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The TikTok trend is the latest example of how Chinese products and consumables are enjoying a cultural cachet they’ve never had before globally.
Well, if the TikTok algorithm says it's popular, who am I to doubt it?
Don't think, ask an LLM what you're supposed to think!
More specifically, ask deepseek to ensure that your new opinions will be in line with the public stance of the Chinese government.
I mean, being a TikTok trend is by definition being popular.
It's a TikTok trend, Batman
Videos proclaiming users are “Chinamaxxing,” or “in a very Chinese time of their lives”
This sounds like bullshit, of course we know people have clubs that are fans of country music or Star Trek or whatever cultural things people may find interesting.
But I never heard about USA maxxing, and I doubt there would be more reason to do that with China.
Some Chinese cultural elements may be fun, popular and interesting, but Chinamaxxing sounds more like a mental health issue than a cultural thing. And definitely not an element of soft power.
"I'm at a very chinese time of my life" sounds like something out of trailer park boys or Broad City.
How many times do I have to read shit like this? Lemmy is just full of propaganda.
It's APNews, I do not consider it propaganda, quite the contrary: The CCP is flexing their social networks muscle to expand their soft power.
If you block the OP you'll get rid of a huge chunk of it. They're one of the most blatant agenda posters on the Fediverse - they're on track to hit 6,000 posts in their first year, many (most?) of which are puff pieces about China.
Your father is Chinese
I doubt the article is correct. In the US, Mexican food is the most popular. What Chinese movies and songs are hits?
I hope this means less Sinophonia and not copying the government's authoritarianism lol
I wanna highlight this:
“Appreciation does not erase the racism that many Chinese people grew up with,” said Elise Zeng, 28, from Brooklyn, New York. A video she posted critiquing the social media phenomenon was liked by more than 36,000 people.
She recalls how during the COVID-19 pandemic she was afraid for her parents stepping out of the house because they heard about people getting attacked just walking down the street. At the time, many Asians reported being assaulted or verbally abused by people who blamed East Asians for the spread of the virus.
“Those experiences don’t just disappear because Chinese culture is suddenly cool and trendy,” she said.
I really hope my future children can go through school in the west without ever being called "ching chong" or kids do the racist "pull their eyes back" bullshit...
But like... the reality is: Obama being president for 8 years didn't prevent George Floyd from getting murdered by a white cop.
I wish I had a great firewall to filter what gets out about my country... Oh wait, no I dont. At least the remnants of our free press will document the genocide against my people. Leftists who believe the USA is as authoritarian as China are propaganda-fucked on par with conservatives.
US is not by any means as authoritarian as China.
To achieve that, the US would need a government that controls mass media, kills people just for protesting, disappearing enemies of the government in remote prison camps with no oversight or accountability, have mass surveillance everywhere, make books illegal, demonstrably suppress all ethnic minorities, threaten religious leaders for speaking ill of the government...
All run by a hardline government that has a strongman leader that people respect and a cabinet full of loyalists with competence in the task they're assigned.
Once the US achieves that last bit, THEN they'll be as authoritarian as China.
It wasn't before, but the USA is currently a fascist dictatorship and it's kinda hard to argue it gets more authoritarian than that. The few freedoms we still have are fading remnants that have yet to be snuffed out. Just because they have yet to build the firewall doesn't mean they won't.
The major difference between the two going forward is whenever or not the state steers the country, or the self interested oligarchs. It's very clear that China's industrial capitalism was more wise for the interests of their empire, while America can't compete so long as oligarchs steer the ship towards short term profits. This isn't to say that China is eternally better than the US, as imperial prosperity ebs and flows.
However, China is the safer bet going forward, especially if we see another red scare as Americans begin to realize that their empire lost. If people get distracted fear mongering about communism, they'll never fix the problems that actually made America fall behind. If I'm right about that, then the US is in for decades of decline.
Boomers trying to explain the kids memes from like 3 years ago.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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