5 ms·

> The new horror video game called “Devotion” created an uproar among Chinese netizens when a poster in the game was discovered to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinpi

> The new horror video game called “Devotion” created an uproar among Chinese netizens when a poster in the game was discovered to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinping, by referring to him as “Winnie the Pooh.” What? That's it? Damn. That's nothing. Maybe free speech being rampant breeds thick skins, maybe free speech is a good thing.

judge2020 8y ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855
xfs 8y ago
That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece. My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion in China for its quality but people felt betrayed when they found out they are being played.
- duxup 8y ago
  So is that other content you're talking about actually in there?
  - xfs 8y ago
    I found this link from r/Games to be more informative https://www.spieltimes.com/news/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-moron-found-in-devotion-game-is-being-review-bombed-by-chinese-players/ https://www.spieltimes.com/news/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-m... Again, much cultural context is lost in presenting this issue as merely censoring Winnie the Pooh. Remember, the Winnie the Pooh meme was invented by Chinese netizens to mock Xi. They continue to do so, but things stop being fun and games when the meme is used to mock themselves.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  Nope it could be just that. There’s a lot of weirdness in China about Winnie the Pooh because the dictator in charge there is sensitive about his physical resemblance to the character. You can google it and find lots of articles about it.
  - arthurcolle 8y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&oq=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&aqs=chrome..69i57.4304j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&o... Really not seeing any resemblance... ?
    - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
- jojojojos 8y ago
  Taiwanese here, I can tell you it's mostly just that - they make fun of Xi's appearance. But since the joke and the term "Winnie the Pooh" is entirely blocked in China, which is totally absurd, it becomes a meta joke about China's twisted policy, implicitly.
hungryhobo 8y ago
or you know, just a marketing campaign cause Westerners just eat up the big bad china narrative
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  I can see that assumption if you shield your whole country with a great firewall.
- SN76477 8y ago
  Is China good now?
jlawson 8y ago
Exposure to difficult, foreign ideas builds up the coping skills to handle dealing with those ideas. People who have been kept in an ideological bubble for their whole lives have conditioned-in panic/rage responses to ideas that go against the assumptions they've been taught to see as universal moral foundations. This isn't a bug; these responses are conditioned into people on purpose by the memeplex in order to make it less likely the believer will become infected with competing memes. You see this clearly in Chinese student facing Taiwan discussions, or American students from any leftist area facing nearly any conservative points of view on any issue. They are conditioned to go into emotional panic mode to prevent the new thoughts from sinking in.
- legacynl 8y ago
  > American students from any leftist area facing nearly any conservative points of view on any issue Lol, I love how you single out the left here, as if the American right is any different, haha
  - jlawson 8y ago
    They are different. The academy, K-12 educational establishment, news and entertainment media are all overwhelmingly ruled by exclusionary leftists. A right-winger cannot avoid massive exposure to their ideas and thus develops coping strategies. Left-wingers, on the other hand, can easily reach adulthood without ever having to actually think about and grapple with an argument against e.g. abortion or mass immigration.
hitekker 8y ago
My friends from the mainland call these people 愤青, which means "young jingoistic men". Any sleight against China and they’ll come in droves: screeching, gibbering, and proclaiming the eternal glory of the lunar kingdom (and its subsidiaries). These trolls just want to feel big. Bullying other countries make them feel big. Especially when the smaller country in question the one they dream of conquering.
- ionised 8y ago
  Your entire post also perfectly describes most Americans I encounter on social media. I think it's just young uneducated idiots, taking credit for the accomplishments of their nation that they personally had no part in to try to convince people they argue with online that they aren't as insecure as they obviously are. It's an inferiority complex.
  - z2 8y ago
    There's a quote I can't find that echoed this, from a former ultra-nationalist, who said she, despite being unemployed, in a rut, etc., was still a citizen of her country, and so she clung to vocal nationalism for a sense of desperately-needed purpose.
    - ionised 8y ago
      Not sure who you are referring to, but there is a great Schopenhauer quote along the same lines: The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellow men. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. – Arthur Schopenhauer Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
wodenokoto 8y ago
I believe Jinping made it illegal to compare him to Winnie the Pooh and at one point you could barely talk about Winnie on Weibo because it was censored.
glasslion 8y ago
It's not about referring Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, it's about puting Xi Jinping's name on 'a poster with an ancient style Taoist seal' to curse him. I do not believe this is related to free speech because the font used in seal are rarely use today， most people can not recognize them.

judge2020 8y ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855

xfs 8y ago

That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece. My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion in China for its quality but people felt betrayed when they found out they are being played.

duxup 8y ago
So is that other content you're talking about actually in there?
- xfs 8y ago
  I found this link from r/Games to be more informative https://www.spieltimes.com/news/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-moron-found-in-devotion-game-is-being-review-bombed-by-chinese-players/ https://www.spieltimes.com/news/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-m... Again, much cultural context is lost in presenting this issue as merely censoring Winnie the Pooh. Remember, the Winnie the Pooh meme was invented by Chinese netizens to mock Xi. They continue to do so, but things stop being fun and games when the meme is used to mock themselves.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
Nope it could be just that. There’s a lot of weirdness in China about Winnie the Pooh because the dictator in charge there is sensitive about his physical resemblance to the character. You can google it and find lots of articles about it.
- arthurcolle 8y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&oq=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&aqs=chrome..69i57.4304j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&o... Really not seeing any resemblance... ?
  - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
jojojojos 8y ago
Taiwanese here, I can tell you it's mostly just that - they make fun of Xi's appearance. But since the joke and the term "Winnie the Pooh" is entirely blocked in China, which is totally absurd, it becomes a meta joke about China's twisted policy, implicitly.

hungryhobo 8y ago

or you know, just a marketing campaign cause Westerners just eat up the big bad china narrative

raxxorrax 8y ago
I can see that assumption if you shield your whole country with a great firewall.
SN76477 8y ago
Is China good now?

jlawson 8y ago

Exposure to difficult, foreign ideas builds up the coping skills to handle dealing with those ideas. People who have been kept in an ideological bubble for their whole lives have conditioned-in panic/rage responses to ideas that go against the assumptions they've been taught to see as universal moral foundations. This isn't a bug; these responses are conditioned into people on purpose by the memeplex in order to make it less likely the believer will become infected with competing memes. You see this clearly in Chinese student facing Taiwan discussions, or American students from any leftist area facing nearly any conservative points of view on any issue. They are conditioned to go into emotional panic mode to prevent the new thoughts from sinking in.

legacynl 8y ago
> American students from any leftist area facing nearly any conservative points of view on any issue Lol, I love how you single out the left here, as if the American right is any different, haha
- jlawson 8y ago
  They are different. The academy, K-12 educational establishment, news and entertainment media are all overwhelmingly ruled by exclusionary leftists. A right-winger cannot avoid massive exposure to their ideas and thus develops coping strategies. Left-wingers, on the other hand, can easily reach adulthood without ever having to actually think about and grapple with an argument against e.g. abortion or mass immigration.

hitekker 8y ago

My friends from the mainland call these people 愤青, which means "young jingoistic men". Any sleight against China and they’ll come in droves: screeching, gibbering, and proclaiming the eternal glory of the lunar kingdom (and its subsidiaries). These trolls just want to feel big. Bullying other countries make them feel big. Especially when the smaller country in question the one they dream of conquering.

ionised 8y ago
Your entire post also perfectly describes most Americans I encounter on social media. I think it's just young uneducated idiots, taking credit for the accomplishments of their nation that they personally had no part in to try to convince people they argue with online that they aren't as insecure as they obviously are. It's an inferiority complex.
- z2 8y ago
  There's a quote I can't find that echoed this, from a former ultra-nationalist, who said she, despite being unemployed, in a rut, etc., was still a citizen of her country, and so she clung to vocal nationalism for a sense of desperately-needed purpose.
  - ionised 8y ago
    Not sure who you are referring to, but there is a great Schopenhauer quote along the same lines: The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellow men. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. – Arthur Schopenhauer Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

wodenokoto 8y ago

I believe Jinping made it illegal to compare him to Winnie the Pooh and at one point you could barely talk about Winnie on Weibo because it was censored.

glasslion 8y ago

It's not about referring Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, it's about puting Xi Jinping's name on 'a poster with an ancient style Taoist seal' to curse him. I do not believe this is related to free speech because the font used in seal are rarely use today， most people can not recognize them.