YouTube is popular culture. It is now part of what defines the digital era of the 21st century popular culture. YouTube can act as learning tool, not necessarily on the academic level of education, but more about the ‘street life’ or teachings about the popular ideologies of any society around the world.
In particular, KevJumba’s “Girl’s are like M&M” video presents an ideology produced into a space where Kevin expresses his opinions and teaches the viewers. The young boy, KevJumba focuses at us, the viewer: he dances for us, pulls out a bag of chocolate M&M’s and eats it in front of us, as if he is taunting us with the bag of goodie. As the flashing “KevJumba Presents: Girl’s Are Like M&M’s” sign comes to view, he begins the video with a story: “My parents like to constantly remind me when I grow up I have to marry an Asian woman/ Which is okay/ But I don’t like narrowing my options.” He later projects his theory of different race into an analogy by comparing M&M’s to girls. He says, as he pours out the chocolate pieces out from the bag, “Girl’s are like M&M’s. They are all different color on the outside, but in the inside, they are all the same,” and then shoves the pieces into his mouth. He later explains why he made such a comparison, “No one opens a bag of M&M’s and goes/ ‘Hey, I’m only eating the yellow ones’/ ‘Cause you know why/ ‘Cause it’s racist.” He later provides another scenario, “Hey Blue M&M/ I don’t like your skin tone/ Or your culture, or your lifestyle/ So I’m not eating you”. So, as he puts away a blue M&M and pulls out a yellow M&M, he says, “I only eat yellows” (with a huge “racist” sign after). KevJumba later theorized that “To only stop racism is to have more interracial babies, ” “ You can’t be racist to a mix person/ It’s too hard/ I’ve tried”. A new screenshot came to view as he provides a scenario that proves that “it’s too hard” to be racist to a mix person: “Oh yeah? Well you’re a . . . a . . . what are you again?” He ends the video blog with a prank (shocking his father with a shocking device and claimed “you deserve it for not letting me have interracial babies”. His last concluding sentence was "Let's start treating each other like M&M's".
With over 3 million views, this 3 minute 27 seconds video, Girl’s are like M&M’s, targets one of the many ideologies produced in popular culture: racism. KevJumba, an Asian boy from Texas, uploads videos for many purpose: such as, for entertainment or an alternative way to relieve and to self-express in a creative way. Like this video, he made up his own analogy by comparing a girl’s nationality to a bag of M&M’s. The title can have another connotation: it can mean in a condescending way towards the female race. However, KevJumba clarifies what he means as he displaces his opinion in a creative form. He identifies one ideology of a common and traditional racism: marriage within race. Here, he told us that his parents would like for him to marry an Asian woman, only so that they can “have Asian babies”. To breakaway from this common ideology, he suggest for more people to “have interracial babies” which would later lead to “an end to racism”. Although KevJumba’s video is funny and entertaining, it shows that YouTube provides this space for us, the viewers, to learn and express ourselves in a “popular culture” way.
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