The 2024 Northwest Asian Weekly pop culture hall of fame (and shame!) (2025)

By Stacy Nguyen
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Over the last year, we’ve seen Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) in more nuanced roles in popular culture than ever before—some of it was great, some of it was not so great. Check out my picks of folks who deserve some applause, as well as some folks who maybe deserve a few jeers.

Hall of Fame

ROSÉ & Bruno Mars

The 2024 Northwest Asian Weekly pop culture hall of fame (and shame!) (1)

Bruno Mars accepts the award for album of the year for “An Evening with Silk Sonic” at the BET Awards on Sunday, June 26, 2022, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

I feel like 2024 was the year that Bruno Mars went full-Asian, after many years of methodically inching his way in this direction. How did he do it? With his first-ever collaboration with a K-pop artist: South Korean singer Rosé (from Blackpink). This came with their hit single “APT.,” which dropped Oct. 14, 2024 and has been stuck in my head ever since. Like, it has 1.5 billion plays on YT Music.

Mars, whose government name is Peter Gene Hernandez, was born in Hawaii to a Puerto Rican and Jewish father and a Filipina mother. Prior to his collab with Rosé, Mars was well-known for his collaboration with our fave Anderson .Paak, who is Black and Korean American. You might be asking, “Stacy, didn’t Bruno go full-Asian at that point?”

No. He went full-Asian precisely when he held up two South Korean flags and went, “Geonbae, geonbae, girl, what’s up?”

Olivia Rodrigo

Based on global ticket sales on StubHub North America, Olivia Rodrigo was the fourth (fourth!) most in-demand artist in 2024 (after Taylor Swift, Adele, and some dude named Zach Bryan). Rodrigo spent much of 2024 on her Guts World Tour—her first all-arena concert tour, to promote her second album.

Rodrigo’s paternal grandparents and great-grandparents emigrated from the Philippines, and she has been vocal about identifying proudly as a Filipina American. In October 2024, she donated net proceeds from her sold-out Philippines concert to Jhpiego, a women’s health organization in the Philippines.

Dwayne Johnson

Look, guys, I no longer know how I feel about Dwayne Johnson ever since the whole Black Adam debacle, which caused me to see him as just a flawed man and no longer an angel who fell upon Earth. But still, you gotta admit that the dude loves to proudly proclaim his Samoan pride, and I appreciate that one of the biggest hitmakers on the planet loves being Samoan so much.

“Moana 2” was the third-highest grossing movie of 2024, behind “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” It beat out the likes of “Wicked,” “Kung Fu Panda 4,” and “Mufasa: The Lion King”! Beyond Johnson voicing the character of demigod Maui, the cast of “Moana 2” is also super-stacked with Pacific Islander American actors: Auliʻi Cravalho, Hualālai Chung, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, and more!

The 2024 Northwest Asian Weekly pop culture hall of fame (and shame!) (2)

Ali Wong

Ali Wong

2024 was a great year for super-funny person Ali Wong. Her Netflix comedy special, “Ali Wong: Single Lady,” came out and won a Golden Globe. As executive producer and voice talent, she also saw the release of Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld, an animated supernatural-action TV show on Netflix.

Wong has a few projects on the horizon for 2025. Can’t wait to see what she has in store for us!

Hall of Shame

Night Shyamalan and nepotism

Night Shyamalan produced, wrote, and directed a movie where Josh Hartnett starred as a serial killer who gets caught while taking his daughter to a pop star’s concert. If you were like me, you were also like, “OH MY GOD, YES. JOSH HARTNETT PLAYS HOT PSYCHO DAD!” But then you watched “Trap” and you wonder why there are so many freaking musical numbers in a movie billed as an adrenaline-pumping thriller. And that’s because the actor who plays Lady Raven, the pop star in the film, is also Shyamalan’s daughter.

Her name is Saleka Night Shyamalan. And she released an album called “Lady Raven” in 2024, too. Coincidence? Not a chance. M. Night Shyamalan one-hundred-percent made a movie and hired Josh Hartnett to play a serial killer—just to promote his daughter’s album.

(Also, M. Night Shyamalan self-financed his other daughter’s movie. Ishana Night Shyamalan made her directorial debut with “The Watchers” in 2024. It got negative reviews from critics.)

White people bubble tea, Simu Liu does not approve

Canada’s version of “Shark Tank” is called “Dragons’ Den,” which feels a little racial, but let’s ignore that and focus on the issue at hand. In October 2024, two white people from Quebec (uh-oh) went on “Dragons’ Den” to peddle their boba drink that they sold as healthier and better than regular ol’ Asian boba. They called their drink Bobba (still pronounced BOH-BUH, I think). During their pitch, Chinese Canadian actor and businessman Simu Liu was watching them explain their product in disbelief.

He said that the concept of Bobba looked like cultural appropriation—which was on point!

And then a bunch of white people and one Indian Canadian woman got their feelings really butt-hurt over that and were all like, “Nuh-uh!”

Fellow Dragon Manjit Minhas said, “There can be new takes on things. Not everything has to be traditional.”

SMH. It’s so annoying when you hear this BS from a fellow person of color.

David Chang trademarks chili crunch, everyone hates him

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Chef David Chang (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Reformed bully (depending on whom you ask …), former professional chef, and current TV food personality David Chang got himself in hot water again when Momofuku (his company) was found trademarking the term “chili crunch.” A bunch of Asians on the internet freaked out over the audacity of this man and his company for trademarking a Chinese product (Chang is Korean) that has been a staple of Asian households since the beginning of food.

It took a long while before Chang finally publicly explained himself, apologizing, and stating that Momofuko will no longer enforce the trademark.

Paris Olympics poster features non-athlete Snoop Dogg, plus only one Asian

The network Eurosport shared a poster of Paris Olympic star athletes and a caption that read, “The Greatest Show on Earth. Paris 2024, we will never forget you.”

And the poster’s designer (and their bosses) made the confounding decision to include photos of non-athletes Snoop Dogg and Tom Cruise on the poster, but neglected to meaningfully include Asians. The only person of Asian heritage on the poster was South Korean shooter Kim Ye-ji and she’s really tucked in there, in a real Where’s Waldo kind of way.

As a reminder, the United States was first place on the medal table for the Paris Olympics. Right on their heels in second place, with the same number of gold medals, was China. Third place was Japan. There were no Chinese or Japanese athletes on the Eurosport poster. Uncool.

Stacy Nguyen can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.

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The 2024 Northwest Asian Weekly pop culture hall of fame (and shame!) (2025)

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