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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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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.