Bowen Yang is not Joel Kim Booster. And Joel Kim Booster is not Bowen Yang. The two are completely separate people with different careers - both hilarious in their own right - and distinctly themselves. For some reason, the concept of which comedian is which has been hard for some publications to grasp. Yang and Booster have taken to social media to justifiably complain about journalists misidentifying them, misattributing quotes, and are shining a light on why it’s careless to be mixing up the two actors. It’s a punch in the face that white comedians rarely experience, results in loss of work, and can be viewed as racist more than an honest mistake.

After years of being wrongfully mixed up by publications, Out magazine delivered an entire article about the negative implications those mixups cause - except they ALSO misattributed them. Irony at its finest, Booster took to Twitter to vent his valid frustrations. Clearly, this has been a lifelong occurrence for non-white performers and white audiences should do their part in respecting the differences between people (starting with their names). 

Respect Comedians (but not Matt Rife)

In a world over-saturated with a humorless ex-frat boy vibe and painfully unfunny Matt Rife-types, we see no issue with the media differentiating between them and their lackluster peers. Have you ever seen anybody mispronounce Emma Chamberlain? If your ass can pronounce Lady Bird’s Saoirse Ronan then you can take the time to notice, respect, and acknowledge the differences between Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster. 

Being that Brooklyn open mic night lineups look like the picture below, comedy specials have always unfairly favored white performers. Comedian Mo’Nique brought a lawsuit to Netflix regarding pay discrepancies in comedy specials and settled for an undisclosed amount. I’m sure if we saw how much different people made for their comedy specials, tours, and shows, race and gender play a mighty factor. Like most male-dominated industries, comedy is not immune to the patriarchal bullshit that trickles down into white cis indifference. 

Mistakes Can Cause Damage

I took an incredible class in college taught by Professor Jeffrey Blount on racial bias in the media. I absolutely think the consistent mixing up of Yang and Booster can be attributed to racial ignorance in addition to embarrassingly poor fact-checking. Representation is incredibly important to have and it's dually crucial to report on diverse people with accuracy. It’s incredibly disrespectful to be reduced to your physical attributes and subbed out for someone with entirely different accolades, experiences, and careers. Even though the two don’t even look alike, the racist implication that ‘Asians look the same and are therefore interchangeable’ looms over journalism. Back when Bowen was announced for SNL, The Hollywood Reporter used a cheery picture of Joel. After years of this nonsense, Bowen explained on his podcast how infuriating it is to constantly see these mistakes in published pieces. 

Is the collective American social consciousness unable to handle more than a few popular Asian performers? How fucked up is that. 

Joel Kim Booster is a Korean-American actor, comedian, writer, and performer who can be seen on the Apple TV show, Loot. He’s known for his thirst traps, and unapologetic truth bombs on Twitter, and created Fire Island, a re-imaging of Pride and Prejudice set in the titular gay hotspot off Long Island. 

Bowen Yang is the iconic SNL cast member who’s been making us laugh as George Santos, the iceberg that the Titanic hit, and a million other queer (and queer-coded) characters for us to enjoy. He also is the co-host of my favorite podcast Las Culturistas, where he discusses everything in pop culture with his best friend/fellow performer Matt Rogers. Bowen is Chinese-American, having moved to Colorado from Canada at a young age. Las Culturistas is extremely entertaining and I praise it to the moon and back. In addition to his podcast and SNL, Bowen has been in a ton of movies and had a major role in Awkwafina’s Nora From Queens. 

How We Can Do Better

Yang and Booster are both Asian and gay men. They work in comedy and have collaborated on projects together (stream Fire Island on Hulu). But their similarities and brief career overlap never justify misidentifying someone by the name of their colleague. And when it continues to happen to two Asian men, you start to wonder if the journalists are just simply not giving a fuck about respecting their subjects or if this is a microcosm of the industry. Do folks not want to make room for more diverse celebrities in their mental repertoire? Why do we memorize the names of every Kardashian but still have people mispronouncing Kamala Harris? 

No hate to the writer(s) who (maybe accidentally) used a picture of Booster and dubbed it as Yang, but there really should be a more savvy editor able to spot those glaring mistakes. The fact that it went to print (albeit online) in two pieces back to back, including Out magazine which champions inclusion, is profoundly annoying. Hire more diverse people in your writer's room, have diversity and inclusion training, and just make the effort to not do it again. 

Booster tweeted how he and Yang agreed to no longer politely excuse these mistakes, which happen far too often to be considered a coincidence. Why are people mixing them up? Why is there a lack of awareness for Asian men in comedy and society’s race-blind ignorance doesn’t give a fuck about getting it right? Be a better ally to the Asian and LGBTQ+ community by making sure folks are being respected when being addressed. And keep an eye out for media publications doing damage by mixing up their non-white subjects.