Taiwan #1

Confirmed 290,728

About

"Taiwan #1" is a memorable quote uttered by video game streamer AngryPug during a match in the game H1Z1, in which he repeatedly taunts the Chinese streamer Em0 by pretending to be Taiwanese.

Origin

During the summer of 2015, H1Z1 streamer AngryPug began infiltrating the team of Chinese player Em0 by donning their uniforms and ambushing their raids.^[4] On July 5th, AngryPug uploaded footage of an H1Z1 match in which he begins yelling "Taiwan number one" in a faux Taiwanese accent immediately after being killed by Em0's team (shown below). Over the next nine months, the video received upwards of 2.2 million views.

Spread

On July 9th, AngryPug uploaded another H1Z1 clip in which he provokes another player by yelling "Taiwan number one" (shown below).

On November 22nd, Redditor CrazyandLazy submitted the original AngryPug video in a post titled "If you shout Taiwan No.1 in this game, Chinese gamers go nuts." Within four months, the post gained over 7,200 votes (93% upvoted) and 1,800 comments on /r/videos.^[1] The following day, Redditor Leggomyeggo69 submitted a post titled "What is the point of the Taiwan #1 thing?" to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[2] where several users cited the AngryPug video as the origin of the phrase. On November 29th, another post about the catchphrase was submitted to /r/OutOfTheLoop, to which Reddit RedrumSprinkles noted that China and Taiwan had been "bitter rivals" ever since the Communist Revolution. On December 10th, AngryPug posted a video titled "Taiwan #1 Red Army Edition," in which he repeatedly yells "Taiwan number one" while playing against a team of Chinese opponents in H1Z1 and subsequently holds up a Taiwanese flag (shown below). On February 7th, 2016, the news blog The Diplomat^[3] published an article about AngryPug's growing Taiwanese fan base.