by Danreb VictorioThis is a bit of an “inside baseball” piece on the recent panel I hosted for AAPI in Gaming. If you haven’t seen it already, check it out above!
I’m the type of person who wears my heart and my passion on my sleeve.
When people talk about things they’re passionate about, the sense of eloquence you feel from these people rises to lengths unimaginable. I have a friend in college who majored in political science who earned her doctorate last year, and on top of her work in public service, she runs one of the top non-profit programs in the Bay Area focused on teaching civil engagement to Filipino-American youth. It doesn’t surprise me one bit, because she’s the most eloquent speaker I know.
I’m not anywhere near as successful (we both have very different career choices and paths, so there’s that), but I know that when I’m really passionate about something, I end up being more proud (and more critical) about the work I do.
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of interviewing Luis Velasco (Vice President and Head of Marketing at Jollibee USA) to talk about Jollibee’s collaboration with Final Fantasy XIV Online during FFXIV FanFest. If you’re unaware of Jollibee, it’s a fast food powerhouse that originated in the Philippines and has over 1,700 locations worldwide, including 100 in North America. Jollibee is so big that the Philippines is the only country in the world where McDonald’s isn’t the leading fast-food company. Obviously, we’re a video game website. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we’d have a story covering Jollibee. Again, I wear my passion for culture on my sleeve, so the collaboration was something I had to cover.
Representation Matters
Why is it important to me? Ask any person of Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander (ANHPI) descent — representation matters. I’m 37 years old, and I was born in the Bay Area. I’m American, but I’ll never fully be that because of my family’s Filipino roots. With that, I’ll never be a full-blooded “pinoy” either because I wasn’t born there. I don’t speak our native tongue (Tagalog). That’s the stigma we walk around with. There is no actual place we can call our real home.
So when I see a fellow Asian person do something cool, it matters to me. We cancelled him because of dumb stuff he said, but when Manny Pacquiao was in his prime, Filipinos regularly had parties bigger than birthday parties in honor and celebration of his boxing matches. The NBA Finals are going on right now, and both the Spurs and Knicks have a Filipino-American on the team (Josh Hart and Dylan Harper), so this year is a guarantee that we’ll see Fil-Am be an NBA Champion. Again, “Uyyyy Philippines!”
The project I’m most proud of, but it wasn’t without some caveats… like fear.
So let’s bring this back to video games and what this piece is actually about, the panel I moderated for AAPI in Gaming centered on being AAPI in Games Media. I chose this to be the panel topic because I personally felt like AAPI in Gaming had a lot of awesome fireside discussions, but most of them were about game development. Again, I’ve been on the journalist side for 20 years. I know a bunch of ANHPI folks in games media, and I don’t actually know about their stories, so what about them? My pitch got approved, and I sent the emails, and eventually I was ready to go.
Except that day, I was a complete nervous wreck, and there were multiple reasons.
The obvious reasons are because I don’t really host things that often right now. I’m a co-host on our podcast, Day 0 Update, but I’m not “the” host. I’ve been on panels and on other shows as a guest, but that’s not hosting. Do I have experience as a host? Sure, for in-person stuff. That’s also difficult. The last time I did something like this was also last month during AAPI Heritage Month when I interviewed MobileSyrup’s Brad Shankar, and that’s only having to deal with one person.
But the biggest reason why I was nervous was because I didn’t feel like I belonged.
I was alongside IGN’s Michael Higham, a Filipino-American who I think is absolutely killing it in games media, getting his professional start at GameSpot–and if you’re a SmashPad lifer, you know how important GameSpot (and Giant Bomb) is to us. Stella “ParallaxStella” Chung was on the panel, whom I was introduced to while enjoying Kinda Funny’s content, and then randomly met at GDC. Getting to be on a Kinda Funny show is actually one of my dreams. Chandler Treon was there, and he’s a real journalist who’s talked to the likes of Joe Biden. I shook former Filipino president Nonoy Aquino’s hand, but he’s not Joe Biden…
And then we come to Krysta Yang, from Kit & Krysta and Never a Minute Marketing, who most industry followers will know from her time at Nintendo, hosting Nintendo Minute with Kit Ellis. I don’t know if “adore” is the right word, because I had already graduated from college when Nintendo Minute first debuted in 2013, but I didn’t watch too many gaming-related shows or listen to any podcasts. I just went on GameSpot, did work for SmashPad (which was Gamer 2.0 at the time), and that was it. But I did enjoy watching Nintendo Minute whenever it came on while perusing YouTube. With everything I’ve done in the gaming industry, not to mention the 10 years I’ve spent as a Community Manager with EA and Gamers Outreach, I should probably consider these two my peers.
It was just different with them, for a very simple yet key reason. Krysta was Asian.
I was working at H&M at the time, wondering if I’d ever find my place in the gaming industry because who’s gonna hire this random Filipino guy in the Bay Area? Nintendo hired a Chinese girl in the Bay Area. She actually talked about it on the panel, and it was great listening to her story. If there was anybody I looked up to, it was her–especially considering I’m actually older than everyone else featured on the panel.
So to sit there, speaking with four Asian-Americans who have each done amazing things in games media? It was intimidating, but they helped. Having both Stella and Michael really helped, as I’ve befriended them and hung out a few times whenever we’ve been at events over the last couple of years. Hearing from them both and admiring the way they owned the mic was awesome. Chandler was someone I had never met before, but you could tell how poised he was, and that also comforted me. Krysta was just plain nice, as she’s always been on everything she’s on. They all comforted me, and I really appreciated that. If any of you guys are reading this piece, from the bottom of my heart–seriously, thank you so much.
Now I’m sitting here, looking forward to seeing them again at SGF in a few days and wondering what I can do with this platform during AAPI Heritage Month next year.
What would you want to see?