- 14/08/2020
- Category: Commentaries
Even in the era of global connectivity, forming an online activism movement in China is not the same as most countries in the world. China has the so-called cyber sovereignty policy, which allows the country to have the freedom to control the internet within their borders, including censoring[1]“. Often, sensitive online discourse or topics are blocked even in the local social media such as WeChat messaging, Weibo, Baidu and Youku. Those are the local version of WhatsApp, Twitter, Google and YouTube. Interestingly, the limitation makes activism movements happen creatively through hilarious and satirical internet war.
This article discusses how memes are forming alliances that lead to the activism movement outside China’s FireWall Censorship. Moreover, this article also explained how the Chinese government saw the satire activism movement on the internet as a threat.
Popular culture the best way of forming alliances?
Recently the forming of Pan-Asia Milk Tea Alliance erupted on the internet. Those social media users who separated by thousands of kilometers in physical distance, innovated the hashtag “milk tea is thicker than blood.” It became the first transnational geopolitical internet war between Thais and Chinese[2]. It is also the first-time netizens experience Thailand, Hongkong, Taiwan and other Asian countries joined forces battling China’s online army, which is known as the Wumao Dang or 50 cent army or party. The term Wumao Dang itself is an online insult from internet users to call the propaganda apparatus, who works outside the Firewall censorship to lead the public opinion benefiting the Communist Party of China.
The Milk Tea Alliance started when a Thai actor, Vachirawit Chivaaree liked a photo on Instagram that listed Hongkong as a ‘country.’ This leads to a bomb of comment on his Instagram. However, he later apologized, China’s Weibo users found a posting from his girlfriend with the user name @nnevvy posted about the unpleasant statement about Wuhan and Covid-19 issues. As claimed by the Chinese Weibo users, the account also supports Taiwan Independence. Users on Weibo started to boycott the TV show that is starring Chivaaree and attack their social media account. On the Chinese platform, the hashtag attracted more than 1.4 million posts and some 4 billion views[3], with the hashtag #nnevvy and ThailandInsultsChina.
Source: thediplomat.com
Source: hongkongfp.com
Soon, netizens from Thailand fight back with sarcasm and attack them with the issue of Tiananmen Square and Memes of Winnie the Pooh comparing the cartoon character to Xi Jinping. They also got support from Hong Kong and Taiwan social media users using the hashtag #nnevvy to aid their Thai supporters. Later, the #MilkTeaAlliance became the buzzword on Twitter. It is rooted in the three nation’s famous iced milk teas that do not originate from Mainland China[4].
The questions then, why are memes contagious and sarcasm could help to form alliances? If we trace back to the origin of the term meme coined by Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ (1967), ‘meme’ comes from ancient Greek: ‘mimeme’, meaning imitate thing. The definition later expanded to an act that could convey the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. Similar to memes that transmit, war, also contagious. As Barbara Ehrenreich explains that war spreads from one culture to the next; in other words, the war itself is a self-replicating pattern of behavior. In line with Dawkins’ ‘memeplex’ terminology,’ to survive, a meme may improve its prospect and join together in a mutually supportive manner[5].
Meme as a threat?
From the case of milk tea alliance, we can see that the Chinese government never overlooks the significance of Meme and sarcasm, even it has been conducted entirely online. The ban of internet memes in the view of Chinese leadership suggests that memes inhere a discursive power[6]. Moreover, the Chinese government is not only concerned with the memes or another popular culture form attack inside the country, but also the ‘threat’ outside of the Firewall.
According to a report, in battling the attack and seeking resentment to shape a favorable public opinion from outside, China has prepared 20.000-50.000 police and an additional quarter-million ‘trolls’ to spread pro-Beijing material domestically and abroad. They also run more than 1,200 TikTok channels, producing more than 13.000 videos, viewed by more than 4.8 billion times[7].
From how China’s government intensively investigated the meme attack, we can see that the Meme resembles propaganda in real life. Although it may be communicated sarcastically, Meme has proven to be able to raise awareness of the particular issue and a creative way to form an ally virtually. Memes also can be utilize as the form of war which uses sarcasm and humor laden with pop culture to transmit opinions that are imitated continuously and able to gather allies just like the war in real life.
Author: Yuliana Khong (Project Officer at Partnership Research CfDS)
Editor: Amelinda Pandu Kusumaningtyas (Project Officer at Internal Research CfDS)
[1] Mozur, Paul. (2017). China’s top ideologue calls for tight control of internet. The New York Times: Asia. (online) Accessed at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/world/asia/china-internet-censorship-wang-huning.html on July 10th 2020
[2] Tanakasempipat, Patpicha and Fanny Potkin. (2020). Insta-star wars: China tensions in Southeast Asia flare (online). reuters.com. Accessed at:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-china-internet/insta-star-wars-china-tensions-in-southeast-asia-flare-online-idUSKCN21W11P on July 16th 2020.
[3] Jamed Griffiths. (2020.) Nnevvy: Chinese troll campaign on Twitter exposes a potentially dangerous disconnect with the wider world. (online). CNN.com. Accessed at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/14/asia/nnevvy-china-taiwan-twitter-intl-hnk/index.html on: July 15th 2020
[4] Teixeira, Lauren. (2020). Thais Show How to Beat China’s Online Army. (online).foreignpolicy.com. Accessed at:https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/17/nnevvy-bright-firewall-thailand-china-online-army/ on July 16th 2020
[5] Jordan, Mark A. (2014). What’s In A Meme?. (online).richarddawkins.net. Accessed at:https://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/02/whats-in-a-meme/ on July 15th 2020
[6] Bradley E Wiggins. (2019). The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, and Intertextuality. New York: Routledge
[7] Ascott, Tom. (2020). How memes are becoming the new frontier of information warfare. (online). aspistrategist.org.au. Accessed at: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-memes-are-becoming-the-new-frontier-of-information-warfare/ on July 28th 2020
