“Why ask mum? Mum doesn’t have a six pack”: Sky Yang on teen Google entanglement

This story is made in collaboration with Short Stuff.

A while ago, I wrote a poem called Sunny while in the shower. What started as a mantra to wash away unwanted feelings ended up as a short film by the same name. Sunny is about a kid growing up ashamed of his East Asian heritage. He dons a mask to hide from the world, but inevitably the mask becomes Sunny’s cage, trapping him in a skin of solitude and shame.

I uploaded the video online and now, five years later, people are still finding a strange short film about a boy in a yellow papier-mâché mask. 

• Read next: On the sidelines with Rise United, the football club redefining Asian identity

I scribbled more words on napkins and newspapers.

By the time Short Stuff asked me to respond to Sunny, the napkins were stained with new experiences, and the newspapers had grown louder. I stitched together a few things which had stuck in my head. What remained was Dear Google. 

A young boy’s internet search history is an intimate and humiliating place. With Dear Google, I wanted to examine what Sunny’s relationship to his racial identity is through the records of his Google searches. It felt like a digital portal into that awkward and humiliating period of adolescence we all go through. And those absurd situations that arise from having a mixed-race Chinese face and balancing on the tightrope of a predominantly white environment. 

• Read next: Uplifting, intimate portraits of young British Chinese men

Growing up online, you don’t notice how the rise of the internet has started to supplant parents. Why ask your mum embarrassing shit when you can Google it? Mum doesn’t have a six pack. WikiHow can tell me how to be a good kisser. But there are some things that Google, and even parents, don’t have answers for. As cyberspace expands, you can now bypass every form of meaningful human connection through a digital surrogate. This becomes especially true when confronting topics of race, identity, and sexuality within the brutal battlefield of school. 

Just as Sunny once donned the mask, he now retreats behind the veil of a computer screen and confides in the only companion who could possibly understand him: Google.

Watch the short video extract from Dear Google at the top, and listen to the full poem below. See the full Dear Google written essay at Short Stuff’s website.

Sky Yang is a filmmaker, artist and poet. Follow him on Instagram.

Buy your copy of Huck 82 here.

Enjoyed this article? Follow Huck on Instagram and sign up to our newsletter for more from the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Support stories like this by becoming a member of Club Huck.