Subtle Asian Traits and COVID-19

This paper studies how members of Subtle Asian Traits (SAT), a massive Facebook group over 1.8 million members, congregate and commiserate online their growth pains experiences as (diasporic) East Asians. Founded in September 2018 by Asian-Australian teenagers ‘as joke’, SAT share ‘Asian positive’ stories, resources, memes through an average 1,200 new posts daily. Alongside global milestone events, such the rise K-pop Global North Korean film Parasite’s unprecedented four awards at Academy Awards, has also evolved into space to celebrate excellence, tease out identity politics, discuss issues injustice. However, upon onset COVID-19, on have swiftly pivoted everyday lived (diaspora) Asians around world. In this paper, we reflect our diaspora SAT, observations meaning-making, identity-making, community-making who are collectively coping with cultural identities COVID-19 aggression. Specifically, study Asianness is negotiated, circulated, commodified offer concept ‘platformed Asianness’ understand being co-constructed international diaspora, admins, technological affordances Facebook.