Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

Continuation of the others thread, China, even if it's considered to be an evil communist country in which freedom of speech is gladly ignored and Internet censorship grows stronger everyday, memes are still emerging.

This has been proved with Chinese phenomena such as Jia Jun Peng, your mother wants you to come home for dinner! or also the funny Very Erotic Very Violent.

Here, as well, there are things to talk about and we need researchers that have some understandings of Chinese (a plus would be a native speaker) in order to investigate further.
The Chinese Internet, although greatly endangered, is not different of any other country's Internet when it comes to memes.

Many of them have already been entered in the database but they still need work, and many more are yet to have an article on the site if we read the following article about China's top 10 2010 Internet slangs.

Are there volunteers ready to form a small group of researchers here in order to help?!

lol, well I'm obviously here (although i might participate in the Memes do Brasil, sounds interesting; i also know of some Eastern european memes), though I don't know how many other people are interested.

Anyway, I'm gonna copy-paste what i wrote about a trending Chinese catchphrase rite nao (which just started yesterday):

Dān Dān Body（丹丹体） →no entry made yet, but seems to be becoming the second big Chinese catchphrase of 2011 _ (there was that 掃地老太太 thing, but it was lame, and died quickly imo), but I have to study for finals, so i can’t do anything :P
-Brief explanation: Basically, there’s this actress named Sòng dān dān (宋丹丹) who made a very harsh remark on her microblog regarding the architecture of a particular building (a building by SOHO中国的建筑, to be precise), leading to backlash. Defending herself, she then responds on her Microblog “我老公不让我说了，他说别太得罪人，可我真忍不住。潘总，我就是个演员没多少钱，我请你喝拉菲，别再盖楼了，真的，求你了！” or (very roughly translated) “My husband will not let me talk. Do not offend people, he says, but I really can’t help myself. Panzong, I'm only an actor; not much money, I’m asking you to drink Lafite, stop covering it up [the building], really, Please!” then transformed into the exploitable: “__，我就是个__，没多少钱，我请你__，别再___了，真的，求你了！” (Dan Dan Body seems to be a reference to the sentence exploitable’s form the sentence’s “structure,” or “body,” | “Panzong” is a reference to the real estate developer | Lafite is a reference to the wine. no seriously.)
tl;dr she’s an idiot and is pissing off annoying people b/c she’s arrogantly insulting expensive buildings and throwing around wine like its nothing. Not sure if viral, but def trending.

Anyway, that seems to be the big one right now :|
Brad said he'll possibly do an entry on it, but it doesn't hurt to get some research done.

>greatly endangered
lolque

Oh ya.

Here are some helpful things about the Chinese internet:

• Popular words and phrases are called Buzzwords (流行语)
• Internet Vigilantism uses the Human Flesh Search Engine (人肉搜索) (sometimes for good purposes)- originally meant to mean a massive researching effort powered by people (human flesh), but later used to mean massive research effort against people (searching for flesh)
• The most popular forum is Baidu (its also the most popular search engine, google never stood a chance), the lulz-oriented forums are MOP and Tianya aka End of the World (which are rivals). "Big" threads can reach several hundred, and even several thousand posts.
• The most popular video-sharing websites are Youku, Tudou, 56, and Ku6. While reuploads often cross the different websites, they are separate communities with different cultures.
• The most popular blog is sina. by far.
• The most popular IMing service is Tencent QQ, although Google Talk & MSN are quite popular as well. One result is that Picture emoticons are very popular.
• The best wikis regarding memes are EVCHK wiki, Baidu Wiki & Hudong Wiki. Chinese Uncyclopedia still sucks. However, those wikis are still somewhat annoying, and the best way to find information is usually through raw research and reading news articles.
• Kuso is basically the term for crude humor, but its also a subculture.
• Martian Language* is the most popular invented internet language, but there are some new interesting ones.

yeup.

To correlate with what you said, here is the Kuso sub-entry.

>greatly endangered
lolque

Well, Internet censorship/restriction and all those things, no?

My sister speaks Mandarin, and she's been semi-interested in KYM; I'll drop her a line and see if she's interested in any of this at all.

Working on Balancing Sasuke. Need a few translations on video, pl0x.

http://tw.nextmedia.com/applenews/article/art_id/32703263/IssueID/20100731

What is the guy saying about a Japanese person?
What are they saying about the rice cooker?

thnx

Good News everyone!
Ogreenworld stumbled upon a Chinese MAD meme from 2009!
It involves a popular Chinese dubber doing a lecture on TV. We are currently working on it and an entry is going to be made soon :

If you have any further information on it, please contact Ogreenworld.

In other news, I'm leaving here 2 important Chinese 2010 phenomena that need to be investigated.
It's on my to-do-list but, if anyone else has better understanding of Chinese than me and would like to do it, then feel free to do so :

The first is considered to be China's #1 Internet slang of 2010 : 神马都是浮云 [shénmǎ dōushì fúyún], also known as God Horse, which popularity exceeded Gei Li and My dad is Li gang.

The second one is an Internet celebrity, later revealed to be a publicity stunt, known for her sexually deviant behavior and obesity : 小月月 [Xiao Yue Yue].

Those two phenomenon are bound together according to ChinaSMACK, the latter inspiring the former.

Tomberry?

This is the transcript of the video:

WA x14
(Blue cat)
(Little bald head)
(Blue cat and little bald head CG)
blue cat x 3
I love to watch blue cat
I'm proud of myself x 4
I'm proud of myself because i've got knowledge
A little bald head
which watch blue cat since he's small
he can be a bald head with knowledge in the future
tasty x 4
Ran Ran Lu is the tastiest
good to watch x 4
blue kitten is the best for watching
A little bald head
which Ran Ran Lu everyday (very rich)
he can be a enormous bald head
watch blue cat everyday
I'm proud of myself as i've got knowledge, wah
watch blue cat everyday
I'm the super blue cat
A bald head called WuKe
everyday do recreation instead of going to school
His dad asked him to watch blue cat
I'm proud of myself as i've got knowledge
Today! Learn knowledge!
Tomorrow! Watch blue cat!
Everyday, you can get much
Knowledge x 8
Knowledge which is very good!
Watch blue cat today
I'm proud! of! myself!
Watch blue cat tomorrow
WAH! x 4
A little bald head
Jinkela everyday
he can be a bald head that specially shiny in the future
Watch blue cat today!
I'm proud! of! myself!
Watch blue cat tomorrow!
AH! x 4
Blue cat loves Jinkela
Dope him everyday while having lessons
Momma
I want Jinkela
Watch blue cat
Learn from blue cat
I love blue cat! the most!
I'm proud of myself as i've got knowledge
WAH x 7
I'm am the super blue cat!

I think i maybe able to help you.
1. The guy wasn't saying about a Japanese person. He was just saying he knew that the figurine was sold in Japanese before it was sold in Taiwan and he saw many Japanese had played with that figurine. Then when it was sold in Taiwan, he went to buy one for himself immediately.
2. This is what they've said about the rice cooker: "The feature that made most of the internet users admired and amazed is this. The figurine just weight 30 grams only, but it can hold (or balance) a 3kg Datong (assume Datong is a brand) rice cooker." then the guy said "the bottom of the rice cooker is made of metal and the figurine is made of plastic. Sometimes there will be oil stuck on the bottom of the rice cooker and it'll be very slippery and gross."

I've searched about this man already. Actually Blue Cat is a Chinese animation, and the man in the video, is the primary cast for the main character, blue cat, of the animation. you can check out this wikipedia page to find more about this.

Regarding to the 神马都是浮云, i found the meaning of this. 浮云 literally means clouds which are floating in the sky. It is used to describe something which doesn't worth of anything. And 神马(shen ma) has a similar pronunciation of 甚麼(shen me, means everything). Therefore, the meaning of the whole phrase is, There's nothing on earth which worth of anything. Usually internet users use this phrase to deliver a meaning which is, Don't mention anything cuz it doesn't worth anything, they're just "floating clouds".

Thank You Macaruischan!!

I’ve searched about this man already. Actually Blue Cat is a Chinese animation, and the man in the video, is the primary cast for the main character, blue cat, of the animation. you can check out this wikipedia page to find more about this.

Regarding the dubber (whose name is Ping Ge- 葛平), we have the origins and spread of the video fad and everything, but I guess what's confusing Tomberry and I is why people remixed it so much. Is it that funny?

Also, a catchphrase from it is 葛炮. We still have no idea what that means or why its been remixed… >_>

Regarding to the 神马都是浮云, i found the meaning of this. 浮云 literally means clouds which are floating in the sky. It is used to describe something which doesn’t worth of anything. And 神马(shen ma) has a similar pronunciation of 甚麼(shen me, means everything). Therefore, the meaning of the whole phrase is, There’s nothing on earth which worth of anything. Usually internet users use this phrase to deliver a meaning which is, Don’t mention anything cuz it doesn’t worth anything, they’re just “floating clouds”.

I'm not sure what Tomberry has found out, but I still dunno when Shen Ma became used to describe Xiao Yue Yue. We know that Xiao Yue Yue was a hoax (and so netizens said she was an illusion afterwards), but I have no idea which forum that came from, hmm.

Thank you Macariuschan!

Huh… I'm not really confused by the impressive amount of MADs made.
I' just wanted to write here what major things we are investigating at the moment if people wanted to help as well.

If anything, yes, there is always something that is making people want to create MADs. In Japan, for Billy Herrington, it was him having wrestling scenes in Gay Porn videos, and further on being called Gayroll. Shuzo Matsuoka got a treatment because of his motivational videos and Ronald McDonald because of the weird Donaldo no uwasa commercials.

So, actually yeah, 葛炮 seems to be a recurring catchphrase, as well as "Gepao" (I suppose it's the non-mandarin way of saying the same words). As OgreenWorld said, he found out the origins and spread on different Chinese video sharing sites and eventually Youtube but if new information can be garnered, it's great too.

Like, has Ping Ge aknowledged the MADs, for instance?

Concerning Shen Ma and Xiao Yue Yue, I only know what ChinaSMACK said about it. I guess Shen Ma became popular as a way of saying that Xiao Yue Yue was a fake all along, by stating that it was "an illusion" as you well said OGW.

I haven't found anything talking about anything else as a starter, for the time being, but yeah, the original thread/post/message that started it all is missing.

To add on that MAD meme, here are the unedited videos thet would be reused for the memes:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTExMjYxMzU2.html
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI4MDEzNzI=.html

Basic "Ge Ping" (葛平) entry has been created, although it is still unclear to me exactly what "ge gun" (葛炮; pronounced "ge pao") actually means, and its relation to Wu Ke (the bald child).

According to a post on a Chinese internet site, there's no trace of GePao's origin as the post of it and the creator of this term has simply disappeared from the internet society.

Is this still going on? Sorry for intruding but I am 50% Chinese on my mothers side, speak fluent Chinese and can translate stuff for you guys. This project seems interesting and i was wondering if i could help? =D. (I also currently live in China)

It's still going on as long as the thread is alive.
Thank you to participate in the research team!

I just submitted an entry a few days ago, about another internet phenomenon.
Go check that out ---→ click here

Hello, Chinese meme researchers. I need your help.

Now I'm researching about Chinese and Japanese fad Chinese gundam
And I want to add about Chinese (and Taiwanese) internet users' reaction about Japanese "Chinese Gundam" remixes to the article.

There are two articles covering this Japanese fad on Chinese and Taiwanese media.

- 奮起吧！起動戰士 四川鋼彈 | 宅宅新聞 by 卡卡洛普 (gamme.com.tw 2011-02-08)
- 雄起吧！四川山寨高达引发日本动漫粉创作热潮_网易游戏频道 (netease.com 2011-02-09)

Could anyone give me summary of comments in both articles ?

you want the summary of the article in the two links or the summary of the two article's comments?

@macariuschan

I want comments of Chinese and Taiwanese internet users.

I can roughly get what those articles say because I'm Japanese and I can read many traditional Chinese characters also used in Japanese. Of course, I know those articles are basically same because netease's article is delivered from gamme.com.tw. But I can't read simplified Chinese characters easily and don't know Chinese (and Taiwanese) internet slangs or jargons.

So, I really want Chinese meme researchers to summarize user comments on those articles (in especially, netease's one).

Taiwanese users use traditional Chinese characters too. anyway i'll still translate it for you. generally, the internet users have different response to the yellow gundam for the taiwan site. Some said that the SiChuan Gundam is "awesome" but some teased it by giving names like "Warrior of Liberation" (as we know, the Chinese Governemnt likes to liberate things. their army is called the Liberation Army.)

for the netease.com article, the users felt ashame for their own country always forging others' thing.
the word "山寨" is an adjective for forgeries of anything.
some said "Even though such a thing is really ugly (the original gundam), somebody still forge it?!?!" and somebody counteracted, saying that the above user don't qualify to comment about gundam is good looking or not.
another said "I started to suspect the 4 inventions (of China: compass, papermaking, gunpowder and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type">movable type) is not really from my country (China) – did we forge them from others?" and somebody answered something like "5000 years civilization of China is all about lies."
one also suggested what features of other anime characters were included in the yellow gundam. "Can somebody tell me what's the relationship between them?" and the reply says "They're all from Japan"
another user posted "It qualifies the qualities of 山寨: rough quality and bad design."

@macariuschan

Thanks for a lot !! And, sorry for a late reply…

I'll add them to the article later.

Bumping for great justice.

@tomberry: passing this on to friends who are closeted KYM users in China.

@mona_jpn: going to ask them to sign up and contact you via message.

Basic question :

Could we consider Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as same meme region?

From my point of view, Taiwanese web culture and many of its fads are individual from Mainland China as well as its government.

And it seems that many researchers here in KYM are interested in memes/fads in Mainland China and Hong Kong.

(thanks Abra)
I just recently finished This entry about a Taiwanese memetic video. The sources and everything is in Mandarin and I wish someone could help me with it.
I speak and read Mandarin pretty good because I have lived in Taiwan for almost all my life until recently, but I would still need some help. And more research.

Don't quite agree cuz it's three different cultureseven though they're the same race.

@macariuschan

Thanks :)

And, I have several questions about Taiwanese internet memes/fads.

- 夜市人生(2010)

The scene of this car accident also got the attention on Nico Nico Douga.

But "北斗爆橘拳" that seems getting much more popularity in Taiwanese media wasn't reported in Japan.

- DJ文聰 (2002-2003)

I know this is sampling techno/house/rap music reusing the dialog of "劉文聰" the antagonist in Taiwanese TV drama series "台灣霹靂火".
However, it's too old to research. no music resource is existing :(

- The origin of 邪神 (Evil God) the derogatory (or honorific) title for poor quality figures

In Balancing Sasuke entry, I noticed that it's called "Evil God" in Taiwan.

If I remember correctly, the first "Evil God" was MOS-COS (邪神モッコス) happened in Japan in 2003. When and how was this term imported to Taiwan ?

@mona_jpn
I can help with Taiwanese research.

夜市人生 is a popular typical Taiwanese soap opera that had been going on from since 2009 to about mid-July this year. (incidentally it's my grandma's favorite show)

The 北斗爆橘拳 scene comes from episode 64, where the woman demanded the man for a divorce. He then goes into a rage and…..well, you know. ( "Cha-cha is the woman's nickname)

The scene after:
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The name "北斗" is a reference to the popular Japanese fight manga "北斗神拳 (Fist of the North Star)".

The car accident scene came from episode 45. It's famous because……well, who flies like that?

I'll get to the other questions later.

Meanwhile let's watch some stupid remixes. (All songs are really popular in Taiwan)

(I love Taiwanese humor…..don't you?)

I live in Hong Kong, does anyone requires Chinese translation here? :p

Though I'm not too interested in Chinese meme though, I'm more obsessed about western meme and culture.

I think Tan Te is a really worth researching Chinese meme. anyone interested?

made an entry for an recently emerged song meme.
Lian Ni

@Mister J

Great Thanks !!

I found several news and variety show in Taiwan featuring "爆橘拳".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egQABF-NEEg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDm31O_RyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRcneTCsK5c

From them, it seems that 雷洪 and his "crushing" performance caused a sensation in Taiwanese entertainment scene in early 2010.

What do you think?

@macariuschan

I like both.

(BTW, are these same entry for same episode ? : your Lian Ni and Mister J's Nian Ni)

If there are more amount of music remixes, singing covers and parodies, it will better.
However, it seems that there is few momentum to create fan arts, parodies and remixes from internet meme/fads among Chinese/Taiwanese internet users.

And if Westerners (most of KYM users) had get interested in memes/fads in other culture and other languages, it would got more attention…..

@mona
Yeah, his entry is the same as the one I made almost a month ago. I'll start merging the two.

Hello!

Need Chinese meme researchers' help.

Do you know about this recent Taiwanese fad "高中經典文化教材" ? It has got over 1million hits on YouTube.

I know this is KUSO video made by Taiwanese high school students, and went viral in this January. Here is a news report by China times.

And since this August, this video has been reused in some of video remixes with vocaloid or Touhou materials.

Search results
YouTube : 高中經典文化教材 – YouTube
NicoNicoDouga(tw) : 標籤檢索 高中經典文化教材‐ニコニコ動畫(新)

Taiwanese Nico Nico news reported this online fad in that month.

洗腦動畫！『高中經典文化教材』改編風潮！ – NicoNico新聞

Do you think this fad deserve to have an entry on KYM ?
And, are there any news reports about this fad in China/Taiwan, except for Nico Nico ?

I saw this a few weeks ago, and 1 million is pretty impressive in Taiwanese standards…..but I consider it more like a minor viral video, plus most of my Taiwanese friends had not seen it before.
(I suppose Mona you understand Mandarin and history of China?)(屈原 is a REALLY famous ancient Chinese man. His role is sorta like……..Rice is to Bush. Yeah.)

Oh, and the orange thing, I consider it a yes. GO FOR IT!

Also I have seen a recently viral video series that I might post details on later if I consider it memetic.

Oh, and Mona, just so you know, the majority of Taiwanese users don't use NicoNicoDouga. They use Wretch , as it's sorta like a combination between MySpace and blogs, and some of Taiwan's most viral videos spread there (and Youtube of course).
(I hate that site, but all my friends have one………. )

@Mister J
Oh, I haven't known Wretch… Thanks.

I've learned a bit of History of China in my junior high/high school days. But there were only the parts related to History of Japan, and Qu Yuan didn't appear on my textbook :(

But I can understand the motivation of students making parodies of ancient great figures :)

If we make the article, we'll need to describe what the original video's story is and why this was so popular among Taiwanese.

Though I can read a little Mandarin by analogizing its meaning from characters, I can't comprehend its details.

Would you mind joining to this research with me ?

It'll have to wait to at least tomorrow……
And if you're interested in what's trending in wretch's videos …..
There's a video of MMD, a video of Nian Ni (yeah it's still huge in Taiwan), 3 fail videos, 1 Indian song with phonetic translations, 2 anime w/ fandubs, 1 trailer, and 1 subtitled smosh video.
Talk about diversity.

@Mister J
Thanks for the link to wretch' videos.

I think, even if it's now trend, we don't need to make the entry a.s.a.p because most of KYM readers don't pay much attention to memes/fads which are far from English-speaking world requiring them a knowledge of its language and local culture…

And now I'm stacking many tasks requested by other users. I'll have to take a few weeks to beat them…

So, when we have free time each other, let's do this.

屈原(Pronunciation: Qu Yuan) was a poet, scholar and a beloved official of some kind of region in Ancient China. However, he committed suicide because of the hopeless situation of the country and the rage to the government. He later became the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.

here's a full description of the man on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan

Ahh, school's finally out, and when I come here to see, macariuschan had already explained it for me! Thanks macariuschan!

Anyways, yes, as he said, Qu Yuan committed suicide in a river because he was upset about the country and the ignorant emperor. He met a fisherman before he jumped to his death, and he wrote a famous poem(Original text "here:, untranslated) that all Taiwanese high school students are required to memorize. The video is saying that he didn't meet a fisherman, but rather, he met an annoying salesman, and, well, he stole Qu Yuan's wallet and stuff.

I still don't think it has that big of an impact though. But the orange fist thing is a classic Taiwanese meme. If you want to work on it I'll create an entry for it.

@Mister J
Sorry, I don't know what "the orange first thing" is…

But I'm very interested in this classic Taiwanese meme. Please teach me its details. And of course, let's make the entry for this !

高中經典文化教材 can postpone indefinitely :)

Oh, the orange fist thing is the one you mentioned a few weeks ago.

Sorry, should be more specific, but I have no idea how to call it in English.
Yeah, it's so famous that people actually have made parodies about it. Will post some tonight as I shouldn't be here right now.

An example: This one really isn't that good but it'll do for now.

@Mister J
Oh, I got it :)

> I have no idea how to call it in English.

Yeah, me too. 爆橘 = Orange Crash/Crasher ?

Can any Chinese members help me on a meme I'm researching?

This image is called "zergface" and is a popular meme on /k/ (Guns and military board on 4chan) so popular that he might be called /k/'s mascot.

The earliest thread I can find is this thread from /k/ where a Chinese (I think) poster noticed the image from a chinese TV show and posted it asking for exploitables:

http://chanarchive.org/4chan/k/2956/asian-soldier-exploitable-image#1751778

It basically sprung from there.

Anyone know the name of the show it came from?

@BP
I don't think this is the right place to ask……..
This will be better.

Anyways, Yesterday on the trending bar I saw this entry. I'm pretty overwhelmed by the amount of Brand New editors, but never mind that.

Today I asked my Chinese roommate about the boy. He said that he's a minor celebrity, mostly because his 5-bar badge. He doesn't browse Baidu and stuff too much, so he doesn't know more.
He said his Chinese name was 黃藝博, but people nicknamed him 五道槓("5 stripes").

I don't go on Chinese sights for obvious reasons, but if anyone knows about this, it'll be appreciated.

Anyone?