Behind The Firewall: A Peak Into Chinese Meme Culture

One of the most interesting aspects of meme culture is its ability to transcend boundaries such as distance, language and nationality. However, some barriers keep parts of the internet isolated from what many of us consider "mainstream" meme culture. Perhaps the most distinct boundary is the Great Firewall, a virtual wall that separates the Chinese internet from the rest of the web. In the absence of direct access to mainstream meme culture, Chinese netizens have created a meme culture of their own. With more than 721 million people in China using the internet, it is no surprise that the rabbit hole of Chinese memes goes down for miles.

Beyond the giant that is TikTok, or Douyin in China, exploring and understanding all of it with a limited understanding of the Chinese language and social norms is a difficult task. Despite this, even examining China’s most noteworthy memes still provides a great deal of insight into their internet culture. To get a sense of this unique online world, let's explore some of the most notable memes and platforms that Chinese netizens have fostered their community.

Around the Firewall for Inspiration

Before examining any one specific meme, a couple of things must first be made clear. There is a misconception that the Great Firewall is an impregnable defense that censors all data in and out of Chinese servers. While these sensors are in place, VPNs have allowed millions of Chinese netizens to access the broader web and aren't considered outright illegal, despite them being restricted.

A 2018 study from GlobalWebIndex shows that 31 percent of Chinese netizens regularly use VPNs to access the web. The critical thing to note with this statistic is that Chinese meme culture has mainly grown organically, but it has not been entirely isolated. The question to keep in mind is to what extent Chinese netizens take inspiration from outside memes that are eventually incorporated into their own culture.

Baozou Manhua (Rage Comics)

This brings us to what is widely considered to be the most notable series of Chinese memes, Baozou Manhua (Baoman for short). Translating to Rage Comics, this series of macros has circulated WeChat, Weibo and other sites since 2008. Wang Nima, who created the Baozou Manhua website in 2008, saw Rage Comics as a way for people to express themselves exaggeratedly. As a result, what started as Chinese translations of mainstream Rage Comics eventually grew to have its own unique series of characters and expressions.

It is easy to dismiss these macros as an offshoot of 4chan’s original Rage Comics, if not a blatant rip-off. However, there are noticeable differences in terms of its visual presentation. Unlike the vast majority of conventional Rage Comics, which are hand-drawn, many of their Chinese counterparts use the faces of notable public figures or celebrities as expressions. The most significant of them is Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung, whose face has been plastered onto a variety of drawn bodies. Interestingly, there is less emphasis on the actual people behind them and more on their facial expressions for the vast majority of these characters. Regardless, this sort of humanization of Rage Comics adds a new social depth to it. Celebrities such as Elon Musk have become meme icons, whether through their own volition or not.

In China, the same is true through a different route, as figures prevalent in Chinese media often find themselves the subject of various memes. To say these Baoman comics are merely rip-offs or completely original would be disingenuous, but the base template of Rage Comics combined with the social climate of Chinese media allows netizens to create a host of memes and comics that portray the most exaggerated parts of their society. Due to these exaggerations, Baoman comics occasionally find themselves banned by the Chinese government, with several accounts and groups being banned in 2018 due to violating defamation law. Nevertheless, whether they are used either as reaction images or manifestations of the abstract (similar to Wojaks), Baoman comics form the backbone of Chinese meme culture and remain some of the most popular among its internet users.

Bilibili and Kuso Humor

While Baoman comics are a great introduction to Chinese memes due to their parallels with Western meme culture, the way that memes are shared also differs. Instead of sites like Twitter and YouTube, Chinese use alternatives such as Weibo and Bilibili. While Weibo itself isn’t too different from Twitter, Bilibili is perhaps the most all-encompassing site the Chinese internet has to offer. Hosting video, live streaming, anime/manga and game services, Bilibili is a titan in hosting, with almost 38 million daily users in 2019.

Like other video services NicoNico Douga plays host to a vibrant meme community specializing in what is considered Kuso-style shitposting. For those unfamiliar, Kuso humor is chaotic, fast and nonsensical. Vocaloid parodies are but one example of such shitposting that occurs regularly on Bilibili. In terms of originality, Bilibili is in a similar boat as Baoman comics. While the formats take some inspiration from existing memes, it ultimately retains a unique identity due to its subject matter and context.

The main takeaway from these surface-level Chinese memes is that while they were not forged in complete isolation, their memes have become unique, not from templates or formats, but from context and characters. Functionally, Baoman comics and Bilibili Kusoposts aren’t too different from many of the memes found in the West. Yet, visually, culturally and linguistically they are the products of Chinese netizens wishing to express themselves. But these two broad examples are only the surface of China’s vast online sphere. Like any culture, understanding Chinese meme culture requires one to immerse themselves in it and explore it in full.

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