Really weird (/s) how quickly it went from a couple of Chinese tourists asking politely not be filmed to the guy embracing the racist Winnie the Pooh stereotype and talking about how oppressed Hong Kong and Taiwan are.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    hexbear
    65
    5 months ago

    The Winnie the Pooh thing is just such nonsense to me. Even if we're going to pretend that it's banned in China and if you post it you get sent to an organ harvesting factory how in the fuck is it a valid form of protest while safely in the west? They aren't even burning them in effigy. It's just like the "ARE YOU TRIGGERED YET?" bullshit but for turbolibs. The bears are probably made in China. Fucking idiots.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      hexbear
      51
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      It's not even a good caricature. You're saying Xi Jinping is a very polite bear who eats honey and has lots of friends? Everyone loves Pooh, so the only comparison I can see is racist. They'd rather call Xi Jinping a bunch of slurs

      Libs all think they're Charlie Chaplin dunking on Hitler, or like I don't know...Dante putting all his political enemies in hell

      • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
        hexbear
        28
        5 months ago

        It's 100% a "u mad bro?" thing. They do it because they think it pisses Xi off.

      • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
        hexbear
        13
        5 months ago

        The original meme that sparked all this was when someone compared a photo of Xi and Obama walking together with a photo of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger walking together

        No points for guessing who was who

        That one got iirc banned from Chinese social media but not Winnie the Pooh overall

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      hexbear
      30
      5 months ago

      if you post it you get sent to an organ harvesting factory

      ASPI has exclusive photographic evidence of that organ harvesting factory:

      Show

    • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
      hexbear
      21
      5 months ago

      It genuinely is the most brainwormed and pathetic thing. Worse than the 'ok' symbol thr right briefly popularized and then had the lubs freak out over.

      In a way it is sort of fascinating though as a sort of expression of zombie politics. It's a sort of performative political act for in-group people and a countries where there is no real ideology in politics and they'll never actually any kind of tyranical oppression.

  • duderium [he/him]
    hexbear
    51
    5 months ago

    We live in a free country, mate! Not like communist CHINA!

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    hexbear
    50
    5 months ago

    i don't know if it's funny or depressing the way western media convinces rubes they're "speaking to power" by soapboxing against state enemies in their own country.

    a) how is Xi affected by this action b) how are you at risk for this action

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      hexbear
      39
      5 months ago

      a) Xi is crying himself to sleep every night because of the memes

      b) Xi could steal my feet pics with his team of elite hackers

  • Magician [he/him, they/them]
    hexbear
    40
    5 months ago

    Oh yeah, it was weird reading the comments on reddit-logo .

    Like people saying 'fuck the ccp' as though it meant something. Or that a few people asking not to be filmed represented the whole Chinese government.

    It's terrifying that the US has a division of the military dedicated to killing people remotely with drones and such an easily manipulated population who would do so on Reddit in a heartbeat.

  • jackmarxist [any]
    hexbear
    32
    5 months ago

    Didn't the UK literally arrest people for protesting against the monarchy?

  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
    hexbear
    31
    5 months ago

    Fucking weird idiot. And those Chinese are painfully naive to still be visiting Anglo countries that hate them and do shit like this all the time.

    • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      39
      5 months ago

      Chinese scientists and researchers are already starting to leave the west in significant numbers, and this trend is probably going to accelerate

      Western racism will help china deal with brain drain the same way their sanctions helped russia become more self sufficient

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      hexbear
      8
      5 months ago

      Those Chinese people should have studied up on English culture and resolved this situation the traditional way: with a knife in an alley.

  • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
    hexbear
    31
    5 months ago

    "From that Reddit post the other day"

    Wait we're still using Reddit? I have no idea what the context is

  • D61 [any]
    hexbear
    27
    5 months ago

    On this week's episode of "I used to be a Progressive but now..."

  • What_Religion_R_They [none/use name]
    hexbear
    24
    5 months ago

    If you watch the original video it's apparent. He calls them Japanese even after they say they're Chinese (they're waving Chinese flags btw), and says other deranged shit.

  • @DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    hexbear
    5
    5 months ago

    Winnie the Pooh is now racist? I could have sworn it was just a jab at the Chinese president because he hates it.

    • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
      hexbear
      43
      5 months ago

      The president of China having strong feelings about Winnie the Pooh is on my top ten list of things that are definitely real.

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        hexbear
        22
        5 months ago

        Xi Jinping is a brutal totalitarian autocrat who hates Winnie the Pooh but allows this to exist at Shanghai Disney:

        Show

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      39
      5 months ago

      haha chinese president is yellow animal because he's totalitarian (i love my political system founded by slave owners which produces millions of homeless people; it is a paragon of freedom and efficiency)

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      hexbear
      33
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      It was originally Chinese people comparing Xi and Obama to the characters because of the way they walked. That’s fine. But then westerners decided to make it some protest symbol.

      Would you agree that political cartoons depicting Obama with big monkey ears and lips are racist even if political cartoons caricaturize all their subjects to the extreme?

      • Awoo [she/her]
        hexbear
        18
        5 months ago

        If black people had made those cartoons originally it would just be black people doing something that's ok among black people. For example it's not particularly uncommon for black people to call black shoplifters a bunch of animals or apes or whatever. They're not doing it racially they're using it because they're just calling them animals. Same shit I do about football hooligans wrecking the town.

        It completely changes context when it's white people saying it.

    • coeliacmccarthy [he/him]
      hexbear
      29
      5 months ago

      yeah xi lies awake at night seething over some fucking racist nerds on the other side of the planet memeing that he looks like an archaic cartoon bear

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
        hexbear
        24
        5 months ago

        This is always so funny to me. Xi is the president of the most populated country on earth, and a state enemy to half the world. And yet what really bothers him are reddit memes

        • Tachanka [comrade/them]
          hexbear
          25
          5 months ago

          a state enemy to half the world

          that "half" is more like the richest 20% of countries lol.

        • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
          hexbear
          18
          5 months ago

          They must think Xi is as mentally and emotionally fragile as Elon Musk

    • emizeko [they/them]
      hexbear
      25
      5 months ago

      the original meme that was reportedly censored used a picture of Xi as Pooh and Obama as a character whose name rhymes with the N word

      • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
        hexbear
        8
        5 months ago

        The potential of it causing diplomatic issues with it possibly being a racist meme targeted at Obama was the exact reason it was proactively censored.

    • PeeOnYou [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
      hexbear
      10
      5 months ago

      i never actually got the connection before now.. i just thought it was because he's kinda chubby and pooh is a little bit dopey.. didn't realize the yellow thing at all.. wow

      • commiewithoutorgans [he/him, comrade/them]
        hexbear
        14
        5 months ago

        Originally it was a meme about the way he and Obama looked while walking in a picture, and was innocuous. It began to be used as a way to refer to Xi Jinping in negative propaganda without directly putting his face on it and grew the racist connotations implicitly quickly after by new users of the meme, and the explicit usage with dog-whistled racism followed quickly thereafter with the excuse "we only do it because he doesn't like it."

        If I had to guess he didn't care and maybe found it funny originally (if he even saw it early on) but using a caricature for politics instead of good critique is dumb and good to ban. And that's all this was

        • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
          hexbear
          7
          5 months ago

          thinking about this stupid online phenomenon more generally, i dunno if westerners will ever realize that:

          1. nobody in china or russia gives a shit about winnie the pooh or putler memes

          2. posting such memes isn't going to stop the relative decline of the west

          3. their own governments are much greater threats to their personal well-being than china or russia

          • commiewithoutorgans [he/him, comrade/them]
            hexbear
            3
            5 months ago

            I see it as a result of the way that imperialism gives Americans the feeling that whatever they do is influential because of the status given through imperialism. A hybrid which grows every time America announces that they will do something on the global stage and is received by vassals as god-given words.

            So, no, they won't realize any of that until a significant shift in material circumstances allows for some class consciousness to grow, and that depends on Americans fighting to deepen and work out what that will look like.