‘Didi:’ Awkward teen and his obsession with social media
By Wendell Gaa
The Millennial Generation is without a doubt the first generation to truly come of age in the social media era. Thus far, no recent movie in my opinion has so perfectly captured this facet of Millennials than the film “Dìdi” which is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime. For those who yearn a nostalgic period piece from life in the late 2000s, this is the perfect movie to watch.
“Dìdi” is a coming-of-age comedy drama about the life and times of a Taiwanese-American family living in Fremont, California in the summer of 2008. The film’s central character is Chris, a 13-year-old 8th grader who lives with his single immigrant mother Chungsing, mother-in-law Nǎi Nai, and older sister Vivian.
On the surface, Chris and his family seem to be living a normal everyday life in their calm middle-class suburban neighborhood. Yet simmering beneath are interpersonal tensions between Chris and his family, as well as with his own social peers. This is all complicated by the fact his parents are physically separated, with Chris’s father living and working back in Taiwan, although he sends financial remittances to support his family in California. Chris is also busy anxiously spending his summer holidays preparing to enter his first year in high school in the autumn, thus his yearning for acceptance and popularity amongst his peers grow.
These very circumstances goad Chris to turn to social media as his personal refuge and platform through which he can easily make friends and abate his loneliness and isolation. Through uploading his photos and videos on the increasingly popular sites MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, Chris does indeed make new friends and even develops an interest on his crush, a half-Asian girl named Madi. Yet it is also through the use of social media that Chris begins to question and confront the very things that made him who he is as a member of an Asian-American family.
As if his obsession with social media weren’t enough, he also has to come to terms with the fact that his older sister will soon be leaving to attend college at UC San Diego, which prompts him to further withdraw into social media as a refuge from the social anxieties he is feeling from both the impending departure of his sister and his personal differences with his mother and mother-in-law. Their upbringing in Taiwan clashes with his “Americanized” mindset.
Seeing the generational gap and cultural differences between Chris and his mother unfold is the most gripping aspect of the entire movie. And watching him grow from a socially awkward youth to a much more emotionally conscious pre-high schooler despite the constant peer pressure and societal challenges he faces is a viewing experience which I’m sure any Asian-American family, including Filipinos, can relate to.
I personally could see a bit of myself in Chris, as this film made me recall my own high school years living in Southern California in the early 1990s where I would spend months living with my Lola, brother and older cousin, as my father was then posted abroad as a diplomat with my mother spending most of her time living with him, although they would both visit us as frequently as they could every year.
Though “Dìdi” is a brilliant piece of cinema which encapsulates the look and feel of the life of the millennial youth in the 2000s decade, its observations and commentaries on Asian-American family generational conflicts is a story that any person of any ethnic background should watch to fully appreciate and comprehend cultural and family dynamics.