Hong Kong digital warriors fight for freedom with memes, hashtags and hidden messages
XinnieThePooh, MeiForHK, FreeKingKong, D7777, Chinazi, QuitTikTok, BoycottMulan, BoycottBlizzard, BandinChina, CommunistNBA — what does all that mean?
Disclosure: many protests-related memes and artworks are shared anonymously, so if you know a particular source, please send a link in the comments or via twitter. Due to the sensitive nature of this article, it’s distributed without any paywall, sponsored content, or referral links, so consider donating some crypto if you want to see more articles about Hong Kong and other pro-democracy movements across the world. If you’re an activist, then check out an open source project decentralized-activism. I also own BTC, ETH, BCH, and other coins.
China is like that one person on Twitter that can’t take any criticism and just blocks everyone.
Intro
We’re witnessing the biggest global people’s uprising the world has ever seen. We are one huge decentralized community connected together though the internet. The global solidarity is on an unprecedented level: from Hong Kong to Catalonia, Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Ecuador, Kashmir, Lebanon, Haiti, Bolivia, Chile, and many other places across the world. From pro-democracy and pro-independence movements, to environmental and animal rights activism. People across the world are increasingly expressing their discontent with government’s policies, and activists study each others experience in order to implement the best techniques in their movements.
Previously we’ve discussed how Hong Kong activists protect their identities in the digital space, which allows them to participate in the pro-democracy movement with minimum risks to their lives.
We’ve also discussed how HK activists use LIHKG, Reddit, Pincong, and GitHub to make collective decisions in a very decentralized manner, which is similar to how the crypto community operates for more than a decade.
Now let’s look closer at some tactics employed by Hong Kong activists to fight for the freedom in a digital space because these strategies can be used in any other social movement and in a crypto space. In 4 different sections of this article we will analyze memes & hashtags, hidden messages, mascots and many other tactics, so keep on reading.
Breaking 50 cent army domination
Home-raised army of digital warriors
In June, when huge HK protests broke out, the digital space was heavily dominated by the state-sponsored 50 cent army (Chinese bots, Wumao, 0.5) that vigorously attacked any commentators of HK events, often sending death threats. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) also hired digital mercenaries to tweet about Hong Kong, and mobilized young Chinese nationalists (e.g. 飯圈女孩), but then retracted them because some of them got “anti-brainwashed” after being exposed to the uncensored information on western social media.
Hongkongers understood that they had to raise their own army of digital freedom fighters, so they started incentivizing friends to sign up for different social media platforms without exposing their identities.
In August, Twitter and Facebook blocked more than 200,000 Chinese bots, which seriously damaged the 50 cent army. Through the summer of 2019 tens of thousands of Hongkongers signed up to social media platforms for the sole purpose of fighting with the CCP propaganda. In order to connect all freedom fighters together they used hashtags like #FollowBackHK #FollowBackHongKong.
Global digital draft
Once HK protests started trending, many netizens from across the world joined Hongkongers’ fight for freedom in solidarity. The biggest digital draft occurred in the first week of October 2019 when the following events unfolded:
- South Park released “Band in China” episode, mocking Chinese state censorship imposed on domestic and international companies. After this episode, the CCP banned the series entirely in the country. A high-profile musician Zedd has also been banned from China for simply liking a South Park’s tweet with that episode. PewDiePie has also joined the trend and covered HK-related memes, which obviously got him banned in China.
- The NBA pressured Daryl Morey to delete his tweet that supports HK protests. However, after a serious backlash from the US audience, an NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended the league’s response to the controversy, supporting Morey’s right to freedom of expression.
- Blizzard heavily punished a HK-based Hearthstone player Blitzchung for expressing support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement during his post-match interview. Both casters interviewing him were fired.
To add even more oil, many companies including Apple, Google, Disney, Vans, and Nike bowed down to the CCP, selling democratic values for an access to China’s market. All these events sparked a huge public outrage, so millions of sport fans and gamers jumped on a HK pro-democracy train. That expanded an army of freedom fighters beyond what the CCP could possibly withstand.
Memes and hashtags
Let’s look at the evolution of hashtags used by HK activists since the beginning of the protests. Ideally, a movement should have one catchy hashtag for a successful campaign. The best example is #MeToo because it’s short, easy to remember, and implies a strong emotional connection among activists.
Hong Kong protesters started with #antiELAB hashtag which stands for the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB). However, it was not catchy and meant nothing for an international crowd, so many other hashtags were used to increase exposure such as #HongKong #HongKongProtests #HKProtests #FreeHongKong #反送中 #NoExtraditionToChina #LiberateHongKong #RevolutionOfOurTimes #FightForFreedom #DemocracyForHK #HKResist #SaveHK.
After police brutality escalated, activists used hashtags #HongKongPolice #HongKongPoliceBrutality #HKPoliceBrutality #HKPoliceState #HKPoliceTerrorism to raise awareness about HK police actions to suppress the movement.
People around the world started showing their support for HK pro-democracy movement using hashtags #StandWithHongKong #StandWithHK #Shout4HK.
Hongkongers also started an Eye4HK campaign that asked people to make a photo with the right eye covered in solidarity with all protesters that lost their eyes.
After accusations of sexual abuses by HK police and a series of suspicious suicide cases Hongkongers used hashtags #MeToo #ProtestToo #SOSHK #HKLastwords and #SanUkLing, which stands for a HK detention center located close to the border with mainland China known as a “terror cell” (恐怖囚室).
After three consecutive months of protests the Chief Executive of Hong Kong finally announced that she would propose withdrawing of the controversial extradition bill in October when the legislature reconvenes, but none of other demands were met, so activists flooded social media with memes and hashtags #5DemandsNot1Less #5DemandsNotOneLess.
#GloryToHongKong hashtag stands for a new unofficial anthem of Hong Kong adopted by protesters to boost morale and unite people.
70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on October 1 was celebrated by pro-democracy activists with hashtags #GoodMourningCCP #NotMyNationalDay #70YearsOfShame. That day the HK police shoot a teenage protester in the chest with a live round. Side note: the boy survived.
#AntiMaskLaw and #Mask4HK hashtags were used to raise awareness of intentional crowd about an emergency law that banned masks during public assemblies.
The Hong Kong — Catalonia solidarity assemblies were organized in both HK and Barcelona to strengthen the bond between two people’s movements that share certain similarities and both face an enormous amount of police brutality. Activists used hashtags such as #StandWithCatalonia #StandUpForCatalonia #Catalunya #SpainIsAFascistState #ThisIsTheRealSpain #SpainTorturesAgain #Tsunamidemocratic together with #StandWithHongKong and #BeWaterMyFriends.
There were certain disagreements whether HKers should associate themselves with the Catalonia’s pro-independence movement. Some people thought that a solidarity assembly would be used by the CCP for “separatists” propaganda, and showing solidarity could also alienate some western powers, which don’t want to see any people’s uprising against the ruling class in their own countries. Others pointed out that the HK pro-democracy movement received a lot of support from the international community (journalists, politicians, activists, netizens, Catalans), so HKers should at least show solidarity for other people who face oppression and police brutality.
Interestingly, Catalonia’s activists learnt a lot from HK protests, so the latest Catalonia’s uprising is much more decentralized than the one in 2017, which was mostly controlled by politicians. Side note: to follow English-language news about the Catalonia’s independence movement you can subscribe to r/catalonia.
After HK police attacked and besieged Hong Kong universities (CUHK and then PolyU), turning campuses into a warzone, activists started using hashtags #CUHKMassacre #CUHK #PolyU #PolyUMassacre.
From silence to an avalanche of boycotts
For years international companies were selling democratic values for an access to China’s market without any backlash from the West, but things changed rapidly when many Chinese influencers started showing their support for HK police. One of the supporters was a Chinese-American actress Liu Yifei, who played the lead as Mulan in Disney’s newest film. Her actions sparked an international outrage and hashtags like #BoycottMulan and #BoycottDisney started trending, which was an unprecedented backlash for supporting the CCP at that time.
Disney moved further and banned Winnie-the-Pooh from a Hong Kong website, and an American cable channel ESPN (owned by Disney) forbade any mention of Chinese politics when discussing Daryl Morey’s pro-HK tweet. ESPN also acknowledged China’s claims not only to Taiwan, but also to South China Sea live on SportsCenter using “Nine-Dash Line” on a graphic.
It’s worth mentioning that even before recent HK protests, Disney has been bowing down to Chinese censors, e.g. in 2016 Marvel (owned by Disney) censored Tibetan monk from “Doctor Strange” film and turned him into a white woman, because by the movie’s screenwriter: “if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people who think that that’s bullshit”.
A popular HK-based English language newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) was acquired by Alibaba Group in 2016 and started carefully pushing pro-Beijing narrative, which led to hashtags like #BoycottSCMP.
After the NBA pressured Daryl Morey to delete his tweet that supported HK protests western social media platforms exploded with hundreds of memes and hashtags like #BoycottNBA #NBAChina #CommunistNBA #NeverBendoverAgain.
Tensions escalated further after the NBA super star LeBron James criticized Morey’s support for HK pro-democracy movement, which led to even more backlash, memes, and hashtags like #LeBronJames #LeBronShames #BoycottLebron #FuckOffJames.
Interestingly, Hongkongers quickly responded with a rally in support of Morey with hashtags #StandWithMorey #ThankYouMorey.
However, the biggest storm started after Blizzard punished a Hearthstone player for showing support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement during his post-match interview. Suddenly, millions of gamers across the world joined the HK fight for freedom with memes, review-bombings, boycotts, mass GDPR requests, and hashtags #BoycottBlizzard #BlizzardBoycott #Chizzard. Activists also created subreddits r/FuckBlizzard and r/ProtestBlizzcon to share latest news and discuss different strategies. A non-profit activist group Fight for the Future created a website GamersForFreedom that listed “more ethical alternatives” to popular Blizzard games, and called people to join Gamers for Freedom protest during BlizzCon.
Additionally, gamers tried to get Blizzard’s most popular game Overwatch to be banned in China by using its Chinese character Mei as a mascot of the Hong Kong resistance with hashtags #MeiWithHongKong #MeiSupportsHongKong #MeiForHK #MeiForHongKong. People also fundraised money to send more HK Mei cosplayers to BlizzCon to join Gamers for Freedom protest and activists organized a massive call on Blizzard’s sponsors to pull out using hashtags #ProtestBlizzcon #BoycottBlizzcon #GamersForFreedom.
The pressure accumulated to the point that Blizzard made it extremely hard to delete an account, also an Overwatch launch event at NintendoNYC was cancelled by Blizzard, and Mitsubishi pulled sponsorships of Blizzard e-sports events.
#QuitTikTok hashtag was used to raise awareness of the public that a popular app TikTok is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate Bytedance that actively censors any content about Hong Kong protests or critical towards the CCP, e.g. the Chinese persecution of ethnic minorities or the Tiananmen Square massacre.
An interesting incident happened in November 2019, when TikTok suspended an account of a user who embedded a message about China’s concentration camps and abuse of the Uyghurs into a “makeup tutorial” which got viral. After the huge backlash, TikTok apologized and restored an account of an activist.
Some activists also called for a boycott of other apps and high-tech products from China with hashtags like #BoycottTencent #BoycottHuawei #BoycottQQ #BoycottBaidu #BoycottWechat.
World’s biggest crying baby
The CCP is famous for its sensitivity to any criticism, so the amount of memes that target China, the CCP, and personally Xi Jinping increased dramatically.
As usually, activists use Winnie-the-Pooh, who is banned in China, to refer to Xi Jinping with hashtags such as #XinnieThePooh.
One of the most creative and well-adopted hashtags among HK youngsters became #Chinazi (or #antiChinazi), which is a combination of China and Nazi. This hashtag is very powerful, because it’s short, easy-to-remember, and self-explanatory, but the comparison to Nazi is a bit too radical, so the hashtag didn’t get much adoption outside of Hong Kong yet.
After recent events many people realized the threat of the CCP to democracy and human rights around the globe, so people started calling to boycott China with hashtags #BoycottChina #ResistBeijing #AntiCCP.
There is even a dedicated subreddit r/BoycottChina where people actively discuss how to avoid any Chinese products and services, because they don’t want to support the communist regime with their money.
Activists also called for a boycott of upcoming Olympic games in Beijing with hashtags #BoycottBeijing2022 #Chinazi2022 and stop #Beijing2022.
And, of course, the “Be Water” philosophy inspired by Bruce Lee was not only used by HK protesters, but was also utilized by Catalans and other activists across the world with hashtags #BeWater #BeWaterMyFriend.
Hidden messages
For decades mainland Chinese were using hidden messages to circumvent the censorship and talk about politically sensitive topics, so Hongkongers adopted the same tactics due to growing risks of repercussions for speaking out.
For example, the ad by a HK tycoon Li Ka-shing condemns violence, but there is a hidden message: “The cause and the result depend upon China. Let Hong Kong rule itself”. And there is a hidden date 4.6.89 which refers to the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989.
Interestingly, people from “free countries” started adopting these hidden messages due to potential financial repercussions for engaging with a China-related content. For example, people started using non-political hashtags such as #FreeKingKong #LoveKingKong #SaveKingKong or wearing Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirts like a high-profile musician Zedd did after being banned from China for liking a South Park’s tweet with an episode about Chinese censorship overseas.
Another interesting example is a now-deleted tweet by Tiffany & Co showing a woman covering one eye that some people believed was a deliberate echo to the pose adopted by HK supporters during an Eye4HK campaign. A company later apologized and deleted that tweet after Chinese consumers accused the jeweler of supporting the Hong Kong protesters.
It’s worth mentioning that this was not an isolated incident involving hidden messages. In 2014, Puma removed a photo it posted of a runner’s identification tag bearing the number #D7689, which can be translated as “fuck Leung Chun-ying”, who was a HK’s Chief Executive at that time.
The current HK Chief Executive Carrie Lam has a nickname “777”, but a hashtag #D7777 didn’t get much adoption on social media may be due to being too common in other cultures. #DLLM is used instead to express emotions, but it doesn’t have any hidden meaning rather than simply “fuck your mom”.
But what’s the reason for using a hidden message if the meaning is obvious? Well, it introduces plausible deniability, because a person can always blame the suspected message on an unintended coincidence or over-reading. For example, Blitzchung has been suspended by Blizzard for voicing support for HK pro-democracy protests during his interview. However, it would be extremely hard for corporations to discipline or fire employees for simply showing their love for King Kong or wearing Winnie-the-Pooh cloths, because these actions won’t violate any rules and can trigger a huge public backlash in case of any repercussions. As a result, fans can approach their music idols and movie stars on social media asking them to wear Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirts, or show support for King Kong with hashtags like #RetweetIfYouCare or #ProveThatYouCare.
Other tactics
Over the the last few months HK activists created many petitions and websites (hkrev.info, standwithhk.org, hkpfreport.org, hkprotect.org, bandinchina, hkongs.com), and they often add short URL links and QR codes to informational posters, so readers can easily engage with the content.
Activists in other countries started opening Wi-Fi hotspots with pro-HK slogans to bring more attention to the movement.
Gamers spammed “FREE HONG KONG” during League of Legends world championship when the Hong Kong Team took the stage. Note that a user S0meoneSTrange shouted “FREE KING KONG”.
Gamers vandalized the CCP flag in online game Rust.
Activists started review-bombing Blizzard games with the 1 star rating and pro-HK reviews. EU-based gamers also massively submitted GDPR requests, because those requests are very hard to comply with since they cannot be fully automated.
And, of course, gamers started cancelling their subscriptions and deleting accounts, so Blizzard made it extremely hard to delete an account.
Some activists moved further, leaving pro-HK comments in very unexpected places like PornHub.
Mascots
Pepe the Frog and Lipig are two the most common symbols of resistance among HK protesters. Side note: Pepe the Frog is a pro-democracy freedom fighter in Hong Kong and it’s not associated with America’s alt-right.
Mascots are used in memes, stickers, and informational posters.
The most interesting part is an attempt to punish certain companies by choosing their characters as HK pro-democracy mascots. Since Winnie-the-Pooh is banned in China due to the association with Xi Jinping, activists decided to link many other characters to Hong Kong protests in a hope that the CCP will block them as well.
As we’ve already discussed above, Mei from Blizzard’s Overwatch is currently the main nominee for the HK pro-democracy mascot among digital activists, but there were also attempts to turn Rey from Star Wars and Disney’s Mickey Mouse into HK freedom fighters.
And the most creative idea I’ve seen so far was to turn Xi Jinping himself into a HK protester. Xi Jinping will obviously not be banned, but at least censors will have to manually delete his photos from Chinese apps if those images will have certain symbols, colors and texts, which can be associated with HK protests.
Conclusion
The CCP is exporting censorship across the world and teaches authoritarian governments how to wage propaganda wars, while Hongkongers teach us how to resist and fight for the freedom on the streets and in a digital space.
Hongkongers also teach us how to stay determined and pursue our dreams no matter what, hoping that one day we all can come together, take off masks, and celebrate peace, freedom, and love, because “happy home is that simple”.
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Disclaimer: I am not a licensed financial advisor, and this article is not a financial advice. The information presented here is for educational purpose only, it represents my personal opinion, and is not purported to be fact. Seek a duly licensed professional for an investment advice.
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