Lily Tran Takes Her Personal Culture Viral
By Kelli Luu | 26 May, 2025

With comedy gold and relatable culture commentary, Lily Tran joins us to talk content creation, cultural pride and mixing humor with her Chinese-Vietnamese heritage.

Kelli Luu (00:01)

Lily Tran is that girl who would joke about a $25 bowl of pho that tastes like cinnamon water one day, then drop a beauty routine the next. Her 165,000 TikTok followers are raving over her relatable videos, and today she's here to talk culture, confidence, and what really goes on behind the scenes as a content creator. Welcome, Lily Tran, hello.

Lily Tran (00:22)

Thank you for having me.

Kelli Luu (00:23)

Of

course! Welcome everybody. Thank you all for being here with us today. I'm Kelli Luu and we're gonna get into Lily's journey today. So from the very beginning. What was your I'm gonna start taking social media seriously.

Lily Tran (00:35)

honestly it just happened by chance my first video ever was actually a video of my dad that I posted on tik tok in 2020 and it actually went viral for 2020 it had maybe like 160,000 views or something like that but it was the caption was Vietnamese man tries American condiments for the first time and he's eating ketchup

Kelli Luu (00:39)

Really?

Right.

You

Lily Tran (01:02)

as soup like in you know like the Asian bowls with like an Asian spoon and he's been eating it like soup I introduced him to ketchup when I made him like baked potatoes and he was like my god yeah he was like this is amazing and I guess it it you know the algorithm pushed it out to ⁓ other Asian Americans and people thought it was funny and I was like wow I can't believe this went viral it was my first video ever and so I started just posting

Kelli Luu (01:05)

Yes. ⁓

my gosh.

And he liked it that much.

Lily Tran (01:31)

more kind of leaning towards like the Asian side of things,

I mean I'm Asian American and being Asian American is such a big part of my identity and so it's something that comes natural to me, you know, like speaking about my experiences, sharing my experiences ⁓ it's the same thing as hanging out with your friends and sharing your home experiences so it kind of just came natural to me,

Kelli Luu (01:56)

Yeah, Okay,

so now at this time in your life, how do you decide what is worth turning into content?

Lily Tran (02:02)

I think that I love content creation because you kind of have full control over what you do and I am just someone with a lot of passions so I love fashion, I love beauty but I also love food and I'm also such- I'm so Vietnamese and I kind of just do whatever I want ⁓ and I think that a lot of-

the type of content I do might not be marketable or might not be smart, you know? like a lot of people like to stick to a niche but I don't know, life is just too short and if I think of content creating as purely a job I would lose a lot of the joy

Kelli Luu (02:39)

yeah, it's an amazing place to because you just express yourself, and you get to share your life, you get so vulnerable, and especially with your content too, it is relatable, but it's very vulnerable content that not everybody's gonna get, and you're just still putting it out there. Have you ever deleted a video, because you thought it was too personal,

Lily Tran (02:56)

I actually haven't. A lot of my videos I'm kind of embarrassed of and I can't look back at my old videos. I never watch my old videos. Just because they're cringe and a lot of them were made pre fully developed brain. So they're just kind of cringe but it's also like a little time stamp of who you were in that point in time. And so I kind of just I leave it up there and

Kelli Luu (03:01)

haha

Lily Tran (03:20)

I leave it up there because you know full embrace and I do I think the vulnerable topics I've touched on topics that should be out there you know I think that a lot of us are

Kelli Luu (03:24)

It's a part of

For sure.

Lily Tran (03:33)

We didn't have a lot of community depending on where you were born and And so we find community online and so these topics I want to keep

Kelli Luu (03:39)

the Asian American community online is so strong,

So how do your parents feel about your content and social media presence?

Lily Tran (03:46)

They actually support me. They actually don't watch my videos because both of them don't have social media. But they're very Asian, so they're like, if you make money off of this, then that's all that matters. Yeah.

Kelli Luu (03:48)

nice.

Yeah.

Hey. that's

you said they're very Vietnamese. So they're more traditional, I'm sure. that's really nice that they support you still. A lot of traditional parents would just be like, no, go get your engineering, go get your doctor job.

Lily Tran (04:11)

no,

chose my school for me, they chose my major, and they said, hey, so I went to Portland State University, it's a commuter college, and I commuted every day from home. So I lived at home throughout college, and I was a computer science major. My dad chose my major for me. And my siblings are in medicine.

Kelli Luu (04:15)

Where did you go?

Nice.

Okay.

Lily Tran (04:32)

and I was a software engineer for four years I got laid off last year but I think because I did what they wanted my whole life now I kind of have the freedom to do what I want to do and I'm also out of the house so they don't feel responsible like if I mess up if I fail at whatever they're not responsible for it they did their jobs I got their degree I left and then yeah that's why they're supportive

Kelli Luu (04:34)

Wow!

Yeah.

I see.

Right.

OK. So are you full time content creating now?

Lily Tran (05:03)

I am

Kelli Luu (05:03)

what's something that you wish people knew about your culture that's more talked about?

Lily Tran (05:08)

I wish people understood how different Vietnam is now. I feel like if you interview the general public in the US, what they think about Vietnam, I think a lot of them would think about the war. ⁓ And I think a lot of them would picture a very poor nation with like

Kelli Luu (05:28)

Right.

Lily Tran (05:28)

know, impoverished and everything. It's one of the fastest growing countries in the world, fastest growing GDPs, and it's definitely a developing country now. And there's so much beauty, ⁓ there's so much beauty in it, so much great food and culture, great people. I think just the nature alone in Vietnam is enough for someone. ⁓

Kelli Luu (05:33)

you

Yeah.

Lily Tran (05:53)

to want to visit but I think a lot of it is unknown for people I think a lot of people just hear Southeast Asia and they think poor, desolate, I shouldn't visit slums, you know? just a misconception of what Asia is like obviously there are people that grew up poor in these countries and some people aren't as lucky as others ⁓ but I think generalizing

Kelli Luu (06:04)

Right, yeah.

Alright, of course.

Lily Tran (06:16)

countries like that is very damaging.

Kelli Luu (06:19)

do you feel a lot of pressure that you're representing your community when you're posting as an influencer?

Lily Tran (06:26)

I do and I don't because I do like to post more light-hearted comedic stuff ⁓ and it feels a little bit tricky to for me as a Vietnamese American ⁓ because there's there are some groups of people that are still like you know more hostile towards other groups like

Kelli Luu (06:34)

Right.

Lily Tran (06:49)

like Vietnamese Americans fly the three-stripe flag, but that's not ⁓ really considered to be a legitimate flag in the mainland Vietnam. And I know people personally, first-generation Vietnamese Americans here that have negative views towards Vietnamese people.

Kelli Luu (06:58)

Right,

Lily Tran (07:11)

and Vietnam as a country just because they're very like anti-communist and there's definitely still some hostility from the war and I think that's the most apparent in first generation but I wouldn't say I am representative of Vietnamese people maybe Vietnamese Americans just because there's a lot of unfamiliarities

Kelli Luu (07:35)

Right.

Lily Tran (07:35)

with the culture in Vietnam and ⁓ it's just not growing up in Vietnam and only having visited like once I don't really fully understand ⁓ and my language sucks as well and I also don't want to offend anyone so I usually keep my content pretty lighthearted you know you like you'll put the the national flag in like a video and then there will be

Kelli Luu (07:59)

Great.

Lily Tran (08:00)

Vietnamese Americans that are pissed off. Like that's not our flag. Or I'll say Ho Chi Minh City. Someone will be mad because it should be Saigon. Like you can never really please both sides so I try to keep things lighthearted because I just want everyone to love each other. Yeah.

Kelli Luu (08:02)

I see.

Right, it's...

⁓ yeah.

I love that. So what is one thing that you grew up being embarrassed about that you now share and are proud of on-

Lily Tran (08:25)

my lips for one yes I used to be so insecure about my lips and I think a lot of Southeast Asians have thicker lips ⁓ and I used to like suck them in like for photos and stuff I have a video that that I posted about this I went years like hiding my lips and then putting concealer on them to try to make them look smaller

Kelli Luu (08:27)

Really?

Right, yeah.

No.

And it's like crazy. Now everybody wants big lips.

Lily Tran (08:53)

And now you like

I mean I could go on and on about representation and stuff in the media back in the day but I definitely did not like my lips when I was younger ⁓ and I wore eyelid tape eyelid glue as well when I was a kid not even a kid like early high like I wanted these

big eyelids ⁓ and I wasn't happy with with how small my eyes are and stuff like that and these are things that I've learned to love about myself as I got older, think one from maturity and two from increased representation and realizing wait I'm not ugly

Kelli Luu (09:33)

Yeah, literally. know. Yeah, I know. Definitely. I

think so many people can relate to that. ⁓ So my next question is pretty generic, but I always like to ask, have you ever felt too Asian or not Asian enough, especially within the influencer space?

Lily Tran (09:38)

yeah, for sure.

I think that moving to New York, I oftentimes don't feel Asian enough. lot, yeah, a lot of Asian people here, and I live in Long Island City, a lot of Asian people here are first generation, international Asian people. And I'm like, you can tell the style differences as well, like the way they do their makeup.

Kelli Luu (09:52)

Okay.

In New York?

Okay.

Mm. I see. Yeah.

Like the fashion. Okay.

⁓

Lily Tran (10:14)

fashion,

makeup, their hair, and their fluency in their native language. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and there's not a ton of diversity in Portland. It's growing a lot. But when I was growing up, we mostly just had Southeast Asians, a lot of Vietnamese people, all second generation. So we were all very Americanized.

Kelli Luu (10:21)

huh.

Lily Tran (10:33)

and then I lived in LA for a little bit and the Asians I met also pretty Americanized, second generation and then I moved to New York and I feel like a lot of people are first generation they have very strong ties to their country just because that's where they were born and raised and I think this year is when I started to realize how disconnected I actually am

despite having Vietnamese parents and being introduced in the culture, I definitely am more disconnected than I want to be, not being able to grow up in Vietnam and stuff like that. But yeah, I feel so American here.

Kelli Luu (11:01)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Is there a Vietnamese community in where you are now?

Lily Tran (11:18)

there's a very small one there's not a ton of Vietnamese people in New York and ⁓ I think I feel like I know like 20 % of the Vietnamese population in New York City

Kelli Luu (11:30)

okay, that's good. So you have your own little community. Have you ever seen people online, like, I know you like said like about the flags and everything, but have you ever seen people misinterpret things when they're trying to celebrate Asian culture?

Lily Tran (11:40)

Mm-hmm.

the lunar new year vs chinese new year debate for sure

Kelli Luu (11:51)

Okay, so let's get into that.

Lily Tran (11:53)

I see both sides ⁓ and I think that there's a lot of xenophobia in the world and a lot of people trying to erase Chinese culture and rebranding it as a different culture you see it all the time you see it in Tanghulu a lot of clothing foods you know came from China China is a creator of matcha but now people only think of Japan a lot of stuff gets rebranded as to other cultures

Kelli Luu (11:55)

Okay.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Right?

think it, yeah.

Lily Tran (12:19)

so I understand why people emphasize that this is Chinese New Year I think that a lot of people don't have bad intentions at all like when I say Lunar New Year it's because that's just what people say to me when I was learning English and I was like ⁓ okay I'll just say Lunar New Year that makes sense we call it tet other people that aren't Chinese you know celebrate ⁓ this holiday as well and so I just say Lunar New Year to be exclusive ⁓ and then I learned

Kelli Luu (12:31)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. yeah.

Great.

Lily Tran (12:45)

that the reason why we should say, call it Chinese New Year, is to honor the origins, and I get that too. But I think that a lot of people have more of a maybe like combative approach. they assume that people are saying Lunar New Year are doing it out of hatred. When they probably didn't really think much of it at all. And so...

Kelli Luu (13:02)

I'm ready.

Lily Tran (13:07)

there were some people that were like, it's Chinese New Year, not Lunar New Year, you know? and I'm like, I get it, I totally get it but I'm not trying to be hostile I'm not trying to insult anyone I just said Lunar New Year, I'm sorry I know it's Chinese but I think in this case, a lot of people I feel like most people know that this holiday comes from China

Kelli Luu (13:12)

⁓ my gosh.

Okay.

I don't...

Okay, I'm glad we touched on that. I also want to get into a little bit about your beauty and fashion content. So tell me if your cultural background influences the way that you approach beauty and skincare.

Lily Tran (13:44)

It does now. I use a lot of Korean beauty

Kelli Luu (13:45)

Okay, now.

Lily Tran (13:48)

And I actually love Chinese makeup.

Kelli Luu (13:52)

Chinese brands? Okay. Oh, okay, they the style, the style of it.

Lily Tran (13:53)

⁓ like douyin makeup ⁓ like like

the style of makeup i love it and i think it really suits my face but i'm influenced from other influencers when it comes to this ⁓ i i learned that asian style makeup suits my face a lot more than western style of course it does it's this is why i love social media and stuff like this it's it's teaching us a lot of stuff i would have been so much

Kelli Luu (14:17)

You can learn so

much.

Lily Tran (14:19)

I would have been a lot prettier if I had TikTok back in the day. I was an ugly kid. I learned how to do my makeup properly as an adult because of TikTok. But yeah, Asian makeup for Asian faces.

Kelli Luu (14:23)

Yeah ⁓

Okay, so what's a beauty secret that Western influencers are now just catching on to

Lily Tran (14:38)

Gua Sha is one of them. Yeah. really easily. I hold a lot of water retention in my face. And I can see immediate differences as they're Gua Sha-ing.

Kelli Luu (14:39)

Like, okay, interesting.

Lily Tran (14:49)

I think it's ancient. Yeah, I think it came from China way back

Kelli Luu (14:50)

It's ancient, huh? Yeah.

Okay, do you feel like Asian beauty is now finally being spotlighted? Or is it just trendy?

Lily Tran (15:03)

I don't like trendy I don't like the word trendy because I feel like the word trendy really just means the Westerners are now caught on but these have been around forever you know it's like it's like those videos trendy foods that are not it and someone tried matcha they didn't like it I'm like matcha is not trendy it's been around forever you know like we've been drinking it forever

Kelli Luu (15:06)

Yeah.

That was like... ⁓

Yeah.

Lily Tran (15:27)

just because

the Westerners now know what match is doesn't mean it's trending

I think it's being spotlighted. I think I'm an optimist. I think it might be annoying at first, know, like the local restaurants you've been going to your whole lives ⁓ now are now popular, now you have to wait, now it's more expensive. And it might be annoying at first, but I think in general this is a very good thing. You know, because we went from being made fun, we were made fun of for our foods and now...

Kelli Luu (15:40)

are now popular.

I love it.

Lily Tran (15:56)

people love it and you could have a negative attitude towards it or you could realize that this is a very good thing and it's change and it's growth

Kelli Luu (16:05)

Yeah, definitely. Okay. Well, we're almost to the end. I only have a couple more questions for you. So in five years, do you see yourself in front of the camera or doing something different?

Lily Tran (16:17)

I hope to still be in front of the camera. This is just what I love to do. Whether that's like social media or like being an actor. I just, I love the arts and we need more Asian artists too. Yeah.

Kelli Luu (16:29)

We do.

I hope in five years you're still doing it. So this is my final question. If somebody only had 30 seconds to scroll through your Instagram feed, what would you want them to take away?

Lily Tran (16:41)

Oh my god, that's such a difficult question to answer. Maybe that I'm someone who loves who I am and loves my culture and wants to spread positivity.

Kelli Luu (16:54)

that will definitely, that will catch on to them immediately, so for sure. Thank you so much, Lily, for sharing your story with Gold Sea. I appreciate your time. It's been a pleasure speaking to you.

Lily Tran (16:58)

my gosh, you're the best. You're the best.

You too, thank you so much.