By Irvin Zhang, staff writer
David So, a YouTuber, actor and comedian, took the AfterHours stage on Sunday and shared an intimate message about breaking out of your comfort zone, facing your fears and embracing your failures.
The Asian Student Union (ASU) continued their “A Night With” series this semester by bringing in So, a Korean-American who has achieved success in the entertainment industry. He currently has 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube and was an actor in “Gook,” a 2017 drama with a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
ASU’s “A Night With” series presents prominent Asian celebrities to break the stereotype that Asians have to pursue careers in medicine or law to be viewed as successful.
“We do this every semester,” said president of ASU and fourth-year health sciences major Vivian Cheng. “Our main goal is to bring a popular Asian celebrity to show that we can do more than just the stereotypical Asian career and to try new things.”.
This is the first time the ASU has brought in a comedian. They typically bring in Asian musicians, most recently Arden Cho.
“We wanted to switch it up this year and bring in a comedian because we’ve had a lot of musical performances in the past,” said Megan Lau, vice-president of ASU and second-year computer science and business double major.
So told the crowd his life story and the challenges he faced to get to where he is today, most specifically growing up in a rough part of Sacramento and facing failure in the eyes of his parents when he decided to pursue a career in comedy.
He coupled heavy topics with his style of comedy to ease the gravity and reality of his message.
“Sometimes, it’s a little bit hard to touch on deep issues within ourselves, but he’s able to make it accessible through comedy,” Lau said. “He makes it okay to talk about these untouchable topics.”
One of the most prominent themes of So’s talk was to not let fear prevent one from stepping out of their comfort zone. He said that once a person stops letting fear control their life, they’ll live life with no regrets.
“I really like the message he gave at the end of just not being scared and living life to the fullest,” said second-year computer science major Alex Wang. “I feel like everyone here can resonate with that.”
Although the “A Night With” series’ message is typically geared toward Asian Americans, So still found a way to resonate with students of other races in attendance.
“I felt like [the message] was to a different audience that I wasn’t apart of, but it was still interesting to relate to his message,” said Adam Briggs, a fourth-year behavioral neuroscience major. “His message of realizing when you’re too comfortable and you have to do something you’re afraid of to be happy, I like that message.”
