We live in this culture
where every young person's desire
is to be on TikTok and to blow up.
Oh yeah I know.
To blow up on TikTok.
And here's what's interesting
You have made a big point of not participating
much in social media.
You know and not getting that involved in it
and your massive on TikTok and it's nothing
that you intended, it's nothing that you did.
Did it start with your role on Wanda Vision?
On WandaVision yeah yeah.
Yeah the crazy thing was before uh the pandemic
I was on social media and I was like,
you know I was active on it and I was enjoying
it but then during the pandemic I read this book
by like this brilliant computer scientist named
Jaron Lanier, have you heard of him?
Um it's not in my head but no.
Okay
He he talks about like just the dangers of social media
and how it's you know destroying our democracy
how it's making people angrier and meaner
and uh a more susceptible to to uh lies
and conspiracy theories.
And I was reading this and I was like,
"oh my gosh this stuff is really dangerous."
So I deleted all my social media.
And and I felt fine right
and then yeah uh you know just a few weeks ago
I hear from friends that I'm blowing up on TikTok.
And uh and that you know people are are like
uh ah
just you know honoring all the work
I have done over the years
and and showing a lot of love and it's like
now I'm like social media's amazing.
(laughing)
You know I I've got to get back on it
Screw democracy.
[Conan] Yeah
Yeah what's more important
our democratic process or you getting some love
for the work you've done.
I think that's the most important thing.
I think it's uh without a doubt um.
You know it's so funny because what's what people
have been doing is you've been a working actor
for a long time and you've shown up whether it's
a small part or a medium size part you've shown up
in a lot of places.
[guest] Yeah
So what people have done is they've ah they've
gone and found, I mean even the smallest roles
Yeah
That you've done
and they post them and they mash them together
on TikTok and it's become a thing.
[Guest] Yeah
I mean uh millions and millions and millions
of hits views whatever you call it.
Wow
Have happened in the last couple of months
Yeah yeah.
which is nuts.
It's insane.
Like what they they found you did a role on
The Office and when I heard about this I thought
"oh well okay well, maybe you had an arc on The Office,"
It wasn't an arc.
No no
You were barely in The Office.
Yeah
And they found that character
Tell us about that.
Yeah I mean I did a this was like many years ago
It was the the final season of The Office
I I got the chance to play ah a character named "Asian Jim"
(laughing)
and like like one scene during the final season
and at that point you know the popularity
of the show had been waning and uh you know I was
in and out in an hour and I thought
that was really fun and then I just kind
of I completely forgot about it
and then um several years later I'm like walking
down the street and this car drives by and a guy
yells like "Asian Jim" and drives off.
And I like I'm thinking is this some racist thing
(laughing)
that I don't know about?
Either, either a fan just saw you or it's a hate crime.
I thought it was a hate crime you know because
I had forgotten about uh my appearance on The Office.
You know people be walking up to me like
"what's up Asian Jim" and I'd be like fuck you.
(laughing)
What are you, you know and then.
By the way I want to apologize for greeting you
when you came here to the studio today
(laughing)
and and then you went like that
and yeah I did that
and whatever and I was man I was way out of bounds.