A few months ago, I came across a Reddit discussion on the subreddit r/asianamerican by the user DesignerPear3846, titled “‘Bing Chilling’ is starting to feel like the new ‘Ching Chong,’” addressing the viral meme of John Cena saying ice cream in Chinese. Although the meme originated in 2021, it has since been used in a variety of contexts as DesignerPear3846 noted, “Some Asian schoolchildren? ‘bing chilling.’ Asian products? ‘bing chilling.’ Asian celebrity? ‘bing chilling.’ An Asian-looking guy making a video? ‘bing chilling.’”
“Bing chilling” is not the only instance where the punchline of the joke is just the “funny”-sounding Chinese. Lyrical songs like “Yi Jian Mei” are made into meme songs, with non-Chinese speakers mockingly using the phrase from the chorus “xue hua piao piao.” Videos about traditional Chinese attract comments like “I would never” or “Cruel.”
The roots of popular Chinese Douyin make-up looks are often misattributed to Japan or Korea, reflecting a widespread refusal to acknowledge the Chinese origin of products and beauty influencers on social media. As Ye Ji Jong writes in the Daily Trojan, this disparity in perception is rooted in sinophobia (anti-Chinese sentiment), where Hallyu and Japanese culture are viewed as trendy and stylish, but Chinese culture faces misattribution and misinformation. The rise in these internet trends seems to correlate with a rapid increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans as AP News reports that one in three Asians and Pacific Islanders faced racial abuse in 2023.
In May 2022, researchers from the University of Eastern Finland published a study titled “Dehumanization Through Humour and Conspiracies in Online Hate Towards Chinese People During the COVID-19 Pandemic” where it found that the dehumanization of Chinese people is framed as humor, using visual and multimodal tools. The study states that “going beyond the linguistic modes…
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