RiceGum

Bryan Quang Le, better known as RiceGum, is an American YouTube personality and musician.

In November 2017, Le was ranked at number 25 on the Billboard Emerging Artists chart. His single "It's Every Night Sis" was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in March 2018.

Career

RiceGum was featured in the Super Bowl LII commercial for Monster headphones. In the ad, he plays a man on a subway who is inspired by Iggy Azalea to fashion a headset from scratch, which is accepted by an executive.

As of August 2018, his main channel is the 231st most subscribed channel overall.

Music career

Billboard has referred to Le as a "YouTube celeb" known for his diss tracks. In 2017, Le released a single titled "It's Every Night Sis" featuring fellow YouTube personality Alissa Violet, which was a response track to Jake Paul's viral song "It's Everyday Bro". It reached number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is his first charting single.

The single was followed by "God Church" in July 2017, its title another reference to Paul's "It's Everyday Bro", which reached number one on the Comedy Digital Track Sales chart.

RiceGum was featured in the video for "Earthquake" by YouTube personality and rapper KSI, released on August 12, 2017. The video has since been viewed over 39 million times.

Controversies

Rape victim controversy

During the summer of 2016, a video on YouTube was released, which depicted RiceGum in a livestream with a woman he invited. At one point during the stream, the woman admitted to being raped while drunk and in response, RiceGum laughed with the following "Did it feel good though?", as well as jokingly telling his viewers "If you wanna rape her, she won't sue you." Following the incident, RiceGum was widely criticized for taunting the woman's experience. In response, he uploaded a video titled "#ApologizeRiceGum I am sorry", in which he apologized for the incident, as well as calling the woman on video to directly apologize to her.

Arguments with other YouTube personalities

Ian Carter, a YouTuber by the channel name of iDubbbzTV, made an episode of his popular "Content Cop" series on RiceGum (a series where he critiques other YouTubers' content), which received over 40 million views and over 2 million likes. The end of the video featured the diss track "Asian Jake Paul". It was also the most trending video in multiple countries, making it the fastest-growing of the "Content Cop" series, and RiceGum lost 50,000 subscribers. In response to the video, RiceGum made the diss track "Frick da Police". The diss track was met with a generally negative reception, currently holding 1.2 million dislikes as of February 2019, making it the 33rd most disliked video on the platform. RiceGum has also been in controversies with other popular YouTubers and musicians such as James Rallison, Gabbie Hanna, and Danielle Bregoli.

Hong Kong vlog controversy

On June 12, 2018, RiceGum uploaded a video of himself in Hong Kong through his main YouTube channel. In the video, he asks strangers and a staff member in a local McDonald's if they have dog on the menu as he says he had heard that "there are jokes about Asians eating cats and dogs in China." He also jokes about wanting to have dog and cat meat to eat as he is "always open to try new things". He comments on Hong Kong street food beef entrails, questioning if it is dog meat and saying "that shit looks disgusting". He filmed comedian M2THAK walking up to a man in the Hong Kong International Airport, yelling "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?", allegedly imitating a scene from the Hollywood movie Rush Hour starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker to imply that Asian communities do not understand English. M2THAK was also filmed repositioning mannequins in a store window into sexually suggestive poses. The video included a scene where they gave a half-eaten ice cream to a local Hong Kong man. Other actions such as touching strangers' hands, disrupting store operations, asking in the street "do you fuck with RiceGum?", "where the bitches at", "where the hoes at", and using the Japanese flag to note their arrival in Hong Kong in the video also drew criticism online.

Online commentary has compared the video to Logan Paul's Japan vlog controversy, saying that he is being disrespectful and culturally insensitive in a foreign country. Jimmy Wong tweeted in his Twitter account saying that he is disappointed as RiceGum's videos are now "disrespectful, ignorant, borderline racist, & shameful to all creators, especially Asians" and asks him to "please grow up & stop".

Two weeks later, on June 26, when the video received different criticism in China and other Asian countries, RiceGum released a video, saying that he was just "joking around". He defended himself saying that he was just trying to use Asian stereotypes to point to American comedy culture and that people are being too sensitive. He further explained that he believed it is acceptable as he is also an Asian. He also said that he wanted to return to Hong Kong, but says that he is "kind of scared now because the people may hit me and beat me up". However, the video was considered insincere; media site Polygon described that his "apology" was done "in a somewhat glib manner" and What's Trending said the "apology" "sounded [incredibly] forced". The video of his Hong Kong tour is currently removed from YouTube due to the violation of YouTube's Terms of Service.

Mystery box website promotion

In January 2019, RiceGum, along with fellow YouTuber Jake Paul, came under fire for promoting MysteryBrand, a website which offers the chance to open a digital "mystery box" of pre-selected items with a promise to win one in real life at random. Many users have said they have not received prizes they won through the site, and concluded the site is a scam. In response, RiceGum made a video in which he pointed out that other YouTubers made their own videos promoting MysteryBrand months prior, saying "No-one said anything, it wasn't a problem back then. Why did no-one bring it up, or even talk about these guys? This mystery box thing has been on the internet for 3 or 4 months even from other creators, but as soon as I do it, it's a problem?". At the end of the video, he decided to give away Amazon gift card codes, saying "There's nothing I can really do but say sorry and give you these Amazon gift cards". However, many people called him out for the Amazon codes already being expired.

Discography

Singles

Notes