What does it mean to be fetishized—and how do you turn that gaze back on the culture that created it? Estelle Erasmus chats with Kaila Yu, a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Business Insider, Condé Nast Traveler, and more. Before turning to journalism, Kaila was a model and the lead singer of the all-Asian American female rock band Nylon Pink. Her debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty (Crown Publishing, Penguin Random House), braids cultural critique with personal narrative to examine identity, representation, and the male gaze.
In this episode:
- Growing up in the “pornified” 2000s and how it shaped beauty ideals and agency
- The “ABG” (Asian Baby Girl) aesthetic, model-minority myths, and resisting stereotypes
- Structuring a memoir-in-essays using cultural archetypes (Geisha, Butterfly, China Doll, “Not Lucy Liu,” etc.)
- Weaving research (colonial histories, media analysis) into lived experience
- Gen Z, #MeToo, and why we need cultural reckonings now, not 20 years later
- Life after entertainment: choosing writing for longevity and self-definition
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4hAi3MN_Png
Order her book on Estelle’s Bookshop
Connect with Kaila
Website: https://KailaYu.com
Instagram: https://instagram.
Get More from Estelle:
Webinars:
- NEW: Sign up for my free online Editor-on-call NYU event on October 29th Inside Slate: An Unfiltered Conversation with Senior Editor, Rebecca Onion. Register here
- Sign up for my webinar on October 9th in collaboration with Writer’s Digest Mapping Your Memoir: How to Find the Heart and Shape of Your Story. Sign up here.
New Essay:
Read my latest essay on Another Jane Pratt Thing. It Happened to Me: I Deliberately Ruined My Nasty Co-Worker's Wedding Video.
I loved telling my story all these years later. And don't miss the episode with Jane #155, where we dished all about Sassy
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