K-Town

I don’t cover reality TV all that much… well, honestly like never, but a longtime friend of the blog Mike Le has some exciting news. From THR:

Ben Silverman’s Electus has greenlighted a new web series exploring the lives of young Asian-Americans residing in the heart of Koreatown in Los Angeles.

The show, called K-Town, is the first offering on Electus’ upcoming YouTube channel, LOUD, which launches July 2. It was created and executive produced by Tyrese Gibson’s production company, HQ Productions; Electus execs Silverman, Drew Buckley and Evan Bregman are also executive producers along with reality TV veterans Liz Gateley and Tony DiSanto.

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Gateley told The Hollywood Reporter that Gibson (whose production partners are Mike Le, Eugene Choi, and Eddie Kim) approached the duo about six months ago. “Everyone is looking for subculture, subculture, subculture, and no one has really ever explored this sort of Asian-American world in L.A., so it was just perfect timing,” she said. “We’re so excited about it.”

About the K-TOWN project, Mike wrote me with this background:

I was tired of viewing the Asian-American experience through the narrow focus of mass-media that portray us as either the one-dimensional model minority or as exaggerated stereotypes (i.e the buck-tooth martial artist, the IT nerd, the Dragon Lady, etc). I wanted to do a reality show with an all Asian-American cast, who were not only smart but also sexy, stylish, fun, and shockingly colorful.

I document the journey of what inspired me, the casting, to the development of the show here.

Here’s a teaser trailer for the show:

Interesting to track the emergence of original programming on the web, nowadays with more and more heavy hitter producers involved.

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