Atsuko Okatsuka wasn’t expecting to go viral when she kicked off 2022. Yet when she posted a reel on social media that showed her walking with her beloved grandmother, Ying-Hsi Li, through the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, that’s exactly what happened.
The video captured the comedian randomly doing the “drop” dance move, a seductive, slow squat inspired by Beyonce’s 2013 hit, “Yonce,” while she shopped with her grandmother.
Thus, the #dropchallenge was born.
Okatsuka’s January post was an instant hit. It went viral almost overnight, inspiring videos from all over the world, showing people from almost any possible walk of life suddenly dropping into a squat while looking intensely at the camera. The challenge appeared to show “droppers” doing the move close to bystanders who weren’t expecting it.
“It’s just me and my grandma having a fun time, which is what we do,” she explained during a Memorial Day telephone call. “It’s not the first time we’ve gone viral, but it makes sense (this time), in retrospect, thinking back to why it was easy for people to copy and why it would take off. It’s the same move over and over, and that’s so silly and funny when the beat drops. But no, we didn’t plan it (to go viral).”
Some “droppers” sent videos to her, while others let her know when they found a new one online.
And yes, there were people who would demonstrate their dropping skills when they saw her at a comedy club or some other public place.
Early last month as part of “Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival” in Los Angeles, Arsenio Hall had Okatsuka show him how to do the move. He described it afterward as “finally, a dance me and Oprah can do.”
While celebrities have embraced the challenge — including Kerry Washington, Mandy Moore and Serena Williams — there’s one prominent person who has yet to drop in. It’s been six months and counting since Okatsuka posted her original video backed by Beyonce’s beats, and there’s been no sign of life from “Queen B.”
“I’m actually sad (about that),” Okatsuka said sincerely. “So many people have done it. Somebody on (my) team said I brought the song back onto the chart. I’m sure she’d heard of it, but I don’t think she manages her own social media. I think maybe I can finally retire the challenge.”
Life’s challenges
Okatsuka, who will play a one-night engagement July 1 at the Crossroads in the HB Social Club, is no stranger to challenges. They have been part of life for the Taiwan-born, Asian American comedian almost since her birth.
Okatsuka’s mother was originally from Taiwan. At age 30, she was taken to Japan by her own mother, who hoped to find a husband for her. The matchmaking mission was accomplished thanks to a TV game show, where she met a Japanese man who would become Okatsuka’s father. Okatsuka was born in Taiwan but was brought to Japan to live at age 3 months. It was not a good fit.
Their neighbors were unfriendly, and then her parents divorced less than a year later. When Okatsuka’s mother became incapacitated by schizophrenia, her grandmother became the caregiver for both of them.
Okatsuka was 10 when her grandmother decided that Okatsuka’s mother might receive better treatment in the United States — and would be happier away from Japan. No one told Okatsuka that the move was permanent. She left Japan without being able to say goodbye to her friends — or to her father, who lived nearby.
Okatsuka, her mother and grandmother lived in the U.S. illegally for seven years. Their home was a relative’s garage.
On her first day of school in the United States, a teacher told Okatsuka that her name was too difficult to pronounce and that henceforth, she would be expected to answer to the name Stacey. From that day on, the teacher would cross out “Atsuko” and write “Stacey” whenever Okatsuka wrote her first name, and her classmates taunted her.
‘Making it work’
Years later, Okatsuka says the teacher’s cruelty might have been a clumsy effort to help a newly arrived immigrant with a foreign name become more “American.” Whatever the teacher’s motives, Okatsuka used the experience in her comedy and as the title of her first hourlong comedy special, “They Call Me Stacey,” which was part of the “Comedy InvAsian” series on Hulu in 2018.
Okatsuka, 34, is now in the second decade of her successful career as a stand-up comic, film actress, talk show guest and podcast host (“Let’s Go Atsuko! at Home”), and she has been open and forthright about all those experiences.
“It was years of trauma, but I made it work. And that’s what a lot of comedy is, making it work,” she said. “Comedy was a place that I was able to sort of find a community, and support.”
Okatsuka has also found support in her marriage to Ryan Harper Gray. They met on a movie set. He was one of the actors; one of her friends was on the production staff. They were both single and not in search of a partner. But on their third date, they discovered they both had mothers with schizophrenia.
Something clicked, marriage followed, and they are a power couple on both sides of the camera.
“I’m just focusing on my stand up, and it’s taking the shape I’m really proud of,” she said. “I’m doing Edinburgh Fringe Festival (in August), preparing for my next comedy special and developing a TV show version of my origin story.”
As for the traumas that are part of the story, Okatsuka, her mother and Grandma Li are all legal residents, and she has been able to visit her friends in Japan.
“I won the visa lottery,” Okatsuka said.
And she’s back in touch with her father, who now lives on Bali.
“Once I started doing comedy — really, like, feeling comfortable in my skin — making dance videos and jump videos online, or stand up and stuff, (Grandma Li) has been laughing more,” Okatsuka said. “I think this is a relaxing into her own skin, and she’s having fun for the first time, you know? Whenever you see my grandma on my social media, it’s like both of us saying, ‘Yeah, we got a hard life, you know, but we can have fun now.’ ”
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ATSUKO OKATSUKA
>> Where: Crossroads, HB Social Club, 1680 Kapiolani Blvd.
>> When: 9 p.m. July 1
>> Cost: $20 (general admission)
>> Info: hbsocialclub.com
