikki Limo, Peter Chao, Ryan Higa, Timothy Traphik DeLaGhetto, Wong Fu Productions and others to garner millions of followers each and in the process become internet celebrities, if not terrestrial television ones. Nowadays there are far more Asian-American (and Anglo-Asian diaspora) web series than network shows and while television slowly adapts, at this rate it may cease to exist before it even begins to resemble its audience.
In one corner, consider the web series, which include Alfie the Office Dog, Away We Happened, Awesome Asian Bad Guys, Baby Mentalist, BFFs, Boystown, Car Discussion with Sung Kang, Chop Socky Boom,Flat3, The Food, The Ho’s on 7th Avenue, Home Is Where The Hans Are, I Am Asian, How Are You?, Katana, K-Town, Ktown Cowboys, Lumina, Manivore, Millions, Mixed Blooms, Model Minority, Mother Lover, Mythomania,Nice Girls Crew, Normal Gays, One Warm Night, On the Clock, Prison Dancer, Riley Rewind, Silent Terror, Slanted Show, SuperTwins!, The Switch, Trembling Void, That's What She Said, Urban Wolf,Video Game High School, When it Counts, and others.
In the other corner, television, which though having existed for many more decades than web series, is rather more anemic. Consider this short timeline of Asian-American television, drawn from network, cable, and syndicated series:
