I Met WongFu!

Photography and gif animation by me, thanks to Kristy Okada for above photo

I MET THREE NICE GUYS. Phil Wang, Ted Fu, Wesley Chan of WongFu Productions came to WashU Saturday night to chat about their journey to YouTube-dom (11/12/11). Last time we met was in Ann Arbor for MAASU three years ago, but our group didn't stand a chance getting into the workshop room. The talk was casual and down-to-earth, and after all this internet fame, none of this went to their heads. In fact, their success came from a long series of ups and downs, always having a backup plan in case things didn't pan out. As a blogger, I can relate to a lot of what they described, and I'm sure many of you can too. 

I knew they attended UCSD, but was surprised to discover these three were visual arts majors. However, their short films are always low-budget, creative ways of utilizing their resources and good "eye." Treat: they showed a few exclusive not-yet-released clips that I thought were clever and fantastic. In the end, they stayed to take photos with about 200 people and sign 200 autographs. With my SLR in tow (always), Phil took notice and asked if I take a lot of photography. I responded that I'm a fashion blogger on the side and a Neuroscience major by day, but I like living out my artsy dreams too. He told me to keep pursuing this and it made me happy to see true evidence of how a whole lot of hard work and luck can make any dream legit.

I am such a fangirl. My heart was pounding when they pointed at me to ask a question. How do they combat negativity from faceless internet users? Their reply? "Haters gonna hate." They said focus on the support from your fans and ignore those ignorant people who write things that don't make sense, are misspelled, and just look at the username. It should be enough to give you an idea of their maturity level and your supporters step up and downvote awful comments even when you don't ask. Other people (including me) thought that WongFu was Phil and Ted's last name, and they just cut Wes out hahaha. The real reason is that in 7th grade, Phil thought "Wong-Fu" was like Kung-Fu.

A certain letter from med school made my day when I got home that night ; ) WOOHOO!

Ted is trying really hard to get signal back to the UFO ship

Readers - who are your Youtube idols?