AAPI Heritage Month starts today! May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, celebrating the culture and diversity within the AAPI community.
The theme of this year’s AAPI month is "Advancing Leaders Through Collaboration." Making it the perfect month to support and uplift brands and companies with AAPI founders. Whether they’re popularizing products rooted in traditional cultures or putting a fresh spin on familiar favorites, there are AAPI founders at the helm of dynamic and diverse companies in every industry.
It’s also important to recognize the effects of AAPI cultures in our everyday lives. Hello, matcha latte lovers and kombucha devotees — your daily drinks started as ancient traditions that you can now buy at your favorite millennial pink coffee shop.
And if you’re a skincare fan, you’d be nothing without the influence of K-Beauty and J-Beauty. I mean, most of the #ThatGirl and #CleanLook products on TikTok are inspired by AAPI cultures — so why not shop at AAPI-founded brands? I guarantee that your gua sha routine will be 10x better if you get a tool that isn’t from Amazon.
And while articles amplifying AAPI brands and their founders will be everywhere this month, we should be supporting AAPI communities all the time. So take this month as an opportunity to discover new brands — then continue to support them all year.
Here are some of the AAPI-founded brands I’m loving right now:
All products featured are independently selected by our editors. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.
Larry David, FTX Superbowl Commercia
The tech industry's having a tough time. Only months ago, those who were bragging about their hot tech jobs and (seemingly) hyper-performing Crypto portfolios are probably screaming, crying, gnashing their teeth, and throwing up. And they may or may not be unemployed.
First, the recession is obliterating the stock market as we speak. Then, the summer Crypto proved the “decentralized marketplace” isn’t as impervious as Crypto nerds claimed. And now, the entire tech industry is facing a serious reckoning. It’s meltdown season — and Mercury isn’t even in retrograde.
First, Elon Musk bought Twitter. He subsequently fired a staggering number of employees. He then instituted Twitter Blue, a verification subscription which was a spectacular FAILURE. Most notably, causing the stock price of every significant insulin company to plummet by BILLIONS. It’s a long story, but the takeaway: the best $8 some random Twitter user ever spent.
Meanwhile, major tech companies like Meta, Salesforce, Redfin — and more — have been laying off thousands of employees. Wave after wave of layoffs are tearing through the entire tech sector, leaving thousands bamboozled and bereft. And this — alllll this — is happening while Jeff Bezos is giving away his money to Dolly Parton. I love her, but she has a theme park. These people don’t have jobs!
But this is nothing compared to the drama going on at former-Crypto giant FTX. And somehow, Tom Brady and Gisele are implicated!?! First, the divorce, now this.
Here’s a simplified version of events — and you don’t even need to understand crypto to follow along.
The Super Bowl: The true origins can be traced back to the Super Bowl, where much ad time was devoted to emergent crypto companies vying for the attention of potential investors. Among them: FTX.
January 2022: FTX was valued at an estimated $32 billion. They even had an NBA stadium named after them in Miami. But most prominently, their now infamous Super Bowl ad starring Larry David, who had never appeared in a commercial before. Just imagine that shoot. You should’ve stuck to your guns, Larry.
HERE IS THE FULL FTX TIMELINE:
Nov 2: The real drama started — as it always does — with some shady trades. CoinDesk published a report that exposed that Alameda Research – owned by the same people as FTX – had bought a ton of FTT … FTX’s cryptocurrency.
Nov 6: In a Tweet, the founder of Binance — one of FTX’s biggest competitors — said their company was going to dump their FTX tokens "due to recent revelations that have came to light." Investors panicked and followed suit. And so began the FTT price plummet.
But with all their investors cashing in their coins, FTX was on the hook for all that money — which it could not afford to pay out. This is when things started to look really hairy.
Nov 8: With their tails between their legs, FTX went to Binance for an out. Binance agreed to acquire FTX.
Nov 9: Just kidding! Whatever was in those docs must have scared off Binance because they pulled out of the deal just a day later. Does this feel like an episode of Succession to you, too?
Nov. 11: FTX had no way to repay all this money. And any potential buys were not going anywhere near this dumpster fire. So FTX was forced to file for bankruptcy. 30-year-old CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried resigned.
He tweeted that he was “really sorry,” though! SO maybe that counts for something. Cue the world’s tiniest violin playing in the background.
\u201cFun fact:\n\nIf you spent $1,000 shorting the 2022 Super Bowl advertisers, you'd be a billionaire today:\n\n\u25ab\ufe0f FTX\n\u25ab\ufe0f Carvana\n\u25ab\ufe0f DraftKings\n\u25ab\ufe0f Uber Eats\n\u25ab\ufe0f Meta Oculus\n\u25ab\ufe0f Rocket Mortgage\n\u25ab\ufe0f Coinbase\n\u25ab\ufe0f Vroom\n\u25ab\ufe0f Salesforce\n\u25ab\ufe0f GM\u201d— Chris Bakke (@Chris Bakke) 1667931782
But there’s more!
Later that day, reports emerged that FTX transferred $10 BILLION to Alameda — the same sister company mentioned above. That’s right, the one that started this mess — sparking controversy about how much access top leaders had to the company's finances.
Nov 13: Where’s the money? New reports reveal that those BILLIONS of dollars had just … disappeared?
Nov 14: Now the cops are involved. Where the hell is the money, man? Regulators are trying to get to the bottom of this, while looking into criminal liabilities.
Nov 16: Here comes the class action. Defendants are suing FTX’s Bankman-Fried for misleading information. But the walls are now closing in on celebrities who appeared in FTX commercials, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Stephen Curry, Larry David, and Shaquille O’Neal.
"FTX’s fraudulent scheme was designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country, who utilize mobile apps to make their investments," the lawsuit alleges. "As a result, American consumers collectively sustained over $11 billion dollars in damages.”
There you have it. But don’t hold your breath — there’s more to come, I’m sure. In fact, the documentary is already in the works
And if you still don’t follow, here are some TikToks tracking the drama:
@yourrichbff SBF bears a striking resemblance to Bernard Madoff. #money #crypto #ftx #finance #sbf #news #binance #alameda #bitcoin #ethereum #ftt #coin #cryptocurrency
@dumpster.doggy the drama
Julia Fox
When Kim Kardashian and Ye — then still known as Kanye West — announced their divorce, I did not bat an eye. Rumors had been flying for a while and — after a couple of suspicious Halloween costumes and Ye’s increasing Kim-targeted rants — divorce seemed inevitable.
I pretty much forgot about the announcement then, and I thought the divorce would be just as insignificant to me as your garden-variety celebrity split. Boy, was I wrong.
I don’t know what I expected given that Ye — the man notorious for interrupting Taylor Swift’s VMA speech because he believed she didn’t deserve to win — is not the most graceful loser. But his divorce is one confusing, messy spectacle we’re all forced to bear witness to, despite our attempts to ignore it. We have much more important things to focus on like Rihanna’s pregnancy or the latest Zoe Kravitz movie — now I spend my days saying "uncuh gyams" on repeat (IYKYK).
Frankly, their past few months have been a brazen press tour rather than a divorce. Each news story features a complex web of egoism, sexism, and even racism — from Kim’s problematic SNL monologue and that Blackfishing Vogue cover to Kanye’s manipulative Instagram posts. We refuse to mention the Super Bowl Instagram posts.
As the former power couple have battled it out in the public eye, their replacement relationships — or on Ye’s part, his faulty parachute relationship — have caught the public’s attention. Kim’s with the people’s favorite stand-up comic and serial monogamist, Pete Davidson; and Ye’s now-defunct tryst with actress Julia Fox has busted up completely.
Both new partners have been plagued by intense media scrutiny, but public perception of them is quite different. Why? Sexism.
Pete Davidson is well known for dating some of the most desirable women in Hollywood. While many wonder what exactly draws them to him — sometimes cruelly judging his appearance — he’s mainly applauded for dating Kim. While the innate sexism of treating Kim like a prize to be won is its own issue, this is wildly divergent from how Julia Fox has been treated.
In a recent episode of Forbidden Fruits — Fox’s podcast with co-host Niki Takesh — Fox discussed her relationship with Ye and the press’s narratives surrounding it. Fox is unphased by the omnipresent negativity, saying: "People are like 'Oh, you're only in it for the fame, you're in it for the clout, you're in it for the money.' Honey, I've dated billionaires my entire adult life, let's keep it real."
Fox doesn’t find these media accusations surprising, and neither should we. The notion that she’s self-interested, ill-intentioned, and clout-chasing comes from the ingrained idea that women who want more are bad.
Too often, women are systematically discouraged from seeking success and penalized when they do — especially if they’re brazenly shameless about it. According to money expert, Stefanie O’Connell-Rodriguez, women are punished for seeking advancements or — heaven forbid — positions of power.
O’Connell-Rodriguez refers to this as the ambition penalty, saying: “The problem with this messaging is it implies that a woman’s primary obstacle to economic power is herself, and that inequities in pay and wealth result from our own behavior. There’s no acknowledgment of how women are often penalized for pursuing their ambitions.”
To combat the ambition penalty, it’s important for society to see prominent examples of women acting ambitiously, and getting rewarded for it. Changing the culture isn’t merely about telling women to take “just” out of their emails and apologize less. It’s about demanding equitable representation and tearing down prevailing structures of oppression.
When it comes to personal finances, women are increasingly challenging notions that they’re hopeless with money and they shouldn’t have control over it anyway. The Confessions of a Shopaholic spiraling? The Carrie Bradshaw cluelessness? These tropes are long out of fashion.
Instead, it’s increasingly common to see women in pop culture claiming their financial independence. Instead of “can you pay my bills” — sorry Destiny’s Child — female artists are declaring their ability to pay their own bills and demanding respect for their financial achievements.
Despite the slowly shifting ties, cultural phenomena such as this drawn-out divorce remind us of how far there is left to go.
While Julia is branded an opportunist, Pete is considered a hero. And it’s not just Julia under the microscope. Kim has been equally accused of being with Pete for PR reasons and engineering the relationship for her own gain.
In both cases, the women are viewed as greedy and shamed about how their relationships might be in their self-interest.
Fox won’t let those accusations merely bounce off her — she’s embracing them. If she can have fun dating Ye while advancing her career, why not? “Why not see me for what I am which is a #1 hustler,” she told The Cut. After announcing their split on Valentine's Day, Fox is only just beginning to demonstrate her own vision, rather than being subject to the press — or Ye.
Despite Ye’s public parade of Kim look-alikes and his manipulative attempts to coerce her back into his life, no one questions his motives. And despite serious doubts about the legitimacy of Pete’s alliance with Kim, accusatory fingers are never pointed in his direction.
The ambition gap paints women with one brush, blinding us to the nuance in their actions. While both relationships increase the couples’ fame, the women are the ones called out for it. So what if there is a PR element to these curious couplings? Celebrity relationships have never been the exemplars of purity and virtue. This, we expect. But we shouldn’t have to expect sexism too.
In a perfect world, I’d simply discount the goings-on of KimYe, JulYe, and whatever we’re calling Kim and Pete. But the blatant sexism and problematic narratives surrounding these pairings is a glaring reminder of society’s larger issues.
The payment app started their #VenmoItForward promotion last year, dropping $20 in the accounts of 30,000 Venmo users who had recently given money to charitable causes, with the express intention that these generous people would use the added funds for more good. As far as corporate marketing ploys go, it was a solid way to encourage good behavior at a time when people were using the app more for supporting worthy causes than for splitting brunch bills.
That's not to say that it was an altruistic move — nothing a massive corporation does ever is. It was another example of a company using a veneer of generosity for self-promotion, like the Super Bowl ad that cost Budweiser millions so they could brag about giving away a fraction of that amount to charity.
#VenmoItForward was even a finalist for a Shorty digital marketing Award for social good. But now that the trashfire of 2020 is finally dying down and we're all getting used to living in the smoldering ruins, it's time for Venmo to abandon that veneer and the original meaning of #VenmoItForward, and just start tempting people with cash giveaways to use their app.
Hey! @Venmo, please fix your terrible privacy settings. In the meantime, here’s how to fix them yourself. https://t.co/U4LBHB1zmy— Mozilla (@Mozilla) 1623856681.0
Does the idea of making your financial activity available for public consumption as a form of "social media" creep you out? Well... what if we offered you and your "VFF" — that's Venmo Friend Forever, for the uninitiated — $500 dollars each!
That's the promotion Venmo decided to run on Wednesday. In exchange for downloading their app, following them on Twitter, retweeting the post, and tagging "the friend you Venmo the most" — nevermind giving them free advertising, plus a bunch of your data, which that they promise to use responsibly (wink) — they're giving away $10,000 in $100, $250, and $500 increments to pairs of financial buds!
No shame to anyone who jumps on the offer, but maybe Venmo's parent company, Paypal, could do more good by just paying a reasonable rate of taxes on the $900 million in revenue Venmo is projected to make as a financial middleman in 2021. Still, whichever marketing executive came up with this incredibly cheap ploy for social media engagement definitely earned their $500,000 bonus...
