Darren Jiang: Hello everyone, my name is Darren Jiang.
Every individual has different sides or dimensions, given the environment.
Those dimensions are not always transparent to the external world.
For each person, there are sides or dimensions that we know,
but of course, there are sides and parts that are hidden or unknown to us.
These are the images of the famous international actor and model Godfrey Gao.
He was the first-ever Asian male model to be featured
in the Louis Vuitton campaign.
He's also been ranked as number seven
on the world's top 100 sexiest men alive.
Woo, I hear woos and wows from the crowd.
(Laughter)
So everything does seem very perfect about Godfrey Gao, doesn't it?
From his chiseled face with flawless features
to his tall, toned, athletic body, right?
However, he may also give off the vibe and impression of being distant,
or sometimes stuck-up, given this image portrayed by media.
I've had the good fortune of getting to know Godfrey
both as a person, but more importantly, as a very close friend for many years,
and I'm here to tell you,
he has different dimensions that he doesn't reveal to the public.
When the cameras stop rolling,
Godfrey, or G as I would like to call him,
is actually very easygoing,
caring, kind, generous,
but most importantly, down-to-earth.
He's just a boy next door
who could throw on some shorts, a baseball cap,
and have the audacity to break into my brand-new Jordans
as he was riding around town, goofing around with me on a rickshaw.
He's also that one friend who will reach out to you first
if he sees that you're going through a down time in your life.
For everything he is and all he's not,
Godfrey is that one loyal friend I've had for many years
and with whom I can trust my life.
I know this is starting to sound like a little bit
of a love confession I have for Godfrey.
(Laughter)
I get it, I get it.
And I know he's rolling his eyes to the back of his head as we speak.
(Cheers)
(Applause)
Godfrey Gao: Hey guys.
(Applause)
Yeah, um, I've never had another man describe me like that so, um,
DJ: I'm that man.
GG: Thank you, Darren.
Thank you everyone for coming today.
I'm very excited to be here, here at TEDxBangsar.
DJ: So for celebrities or KOLs like Godfrey,
what you guys see in media or social media
is actually a very, very small fraction, a very small glimpse
of who he actually is.
GG: Exactly DJ: right?
GG: As you can see this handsome face,
(Laughter)
um, that is only one side of me, okay.
That's what you see on social media, in TVs and movies, and talk shows.
But here, standing on the stage, talking to you is another side of me
that many of you don't get to see very often,
and like millions of people across the world,
today, are always asking the same questions:
Who am I?
Who are we as individuals?
What do we represent?
And who do we look up to?
This is a big topic because there's a lot of confusion nowadays
with the young generation and the rise of the KOL phenomenon.
Obviously, everyone knows what KOL means:
key opinion leaders, or, you know, the mass influencers,
and these influencers make an impact in the world today through social media.
They could be experts like myself on fashion;
they could be experts like DJ in basketball;
they could be, you know, experts in diet routines or workout routines.
But you don't know what these KOLs go through behind the scenes.
Like myself and like many of you, we go through struggles in life.
We have to get through obstacles and in order to do that,
we need to be very strong and confident.
DJ: [What] you guys see is the picture-perfect Godfrey in media,
but let me tell you, I'm here to spill secrets -
He ain't that perfect.
GG: Exactly. DJ: Right?
GG: Well, no one's perfect, okay.
Even though I like to be a perfectionist,
there are still struggles in life which Darren has seen many of times.
DJ: Oh yeah.
GG: He's seen the angry side of me;
he's seen the happy side; he's seen a lot of sides of me,
but he knows deep down inside, I'm a very, very genuine and good person.
DJ: As a result of Godfrey's profession,
so many people automatically assume and associate him
with this luxurious, glamorous lifestyle and all the perks that come with it,
and trust me, they do exist.
(Laughter)
He's led a very privileged lifestyle.
And media or social media is really good at amplifying that misconception
and leaving us with the impression of his picture-perfect life.
However, as many of us know,
no one is perfect.
In reality, for people like Godfrey,
being in the eyes of the public has become such a huge part of his job,
and it will continue to be a huge part of his life.
His brand has been turned into a commodity,
sold for a price by the industry.
However, for many of us, whether or not it's generating income,
it has become something so much bigger than it actually is,
something that dictates our identity,
or worse yet, something that affects other people's identity.
GG: Exactly.
Young people nowadays, teenagers are following these KOLs on a daily basis.
And not all KOLs are good:
some are bad, some are good, some share positive images,
some share - I don't know what they share online nowadays.
DJ: I don't even want to look.
GG: But yes, you've got to follow the right kind of KOLs,
who makes a positive impact in the world and does good causes.
DJ: Our millennials have become so overly obsessed
about the latest trend of clean eating, healthy dieting,
and don't get us wrong, it all comes from a good place.
It comes from the harmless approach of wanting to lead a healthy lifestyle.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But what gets dangerous, though, is when they let these beliefs
alter their own perception of what being healthy really is.
Case in point: this is a teenager
who is trying to look like her KOL, Angelina Jolie.
She did, ironically.
She did become a social media sensation
because she's been mocked as being the zombie version of Angelina Jolie.
So this is a very extreme case.
Other case studies have also shown
that teenagers are mindlessly following their KOLs' lifestyle and appearances,
even if it means for them to go to extreme measures.
This was well documented by 60 Minutes Australia.
In this clip, a teenage girl was mindlessly following her KOL's looks.
As showcased here on a social media page, everything looks picture-perfect,
but the result:
she ended up suffering a mental disease called orthorexia,
which is the eating disorder combined with an anxiety disorder.
Now she has some serious anger issues towards everything.
She can hardly intake any food or drinks.
It's seriously hurting her health.
GG: I know that feeling, being hangry.
DJ: So all these cases have shown us
that teenagers are actually on the receiving end
from the detrimental damage of mindless pursuit of KOLs' lifestyles.
So what can we do to fix it?
GG: Well, one way
is we must redefine our relationships with KOLs,
instead of mindlessly pursuing these KOLs and copying them.
In addition, we need to find
positive influencers in the world that makes an impact in society -
well, besides myself.
(Laughter)
Darren has a great example that he's going to tell you about.
DJ: So, another case study
on the positive side is LeBron James, the superstar athlete from the NBA.
In 2018, in working with his family foundation,
opened up the I Promise School in Akron Ohio, his hometown,
which is aimed at helping at-risk students,
providing free education, free lunch
and a whole bunch of benefits, basically paving a way
for the younger generation to succeed in life.
DJ: Or,
GG: like the real Angelina Jolie,
DJ: the real one GG: the real version.
She's ambassador for UNICEF, she's an activist
and she has helped out a lot of the refugee camps,
and the list goes on.
And she's the perfect example for a female role model.
DJ: So based on these case studies, what we've learned
is that we're not asking you guys not to follow KOLs.
You can definitely use them for goal setting or benchmarking
GG: and following the right KOLs.
DJ: Absolutely.
So in 2012, since then,
Godfrey and I have been brainstorming about starting up a project
that truly drives positive change in youth movement.
At the time, I had been working
for one of the world's leading sports brands companies,
while Godfrey, being one of the brand's KOLs,
witnessed firsthand with me
how big of an impact
our signature athletes made on the youth.
However, we realized that it'll be equally important
for us to truly inspire the youth
while paving a way for them to become a better version of themselves.
So in 2014, I resigned from my company.
We put our heads together and created this platform called the PB System,
with the very purpose of driving positive change in youth movement.
PB stands for Personal Best.
What we're saying is
becoming "the best" sometimes can be subjective and unattainable,
especially in Asian cultures within which a lot of us grew up in.
Parents tend to exert so much invisible pressure on their kids
to become the best at everything:
in the classrooms, on the sports field, when they take piano lessons.
What we're saying is,
at PB, we should focus more on developing these kids as individuals
and motivating them to become the best version of themselves.
These are just some of the activations that we do throughout the year:
with college campuses, cities,
hosting basketball events.
Through basketball, our common passion,
enable the kids to explore other dimensions of our KOLs,
to set good examples for them,
so that they can be inspired to achieve better life path.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
These images were taken from our events all over China.
But of course, at PB Camp,
which is something that we run every summer,
something magical happens too.
GG: Well, the magical thing is ... we have Ray Allen here.
He was our special guest.
The very famous NBA superstar Ray Allen was at our first basketball camp
in Beijing back in 2014, when we started this.
He was here for 12 days.
Now think about it:
a superstar athlete is hands-on,
on and off the court, for 12 days.
On the court, he was helping kids to be better at themselves
on shooting, dribbling, all those skill sets;
but off the court,
he was teaching kids and telling stories about his experience in his lifetime
for these campers, volunteers and workers.
In this picture, obviously,
made this girl cry because she shared the same story
that he was telling everybody that was at the cafeteria.
DJ: Obviously it looks like she's crying,
but she was just very touched by Ray Allen's inspirational stories
with happy tears.
GG: Yes, happy tears.
DJ: Also, in addition, Godfrey,
whenever we host events in the summertime,
he's actually becoming one of us, one of the campers.
He really gets closer with the audience, which are our campers.
He even goes so far, to the point where he goes into dormitories,
casually dressed up,
wearing a wife-beater with a baseball cap.
He's actually doing team-building exercises
with the kids, inspiring them.
So this is where the magic happens -
the kids not only walk away with our camp
with smiles on their faces,
but they also walk away
with a positive influence from their idols, from their KOLs,
and something inspirational
which would serve them better for the rest of their lives.
So by creating these unprecedented access
and opportunities for the KOLs to get to know our campers,
our kids have shifted the perspective
from mindlessly following their KOL's appearance and lifestyle
to proactively practicing their work ethic, their persistence
and everything that comes along with it.
GG: And more importantly,
we want these kids to feel like they can relate to us,
that they're not afraid to talk to us and share stories with us
because once they do that,
we get to hear them and hear their voices
and we can share our opinions or our experiences in life,
and they love the experiences that they had in our PB System camps.
So to wrap things up, everyone's going to go home,
and we're going to go back to our little boxes, little bubbles,
and everyone's going to see us on TVs or movies or on social media platforms.
But here, at TEDx -
DJ: Here, we're at TEDx today and at all the future PB activations.
We could also be youth movement leaders,
entrepreneurs,
but most importantly, your friends
who are going to hold your hands and change the world together with you.
So with that, let's redefine our relationship with KOLs
GG: and strive to achieve your personal best.
(Applause)