Thing, China

Submission 208

Part of a series on Thing, Japan. [View Related Entries]

About

Thing, China is a variation of the Thing, Japan meme that was popularized in the early 2020s. While "Thing, Japan" is a meme that points out how some internet users tend to fetishize Japanese culture, "Thing, China" is used to show how the inverse is true for Chinese culture. Such memes typically comment on how some internet users' opinions on things they like initially can sour when they learn that the "thing" or "place" is from China, often due to their biases against the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Origin

On January 18th, 2022, now-deleted X^[3] / Twitter user @mswarcrimes posted a version of the Thing, Japan meme showing a Soyjak angrily ranting about the CCP's history. The post received an unknown number of likes before its removal, however, the meme came to be reposted online for several subsequent years.

On February 25th, 2023, ^[4]X user @Wirelessly__ posted a comic showing a character initially excited about something but souring after learning that it is a thing from China. The post gathered over 88,000 likes in a year.

Precursor

Memes on Reddit that pit Japan against China are often cited as the origin of the "Thing, China" meme, with an October 25th, 2019, post on the subreddit /r/PewdiepieSubmissions^[1] by Redditor /u/MrBeast-Official gathering over 13,000 upvotes in five years.

A similar was posted to /r/memes^[2] by Redditor /u/fat_kitten_CO on September 25th, 2020, gathering over 4,000 upvotes in four years.

Spread

On August 22nd, 2023, Tumblr^[5] user @itznarcotic posted a screenshot of X^[6] user @thatfoureyedone's tweet, originally made in reply to @Wirelessly__'s "Thing, China" webcomic. The Tumblr post gathered over 56,000 notes in a year.

Several Redditors on the /r/Sino subreddit also pointed out what they saw to be discrimination and bias in memes that compare China and Japan, with Redditor^[8] /u/ ZeEa5KPul gathering over 900 upvotes on a December 12th, 2023, post. The meme was originally posted to Tumblr^[7] on October 12th, 2021, by user bongjoonheaux.

On October 7th, 2024, X^[9] user @AN6ELST4RS posted the Thing, China webcomic after seeing the negative response to a Chinese animation clip on X / Twitter. The post gathered over 100,000 likes in two days.