Mbappe is memed as ‘the dictator’. He was asked by a journalist if he has seen the memes online and what he thinks of them. He said he likes the meme of his face photoshopped on an image of ‘I think, a Chinese dictator’, that he finds it funny.
What’s resulted is non-stop racial abuse on Chinese social media and annulment of contracts and sponsorships with the entire Spanish league. The government itself has condemned him. He apologized publicly for referring to Mao as a dictator and yet a lot of people online are just going whole hog on the racism.
Idk why their losing their marbles over a football player calling Mao a dictator. Mao being a “dictator” is the predominant narrative and like, he’s a fucking football player. Who’s expecting him to understand the material conditions of the early PRC? He didn’t even really say anything mean beyond just saying dictator, he liked the meme, what the fuck is this shit. Also he probably used the term dictator because that’s literally the fucking meme like good god this is some of the most terminally online shit I’ve seen in awhile, and I’M terminally online.
If we were talking about westerners you’d be right but we can’t expect PRC citizens who were taught about Mao being an important democratic leader in middle school to treat western anti-communism as a normal cultural difference
Fair, I’m not saying the systemic anti-communism is necessarily acceptable per se, but I feel this level of outpour is disproportionate. A football player said a lib thing, you can say it’s bad because it obv is, but resorting to racism and a condemnation from the PRC itself just seems like a lot for a little. Esp since I hear much worse drivel get spoken about Chairman Mao and the PRC from people of more importance and I don’t see outright condemnations from the government for those(I, granted, may have missed those so correct me if I’m wrong).
I agree, it seems disproportionate