A little bit of context (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy)

In 2019, competitive Hearthstone player Blitzchung was removed from a tournament and banned from future tournaments for displaying a sign saying "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" in accordance with Blizzard's policy against political protest during events

Now that they've Targeted Gamers, there was a massive outrage, and the hearthstone community got pissed, so they protested in the following ways:

-Pretending to delete their account

-Preparing for some big protest at Blizzcon

-Some weird scheme to associate Overwatch's Chinese character Mei with Hong Kong protests, in hopes of getting Overwatch censored in China (obviously didn't do anything, based on the myth that Winnie the Pooh is banned in China)

-And most importantly, making big posts about how mad they are

Eventually, Blizzcon rolled around, no protest materialized, and they announced Overwatch 2, so everyone let this die, everyone let Hong Kong be forgotten. A stunning example of Reddit activism, I'll never forget it

  • Ezze [hy/hym,they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I had to stop talking to someone I played World of Warcraft with for several years over this. It was like something broke inside of them, and they began sending Xi Winnie-the-pooh memes to me, and all they could talk about were the Uyghur death camps and how Tencent was subverting American democracy or something.

    I still don't know what the point of the Hong Kong protests was or what they accomplished.

    (Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou is from Xi’an, PRC, not Hong Kong, and is fiercely loyal to the CCP since they funded her education(as they do for all citizens of China in the year 2070) and provided for her research grants.)

    • bananon [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Bruh I thought Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou was a real person in Hong Kong politics. I google her and its just Mei from fucking Overwatch

      • Ezze [hy/hym,they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/dfizf2/overwatch_hero_mei_is_becoming_a_hong_kong/

        The top post of all time on the Overwatch subreddit too.

        They wanted to turn the one Chinese character in the game into an anti-CCP reactionary.

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      IIRC the points of the protests were:

      • to get a bill withdrawn that would have established an extradition treaty between China and HK ahead of schedule (this is happening in 2047 anyway)
      • to reform the political system in HK such that a large share of the government are not appointed by corporations (based)
      • to get investigations into police brutality (based if pointless)
      • to achieve amnesty for all arrested protesters (based but not gonna happen)
      • to get them to stop calling the protests "riots" (pointless)

      From talking to people who immigrated from HK and still have family there, the protesters generally wanted some good things, the problem was that the US will use any opening it can as a wedge issue. About half didn't support the protesters because "they caused too much property damage" or fought back against the cops.

      In terms of actual results, there was an election and a "pro-democracy" group won in a landslide... except for all the seats that are appointed by corps. I don't think any of the demands were actually achieved but I'll admit that I haven't been paying attention. In the early days of COVID, HK police shut down any large gatherings, and I think the movement just kind of died from there.