Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I know about the meme, it's the origin TV show has always eluded me :(

I created an entry about a very important site of the Hong Kong Netizens community. it's the hkgolden.

great job with HKgolden site entry and zerg face entry guys!
New York Times magazine recently ran a pretty good read on the rise of chinese memes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/the-dangerous-politics-of-internet-humor-in-china.html?_r=1&ref=china&pagewanted=all

I'm gonna get started on the empty chair campaign entry, I think this is def. worth covering. If anyone wants to hop in, just request editorship!

new entry posted. Harmonization/River Crab. it's one of the core term of the Chinese Internet society.

Hello! Chinese researchers. I need your help.

I wrote an entry for a vocaloid fad : When I get home my wife always pretends to be dead.

During the editing, I noticed that this song is/was also popular among some of Chinese and Taiwanese internet users. But I couldn't research about it in detail. Two questions are left for me.

One : I found this Taiwanese news report about this phenomena.

What is this news show? When was the report aired ? And, are there any other news reports about this phenomena on Chinese & Taiwanese web?

Two : Where do those characters appearing on this hand drawn animated video come from?

A classic literature something like Three Kingdom Saga or Water Margin?

That seems to be the only report on it that I could find at the moment.
Oh, and the second video, it is about a famous traditional puppet show in Taiwan, with 素還真 and 談無慾, who are swordsmen that trained together.
More info on him if you want to read (in Traditional Chinese).

@Mister J

Thanks! By your help, I could find Japanese fan site for Pili Budaixi.

an entry posted. it's about the Dolce & Gabbana Photo Ban Protest in Hong Kong.

Reopened this thread, as it's linked in the regional research thread.

I'm working on the Perfect Splits entry, which is a photo fad on Weibo of people performing splits while often doing normal things.

Here's one of the chinese sources that refer to it as "一字马" but google translate interprets that as "the word horse." Any thoughts on what this photo fad is called in Chinese?

一字马 translates as yī​zì mǎ, which means "Horses in a row". "Doing the splits" is 劈叉, pǐ​chà (literally split crotch). 一字马 appears to be a slang or alternate term for 劈叉.

一字马 comes from two things.

The 馬/马 (horse) part is a Chinese practice of basic Tai Chi, in which the lower body does not move in a half- crouched position while the upper body moves in various ways.

The 一字 part means "the character one". As you can see, one (一) is a line. It's referring to how the legs are positioned like the character one, which, in definition, is a split. So yeah, the two parts together, the phrase 一字馬 means a split, but it differs from the normal 劈腿/叉.

Generally, 劈腿/叉 is a split, but 一字馬 is specifying that while your legs stay stationary in a split, your upper body is not affected in any way. Many Chinese fighting movies use that technique.

As of the photo fad itself, I'm not so sure. I googled it, and used baidu. They all say that the usage wasn't new, but also said that the Mandarin web (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong) has started noticing a rise in the fad itself. Might be worth looking into, but the buzz seemed to have started around 3 weeks ago.

First time poster here. I can't believe noone has made an entry for this:

@$200
>健生中醫 (I don't know about its original pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese.)

I had never heard about it till your post.
But, Google suggests me that it's a well-known Taiwanese TV commercial, which has been even parodied by comedians in TV shows since around 2000. And it seems that it has been reused in Taiwanese KUSO style videos since 1 or 2 years before.

I feel the potential. I would like to hear other members opinions for this, especially Chinese, Taiwanese or Hongkongese members ones.

im pretty sure the Hong Kong part of the Internet knows nothing about this.

btw the pronunciation of that should be Jian Sheng Zhong Yi.

@macariuschan

Thanks! So, this is a regional fad limited in Taiwan.

As of now, I'm not sure whether it deserves to have an entry. I hope hearing more opinions from Taiwanese people.

I started a new entry called Son, you're too young / 少年，你太年轻了. please check it out.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/son-youre-too-young-少年，你太年轻了
i think this is a pretty funny meme too. should there be any amendment made or further information provided please feel free to tell me.

梁非凡
Even Feifan is the name of the character from the chinese tv-show "No Regrets", 梁非凡 is a tag for MAD videos featuring a scene from the 6th episode of the tv-show. Many chinese, but also japanese users know the source and it's really popular on the websites Bilibili.tv, acfun and NND and also YouTube!
Shall this series receive an entry?

This TV series was from Hong Kong and it has been years ago since it was aired.
Yet, I couldn't see any wide spread meme-ish reactions.
I think the reason the character was known in Japan was because the TV series itself being aired in Japan, not because of an existence of a meme about it.
Plus, according to your post, it's just appears to be a tag on some videos.
Therefore I don't think this should receive an entry.

According to niconico Pedia, No Regets (巾幗梟雄之義海豪情) hasn't been aired in Japan. But, a few of NND users know AcFun users had posted KUSO videos utilizing this scene below around 2010-2011 because some of them are reuploaded to NND.

• AcFun WIKI – 梁非凡
• bilibili.tv – 梁非凡

As bilibili.tv (AcFun) is very influenced by NND's MAD culture, we can find some common manners in both of them. His nickname "屎之妖精" (Fairy of Shit) reminds me of Billy "Fairy of Forest" Herrington. But I don't know that the amount of videos in AcFun has enough impact to deserve to be mentioned in here. We don't know how much KUSO has presence in the whole of Chinese-speaking web.

macariuschan, let me ask your opinion about this.

the presence of KUSO in the Chinese-speaking web was simply a short-term phenomenon appeared around the time when the TV series was aired in Hong Kong and it was about something else. Chinese viewers kind of related this scene to a scene in another movie, in which a character also asked someone to "eat shit". In fact, the nickname “屎之妖精” (Fairy of Shit) did not even went viral on the Chinese-speaking web. On evchk, it was documented as a subtitle under something else.

I guess this MAD culture is just a Japanese thing. Since I am not familiar with the Japanese web, I think I am not the right person to decide whether this should receive an entry.

Thanks. That makes sense. Those AcFun users seem minorities.

So, it's not so popular Chinese internet users reaction against hot social, political and entertainment topics to make sarcastic or parody video/musical remixes utilizing them? I remember "Bus Uncle" (巴士阿叔) and "A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA" (在香港赤臘角機場登機門錯失班機的女子) have several amount of those kind of remixes. But the types of most Chinese memes seem mere catchphrases or photoshoped pictures.

Remixes of entertainment topics are popular in the Chinese-speaking web, but they tend to rely on a few reputable internet celebrities to create remixes rather than creating a lot of remixes by themselves.

In the Chinese-speaking web, photoshopping is more popular than video editing. People who can master video-editing softwares are not the majority of the Chinese-speaking web (according to my observation). Therefore, people usually express sarcastic comments on socio-political topics by making photoshopped images rather than posting remixes on video sharing sites.

The "Bus Uncle" and "A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA” (actually we merely call the lady "機場呀嬸", "Airport Aunt", in short) were exceptional cases. Those were exceptional because those were the first hysterical incidents (there were also 雞巴男 and 賜座男) that were caught on camera, uploaded to Youtube and gone viral. Since then, when something happens, everybody grabs their phone and record it and these incidents became comparatively normal. Plus, in Hong Kong, there are more tourists from the mainland China so incidents that are even more obscene and hysterical happens all the time (e.g. mainlanders letting kids take a poop on the train and still think it is alright, etc). This is why nowadays people only leave comments on videos instead of making remixes out of the original video since they are less shocking nowadays.

I see. It's understandable that those kind of incidents has been already predictable topics in Chinese-speaking web. Even Japanese web is no exception. Nowadays, most of Japanese people who enjoy making/watching MADs for anime, entertainment or socio-political topics are childish teenagers. No other people pay any attention to it.

> mainlanders letting kids take a poop on the train and still think it is alright

THIS IS THE MAINLANDERS. Hahaha

(Hope Chinese researchers still exist on KYM)

Hi, guys. Now I'm checking Taiwanese student protesters occupying the legislature via a Nico Nico live streaming (registration required) broadcasted by one of the protesters from the inside. This streaming program began in March 19th, and surprisingly, it had been already watched by about 1.4 million viewers in total.

Throughout the streaming program, Japanese niconico users found a funny phonetic translation in Chinese slogan "退回服貿". That phrase, "ほえほえくまー" (Hoe Hoe Kuma, 吼吼熊), inspired some illustrations supporting the students. and today, this cute supporting movement for Taiwanese students was covered by pro-independence newspapers The Liberty Times and Apple Daily.

I don't think those bears will grow to so much big phenomenon in Japan. But I'm not sure how Taiwanese accept and react to it. So, I'd like to know real Taiwanese reactions for those supporting illustrations from Japan like this image.

Thanks in advance.

I guess a better explanation to the ほえほえくまー phrase is a misheard utterance. The actual phonetic transcription of the slogan is "Tui Hui Fu Mao".

I have been following the movement as well due to political reasons, but I myself is not a Taiwanese, thus I do not know how Taiwanese would react. To my knowledge, this movement has more of a serious tone in it, and it is tense. Thus, I suppose this cute little bear might not catch on as it does not actually fit the general attitude of the movement.

Let's see how it goes. It'll probably need some more time to spread, since The Liberty Times just reported it 5 hours ago according to Google.

^Thanks for bumping up interest.

I have a Chinese ethnic background, and I've been to China 5 times so far in my young age. Obviously YouTube is outlawed by the government, so this causes some problems with memes. A lot of them come from YouTube, or are based on YouTube videos. Also, here on KYM, there are a lot of videos (Though this isn't a big problem in research). One thing to note though is Chinese video sharing shites reupload YouTube videos. My cousin showed me FreddieW during a visit. Kind of like Dailymotion is a French video sharing site.

Sorry if I got something wrong, I'm no expert in this field but wanted to add my input.

Yep. Chinese video sharing site Youku always has reuploaded YouTube videos.

However, the issue we are talking about here is occurring in Taiwan. Despite its official name being "Republic of China", Taiwan is a separate country from China (People's Republic of China), and thus it has different Internet laws. Taiwan has a more democratic and liberal political system, and thus the control on Internet is as loose as the United States, and YouTube is not outlawed.

Thanks for your input, anyway.

Huh, it's good to see the site doing chinese meme research.
I guess I should mention that I can speak fluent mandarin, so I'd be more than happy to help out with translations and that kind of stuff if needed.

This thread's been here for more than 2 years.
As you can see, there are a lot of proposed Chinese memes posted on this thread, but in recent years the enthusiasm of this just reduced tremendously and this thread went nearly silent for a few times.

I mostly focus on Hong Kong/Cantonese memes, but I can also speak fluent mandarin. The one person we need (who probably isn't allowed to browse KYM) is a person who is actually a member of the Chinese netizen community.
Actually, I have got a few interesting ones in hand, but I just haven't got the time to do the research and put it on KYM.

Anyway, welcome to the Chinese Meme Research team. :)

P.S. btw does anyone know why they stopped making KYM episodes?

I see. And yeah, this isn't the time to enjoy cute bears lightheartedly. Sadly, many Japanese internet users support Taiwan from their childish affections and anti-China sentiment grown by strong disgusts toward to Japanese old media's pro-China/Korea stance that they rarely report negative topics about these 2 countries. In fact, TV media has rarely reported this Taiwanese students resistance movement up to this moment.

Meanwhile, I'm also feeling the possibility that this "Sunflower Student Movement" (Wikipedia) should have an entry as well as Occupy Wall Street and The Arab Spring.

In any case, I hope this movement continues to be operated in peacefully and non-violently.

P.S. I don't know why they quit making episodes. But I think KYM's episodes could be created because original founders owned the knowledge of internet memes and sense of humor in themselves. Staffs after Cheezburger's buyout don't have neither. To be honest, several episodes made under Cheezburger were awfully bad for me. Those just scratch the surface of original members's productions.

I am not sure if this "Sunflower Student Movement" should get an entry because social media did not play a major role in this movement as far as I know. It was actual face-to-face discussions rather than organizing the movement on twitter like The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street.

And sadly, the Taiwanese police force has already started to suppress the movement through violence.

Interesting fact though, the reason why it's called "Sunflower" is just a coincidence. When they first occupied the congress, someone gave them a bunch of sunflowers as a gift for congratulating them. They didn't know what to do with it, so they just placed it in front of the stage. Thus, whenever somebody speaks on the stage and the media takes photos/videos, the sunflower will be present. And slowly more and more people gave sunflowers to them and it turned into a symbol.

Sadly, that riot police's attack at Monday midnight changed the situation of this movement from students' protest against politicians to more serious struggle against dictatorship.

Naturally, it's not the time for us to consider about cute bear illustrations which are completely meaningless for the problem…

Hello, Hong Kong-er here, i can tell you that most memes in hong kong and china generally dont last for more than two months, or until whatever event/media related ends. And I see huge amounts of rage comics in most social medias as far as I know.

Hello, fellow Hongkonger :)

Well, most of the huge memes in HK & China actually don't last for more that two months. That's very true. But the ones which usually last are specific images that are used as reaction faces, or specific phrases as replies such as 少年，你太年轻了 (I used simplified characters because of its Mainland origin, so don't get mad if you're going to)

Some are really notable, but they usually fall into the category of Copypasta or

Ah, dont worry about the language, even my brother's school is teaching completely simplified (its an english school), but I feel like there hasn't been any new AND popular memes around asia.

Oh by the way, note that nico nico douga comes .tw , so you might find a considerate amount of taiwanese stuff on niconico as well.

"Take note at the lower right corner, I guess in terms of internet media, nextmedia corp always reach it first"

I guess the cute wolf doll 路姆西 could deserve an entry here, but I just do not have the time to write it.

Nextmedia has always been keeping up with online material closely and interacting with audience on social media sites quite often.

For that comic you posted, we actually already have an entry to that.
Here: Boardroom Suggestion

Bump!

Hi, Now I'm tweaking Ge Ping's article. I'd like to ask 2 points about it.

• Could you please explain what this video is?. This is an encounter of Ge Ping and MAD video creators at AcFun's event, isn't it?

【AcFun宅学会】葛平专访节目 – AcFun弹幕视频网 – 中国宅文化基地

• This article tells Marisa Stole The Precious Thing remix is one of the earliest instances in Ge Ping MADs. But that video on 56 has been removed, and I can't find alternative uploads of it. Could you find the reprints of it in any video hosting hub sites?

Off course i know, but have you seen anyone actually made something related before appledaily found the comic in Hong kong?

Ooh, China Meme Thread. Full of old-as-dirt photo fads. I can't believe the Chinese can never grow out of it.

I'm a Chinese myself and I can translate anything Chinese to English. And if you're still unsure about it, 相信你看到这句话就会了。

Anyway, 32 Likes. Originated on some singing talent show 《万万没想到.》(No official translations)

Just how popular is that? Should it not be an extension for the facebook entry?

If you could find evidence of prevalence of this as a meme, I would suggest you to do so yourself and submit an entry yourself. There isn't many people up here that directly hang out in the Mainland Chinese Interwebs so we couldn't really help. We are not familiar with the staples of that part of the web and thus it would be hard for us to find evidence.

The Mainland Chinese memes that actually shows up here usually find their way out of China into surrounding areas such as Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong, and then it got posted here.

And although I don't know how popular is that, I'm sure it shouldn't be a submeme of the Facebook entry, as Facebook is banned in China and this "like" is definitely not a Facebook like.

Anyone interested in researching about the Umbrella Revolution?

Hmm has anyone ever considered the Little Apple M/V?

There are ton of dance videos of this. I think this one is pretty notable

I'm chinese,glad to help research
萌娘百科
Moegirlpedia is a chinese meme web cyclopaedia,but this cyclopaedia it's use moe anthropomorphism,gender of character will make people have no idea.
There also has an acfun wiki but nobody maintain that was 502 Bad Gateway