Treating Steven He's Emotional Damage

The Checkup with Doctor Mike

DM Operations Inc.

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2023

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Watch the full interview on YouTube here: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/youtube/StevenHeVOD Steven He is a comedian, actor, and media pioneer who you may have seen online in the last year as the "emotional damage" guy. This line from one of Steven's videos hit a meteoric viral rise in the summer of 2022, but unlike many viral stars who are a flash in the pan, Steven was ready. His years of hustling as a working actor and content creator allowed him to run with his success and build a rapidly growing audience of people who enjoy his "Off Brand" TikToks or YouTube shorts about his most popular character known only as "Asian Dad". Steven has big plans for the future with the impending release of his original series "Ginormo" and a seemingly never-ending waterfall of fresh content across social media. We talked about his health, specifically the recent surgery he had on a cyst above his eye he believes was caused by stress. We also shared stories of our immigration backgrounds. Steven was born in China, raised in Ireland, and then went to college in the UK and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC, so we actually have a lot on common. I'm so grateful we got to spend a full day together and hope you enjoy our conversation! Follow Steven: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StevenHe IG: https://www.instagram.com/thestevenhe/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@steven_he?lang=en 00:00 Intro 00:51 Worst Auditions 08:32 Starting Social Media 16:38 Emotional Damage 19:26 Mental and Physical Health 26:36 Eyebrow Surgery 44:00 Reading Negative Comments 59:20 Chinese Pressure 1:05:35 Why He Left China 1:13:20 Coping Mechanisms 1:22:53 Failure Management 1:31:30 Lightning Round 1:37:08 Q/A Executive Producer and Host: Dr. Mike Varshavski Produced by Dan Owens and Sam Bowers Art by Caroline Weigum CONTACT: [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	She comes to China, she gets me, we go on a plane for like 16 hours from China to Ireland,
0:05.2	Emotion, oh damn it, it's just a trauma that I still carry to this day.
0:09.3	My mom put me in the school, said to the principal, here Stephen,
0:12.6	there was not one person who could speak Mandarin in miles.
0:17.2	You're in for a very special treat today
0:19.2	because we have a conversation with the one and only Stephen He, the creator of the original emotional damage meme.
0:26.8	Emotional damage!
0:28.8	But he's so much more than that. He's a filmmaker. He has a monster YouTube, monster Tik-Tock following and he has a full TV show in the works that's coming out in March. I'm really excited for it. In this conversation we talk about his real emotional damage from childhood and obviously we had to touch on
0:45.9	Social media and its effects on mental health. It's time for the checkup with Stephen He
0:51.9	Stephen he.
0:53.0	Hello. Welcome. Oh my God I'm finally here. Are you excited? I can't believe I'm in this building. It's yeah. You're
0:59.8	faking it though you were you knew you were in the building because we just did our
1:03.5	our tic-toc war which you unfairly beat me in. Okay tell you a secret I'm
1:06.9	continuously nervous the whole day. Why? Who are? Is it because Bear you're
1:11.1	scared of Bear? No it's because I watch your channel a lot and so yeah, I'm just nervous. Oh well that's awesome. Okay. Well don't be nervous the goal is to have a good time and we want you to come out of this experience saying that you also want to be a doctor and potentially make your parents proud.
1:28.4	That would be, wow, if you manage to change my entire career tonight, that is very significant.
1:33.4	So tell me what was it like when you misheard
1:37.2	what your parents wanted from you when you were a child?
1:40.6	Misheard.
1:41.4	Yeah, what do you mean? Well, your parents said become a doctor and you heard
1:44.8	actor and you became an actor so that's why I assume happened. I was the best Chinese
1:49.8	kid that did exactly what my parents wanted me to do and did not get a degree in anything that could earn me any money.
	...

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