Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet: Race, Gender, and the Work of Personal Style Blogging

by Minh-Ha T. Pham

In the first ever book devoted to a critical investigation of the personal style blogosphere, Minh-Ha T. Pham examines the phenomenal rise of elite Asian bloggers who have made a career of posting photographs of themselves wearing clothes on the Internet. Pham understands their online activities as “taste work” practices that generate myriad forms of capital for superbloggers and the brands they feature. A multifaceted and detailed analysis, Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet addresses questions concerning the status and meaning of “Asian taste” in the early twenty-first century, the kinds of cultural and economic work Asian tastes do, and the fashion public and industry’s appetite for certain kinds of racialized eliteness. Situating blogging within the historical context of gendered and racialized fashion work while being attentive to the broader cultural, technological, and economic shifts in global consumer capitalism, Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet has profound implications for understanding the changing and enduring dynamics of race, gender, and class in shaping some of the most popular work practices and spaces of the digital fashion media economy.

 

Genres: Fashion, Art, Nonfiction, Sociology, Race, Anthropology, Asia

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2015

About the author

Minh-Ha T. Pham is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Media Studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her research examines fashion labor and power in the contexts of global and digital capitalism. Her writings on the subject appear in a wide range of scholarly and mainstream publications including The New Republic, The Nation, New York Times, Social Text, American Quarterly, Jacobin, and The Atlantic. She is also the author of Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet: Race, Gender, and the Work of Personal Style Blogging (Duke University Press 2015) and Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Social Media’s Influence on Fashion, Ethics, and Property (Duke University Press 2022).

Her research has been featured in, among other sites, The New York Times, Vogue, The Guardian, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her son.

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book with brilliant, insightful, fascinating moments that suffered from chronic repetitiveness. If the repetitive pieces, especially the continuous, over-explained references to the same interviews/posts/concepts, had been replaced with a more in-depth analysis of racialized/gendered cuteness and cheapness, a deeper look at racial triangulation, and more focus on digital colonialism rather than a basic rehash of digital humanities 101, this book would have gone from good to excellent.

[Zoha]

Read this to present this in class. I'm not clear on why this said Asians in the title and throughout when it featured only East and SE Asian super-bloggers, none from Central Asia or South Asia, etc. The analysis was very rich and some interesting ideas were introduced but I think focusing on fewer personalities would have allowed it to go deeper and to really develop 2-3 central ideas of the 10-11 it was juggling. Generally readable, fun for anyone who was around to see fashion, beauty and makeup transition from blogging to YouTube and Instagram, and a decent crash course in some of the discourse around these topics.

[Duke Press]

"Street style photos never cease to be a form of inspiration. Minh Ha T. Pham takes a look at how exactly style superbloggers came to be, while celebrating Asian fashion and styling at the same time. She also takes a critical look at what mainstream media thinks of as 'Asian style,' making it both a must read and a beautiful book." — Emily Laurence Brit + Co
10/25/2015

"[A] deeply engaging and sophisticated discussion of the race and gender dynamics that affect Asian fashion labor." — Christine Wu Japan Times
11/28/2015

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 / 5.0

ENJOYED LECTURE. BOOK USED A BIT TOO MUCH ACADEMIC LANGUAGE WHEN SIMPLER PHRASING WOULD HAVE BEEN CLEARER. I DON'T THINK SHE EVER QUITE MAKES UP HER MIND IF SHE APPROVES OR DISAPPROVES OF THE GENDER, RACIAL, SOCIAL ROLES OF ASIANSUPERBLOGGERS: EXPLOITED VS ENABLED; STEREOTYPED VS SUPRARACIAL, SERVILE VS LIBERATED. RAISES AND EXPLORES MANY INTERESTING ISSUES PERTAINING TO THE INTERNET ECONOMY AND ALSO ITS RELATION TO AND EXPLOITATION BY THE TRADITIONAL ECONOMY. CHALLENGING BUT WORTHWHILE STUDY. NOT FOR LIGHT PLEASURE READING.

[Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this and i don’t remember what it was about seconds after finishing it

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because the author taught a course at NYU that I recall fondly. Maybe not fondly because I wasn't there that often, but as the basis for my desire to study APA studies and cultural studies in general. I also did not have any interest in fashion nor Asian Superbloggers. That being said Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet is a great read. The writing never gets too academic or mired in referencing some theory to support the narrative she's constructing. In much the same way that Asian Superbloggers are humanizing fashion because of their development of personal stories around the clothes they are wearing, Pham humanizes the the critical theory of asians in fashion and their influence. Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet is a clever title too, this book has it all. If that's your thing.

[Rebekah]

(Uncorrected page proofs)

Unless you're VERY into very academic writing, or fashion, or SJW topics (or better, some combination of the three), you're not gonna like this book. It's O...K... as in if the subject/writing style is your cup of tea, I'm sure you'll like it, but if not, you will find it pretty dry. At some points, there's kind of an "Oh, OK," that went off in my brain but it took me 5 months to get through this booklet for a reason, you know? It's just not absorbing. But it's not terrible. It's finish-able.