‘Rice queen’ J Lou, Hong Kong YouTube star and Uncle Roger’s ‘favourite niece’, on identity issues and viral hits with her mum
- J Lou has come a long way since her first viral hit three years ago, with her most popular video – filmed with her mum – receiving almost 6 million hits
- Of mixed race, she says she has been criticised by people who make assumptions about her identity but has learned to pay no attention
J Lou really loves rice – it’s a declaration that’s on her YouTube channel’s “About” page. If you needed further proof of the 24-year-old’s addiction, look no further than the fact she has more than 350,000 subscribers and has built an online community known as #ricefam.
In his follow-up video with Patel, Ng calls Lou on the phone, where she jokingly “warns” Patel not to mess up her favourite food.
Lou’s first viral YouTube hit, three years ago, saw her English boyfriend repeating the Cantonese phrases she spoke. She had just 800 followers at the time, and never expected the video would take off like it did. “I was in my pyjamas and had no idea this would happen. In my first few videos, I just taped my phone to my bedroom walls,” says Lou, who majored in translation and speaks five languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French and Spanish.
“It’s humbling to look back and remember how I began. It wasn’t just one video or even 10 videos, it was a lot of time and effort, it took all the persistence I had back then to push through and get here today,” says Lou.