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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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To be clear, it is overwhelmingly Westerners that wish to depict a Chinese man as a yellow bear. You can talk about Pooh, just not in the way westerners tend to want to.
As for the Social Credit system, the version reported in western media is false and exaggerated. There is a credit system, but it's largely for businesses and other social entities, not some Orwellian big brother system.
Really? Because all sources that I can find trace the origin to Xi’s visit to the Philippines back in 2017.
http://hongkongfp.com/2018/11/20/filipinos-flood-social-media-winnie-pooh-memes-xi-jinping-visits-manila/
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2018/11/21/2003704655
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/11/21/1870392/winning-pooh-images-flood-social-media-xi-jinping-arrives
It originated as a group picture of Obama as Tigger with Xi as Pooh in 2013, not 2017. Your own sources dispute what you're saying. What has come from that isn't a continuation of that trend of group pictures, but a singular insistence of depicting a Chinese man as a yellow bear.
First paragraph from your source. China blocks it to prevent bloggers in China from making the comparison (kinda hard for them to block it on Facebook as China does not have control there). That's also where this meme started.
I'm also fairly certain that Pooh having yellow fur is mostly just coincidental (it'd be a bit surprising if Chinese citizens created a racist meme against another Chinese man). The offensiveness of the meme is much more related to Pooh being quite dim and just general fatshaming, not racism. That's not to say you can't use the meme in a racist way, just that the origins seemingly aren't racist.
In my understanding the racist part of the original meme is the Obama been Tigger(one letter away from the N word)
Really?! Unsurprising, but that makes the entire thing even worse.
Hmm, could be. Although the meme did take off way more with Xi than it ever did with Obama. And other comparisons were made with Eeyore and Piglet, which iirc were mostly due to facial expressions and choice of clothing (it was a shorter lady wearing pink I believe).
But I hadn't thought of that connection yet. I figured it was mostly physical resemblance (posture and size).
I'm aware that it's China that takes down the racist caricatures. The meme started more innocently, with Pooh being Xi and Tigger being Obama. This turned into western users overwhelmingly sticking with Xi as Pooh. The origins and what stuck are different entirely in intent and character.
But as far as I know China isn't taking down Obama-Tigger comparisons. So Chinese netizens are also sticking with the Xi-Pooh comparison (otherwise China wouldn't bother taking it down anymore), which doesn't seem to match with what you're describing as likely intent, nor with who is making the comparisons.
You seem pretty convinced it's mostly racist westerners using the meme, but do you have anything other than a gut feeling to back this up? Because the actions of the Chinese government seem to suggest it's mostly a domestic problem to them. And for those Chinese users it seems to have taken off as a way to avoid the censors (which is now ineffective, and has morphed into a point of principle).
I missed that. Thanks. So does that meme from the west outweigh Xi’s entire Philippino welcoming and barrage of memes, prompting the banning of the word Pooh in Chinese media, justify your claim that it’s overwhelmingly Westerners?
"Pooh" is not banned in China. Taking down racist attacks against Xi happend prior to the visit to the Phillipines, read your own articles. Some users used it in the Phillipines to protest Xi because the racist caricatures were taken down, which was a western thing.
You evaded the question with semantics. Is one meme ‘overwhelmingly’ more than a nation of Philippinos?
I didn't evade anything, you've been fundamentally wrong about reality several times. Secondly, it wasn't "the nation of the Philippines," it was some users, and the fact that the yellow bear caricature is overwhelmingly western does not mean non-western users don't exist.
You're going to massive lengths to defend depicting a chinese man as a yellow bear.
Pooh having yellow fur is entirely irrelevant to any usage I've seen. I don't think anyone is using it in a racist manner and if you examing its usage I think you'll agree that it wouldn't make sense for that to be the primary motivator; it's posted because it's censored, not for any racial motivation.
Why do you think it was censored?
We can test whether it is, go on rednote right now and post about winnie the pooh and get back to me
No, not if, I asked you why.
Oh sorry, I thought you were asking why I had the belief that it was censored, not what I thought the reason for it to be censored was. Ambiguous wording and all that. Apologies.
It's likely censored because Xi Jinping finds it offensive. I had assumed this was because of Pooh's weight, or his intelligence, or general mannerisms. It could be due to his color I suppose, but it's not the only explanation. If that's actually the reason it would be a lot more distasteful to refer to him as Pooh.
It's my opinion that "mannerisms" don't really hold much weight, same with "intelligence." The remaining two are weight and color, and there's absolutely nothing saying it can't be both.
You don't think that it's insulting to be compared to a goofy character with very low intelligence?
I don't think it's likely that those were the intentions. They don't visually stand out, yet the visual comparisons remain.
Asian people don't actually visually look yellow, that's just racist charicature. If the comparisons are purely visual then it would be about his weight, especially around his face.
And the comparisons aren't necessarily only visual. Winnie the Pooh has a well-known personality and behaviors, and as a meme there isn't necessarily a re-comparison being made every time it's reposted. Note that Pooh images are more popular than any other comparisons, because it's an existing meme.
I think you're tying yourself into a logical pretzel here, are you going to tell me blackface isn't racist because nearly nobody has that pure black use in minstrel shows? This seems like incredible displays of mental gymnastics, rather than taking occams razor.
I don't agree that racism is the simplest explanation. I could be wrong, but it isn't how I've seen the image be used.
How have you seen the image being used in a manner that makes other explanations more likely?
No. Like I said, I think your explanation could also make sense. It's just not the assumption that I made.
Fair enough. However, I think it's worth pointing out that the most vocal users of such iconography, when confronted with even the possibility that it may in fact be racist to depict a chinese man as a yellow bear (curiously, usually depicted wearing a red shirt, like the flag of the PRC), they tie themselves into frothing logical pretzels to defend their usage, rather than shifting to any other clearly non-racist yet still insulting caricature.
Note: absolutely not saying the author of Pooh was making anti-China iconography way back when, I am pointing out modern usage.
His shirt being red referencing the PRC is actually a great non-racist visual connection. And of course they wouldn't suddenly switch to another caricature; the meme is Pooh, so that's what they're going to use.
The thing with the shirt is that it places greater emphasis on the visuals. If we accept that there's in some cases a connection to the shirt, we can also accept that that means there is certainly connection to the yellow bear. "Yellowface" is already a known concept.
Hmm, yeah makes sense.
Again, you change the disagreement when you’re being disproven. You can’t support the claim that it’s ‘overwhelmingly’ Westerners, which is the point I challenged.
Go ahead a re-read this thread rather than wasting both of our time changing your point to continue a needless debate.
What did you "disprove?" You didn't discredit anything, you just said non-western users of the Pooh caricature exist, not that they make up a majority of the users. This is intense debatelording to defend the use of racist caricatures.
Did you read your own link, or just grab the headline from a google search and call it "good enough?"
This "being obtuse and belligerent" thing that all you dumbasses do is honestly sad. What's sadder is that it's not only encouraged and rewarded in your echo chambers.
The western forum is a sad state of affairs really. Just chock full of the most obvious and base level rhetorical parlor tricks. Wish you worms at least had to do basic work, but you do a debate club when you're 8 and you never move on. To quote the president: SAD
Yes, I have. Have you read beyond that point? The West distorts the scope and nature of the credit system to ludicrous degrees, nobody claims that there's no such thing.
It's besides the point how it is talked about. The Second screenshot literally says "Social credit. We don't have this at all" and your link very much proves that they do. Therefore propaganda in my eyes.
They very much have a credit score that is not anywhere comparable to the Orwellian depiction in western media, and furthermore the credit system is largely for businesses, not individuals. The western depiction simply does not exist.
I can and will not argue this point since I lack the proper knowledge on the subject.
We all agree on the fact that a system exists.
From the post:
"Social credit. We don’t have this at all" is a lie. Again, I am not saying anything about how to system works or how it is preceived. I am saying that it exists and the post claimed it does not, nothing else.
That makes it propaganda to me.
TL;DR:
It's overwhelmingly clear that you need to do more legwork to prove that that user genuinely thinks there is no credit score, and is not directly responding to the Orwellian version. This is clearly taking a dogmatic reading of one sentence to come up with the absurd claim that Chinese citizens believe that publicly stated policy doesn't actually exist.
It is overwhelmingly clear that you are not arguing in good faith. You are trying to argue points I explicitly said I am not arguing or discussing. But I will explain again. I will also use the word image instead of post to make it more clear what I mean, just in case that was confusing you.
Let us break this down.
I have never tried to prove this. I said that the image claims that there is no system for social credit score. I do not equate the image to users in general. I even suspect that this image could be fake.
Was I not clear enough? I am not discussing anything about any version of the system in question, only it's existance. Image says it does not exist, we both agree that it does. Again, I am not saying anything about how it works or how it is perceived.
You are right, it would be an absurd claim to make, one that I am not trying to make. I am trying to point out that the image claims something to be true. We both agree that this is not true, or are you going to say at the system does not exist now?
I also said that I believe this some form of propaganda, but that does not have mean that I endorse or refute any claim regarding the west part of the world's view on this matter.
Please discuess my arguments. Please refrain from "attacking" points I explicitly said I was not making.
I read the whole article, as it went on to describe more of what has been reported as having a "social credit score", and gave more details about how it's administered.
Basically, the headline is "no, it's not at all what you've heard", and then the article goes on to describe exactly what has been reported in the US. I'm not sure your point about "there's no credit score that is administered by the Chinese government with a mechanism for blacklisting you and restricting you everywhere" is well-supported by an article that describes a credit score that is administered by the Chinese government that operates blacklists that are enforced under the slogan "whoever violates the rules somewhere shall be restricted everywhere."
If that's not actually how it works, then you need to provide a credible source that proves that's not how it works. Providing a source that reports that yes, that's exactly how it works doesn't serve your argument. And "well but the West is totally lying, maaan" isn't proof; it's an unverified claim by a random internet commenter.
So why do you do what you're trying to do? For what purpose?
No, it does not describe "exactly as what the western media depicted." The west reported utterly nonsense and unfounded ideas of facial recognition and tracking, among other ludicrous ideas out of a necessity to sensationalize.
bro is a fed or just an average american who can't read