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This article examines the cultural significance of cross-racial embodiments of linguistic signs that may be legible as ‘black’ within mainstream US discourses but, in YouTube’s transnational space, may be subject to alternative interpretations. It specifically explores ideologies of race, gender, and authenticity that underlie signs stereotypically linked to symbolic blackness and embodied by a young Chinese American YouTube star named Kevin Wu, whose performance is further complicated by his ironic footing. I argue that although Wu’s stance recognizes certain contradictory values of his racialized performance, his humor never challenges stereotypes of black hypermasculinity. At the same time, my examination of how viewers collaboratively interpret Wu suggests that although they may largely reproduce widely circulating ideologies of race, gender, and linguistic authenticity in the USA, their collaborative praise participates in the reshaping of widely circulating imagery of Asian masculinity in transnational space.
