Online adversaries contemplate court over Asian-American blogs
Asian Americans Phil Yu and Lela Lee have engaged in an spat over originality and plagiarism that has shocked their many followers online
For 14 years, dedicated readers of the popular Angry Asian Man blog have delighted as Phil Yu, a 36-year-old Korean-American from Los Angeles, mercilessly skewered mainstream media stereotypes of Asian-Americans as the model minority - bookish, quiet and submissive.
Last week, Yu proved his point in a bluntly personal manner when he posted a detailed account of his nasty nine-month legal dispute with another trailblazing Asian-American activist - Lela Lee, 40, the creator two decades ago of the Angry Little Asian Girl comics and merchandise line that explores similar themes.
In a lengthy post, Yu defended himself against charges from Lee that he had appropriated her material - including signing merchandise "stay angry" and featuring an "angry reader of the week".
The public spat had roots in Yu's attempt last year to trademark his Angry Asian Man brand - only to be rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office on grounds that it was too similar to Lee's trademark from 1999.
"You have been skating, riding off my work. You took my ideas and pretend like they are yours. STOP IT," Lee wrote in a series of emails that Yu posted online. Both sides quickly "lawyered up", as Yu put it.
For a pair of advocates who had struck a nerve by satirising racial tropes, the raw emotion shocked their readers even as it inadvertently validated their work: Asian-Americans can, like other races, get truly angry in an ugly, embarrassing fashion - even though it distracted, in this case, from their agenda.
Other influential commentators worried the fight could tarnish the reputations of two of the leading voices of a community often relegated to the sidelines of public discourse. Both are attempting to expand their cultural criticism to a larger, crossover audience beyond the nation's 19 million Asian-Americans.