Why do North Star Boys want to ‘inspire Asian-Americans’? Popular band on life so far

We speak to the boy band about their work in expanding Asian-American representation, how they met and why ‘the stars aligned’ for them all

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North Star Boys, an Asian-American boy band that have gone viral on social media, in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

Mabel Lui

Published: 7:45am, 14 Dec 2024Updated: 8:03am, 14 Dec 2024

For Asian-American boy band North Star Boys (NSB), aiming for the sky from day one has served them well.

Since forming in 2021, initially as a house of content creators, the eight-person group have garnered an impressive 5.4 million followers on TikTok, 745,000 followers on Instagram and 1.75 million followers on YouTube – plus an additional 156,000 on their YouTube music page.

Their fans, known as “the stars”, eagerly follow the boys’ videos, which include dance skits, challenges, pranks, vlogs and more.

NSB – consisting of Oliver Moy, Sebastian Moy, Tyler Bray, Kane Ratan, Justin Phan, Ryan Nguyen, Darren Liang and Regie Macalino – was initially the brainchild of the Moy brothers, who were already established content creators.

“We saw that there was a lack of Asian-American representation [in the media], especially during that time – 2021 – so we had an idea to create a group of people that can have a good time, make some content, inspire other people and just share our joy, share our journey,” Sebastian Moy says.

North Star Boys in Causeway Bay, in Hong Kong. They are an Asian-American boy band that have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram. Photo: Dickson Lee

The Moy brothers connected with Bray and his brother Ratan, who met the rest of NSB’s members – many had already dabbled in content creation – in the US state of Texas. Within two weeks of everyone agreeing to take part, all the members had packed their bags to move to Los Angeles.