There are actually also many videos where women are the strong (Han) Chinese going against foreigners, but this was just a shorter article, and I didn't go into those numbers. Might be interesting for another deeper dive with gender angle. Source of this video: 妳惹不起 on Wechat.

More about this in my latest newsletter, where I unpack this trend.

Then there are videos that take place at airport immigration or border control, showing foreigners arriving without money, carrying drugs, or seeking to exploit Chinese hospitality. The endgame is always the same: they are denied entry and sent back to their country.

Others fall into the category where foreign men are portrayed as sexual and demographic intruders. Although these videos mainly feature Black African men, with Africa portrayed as a kind of dystopia, some also include white or Indian men.

Other videos depict foreigners as arrogant, entitled, and aggressive bullies who believe their nationality places them above Chinese rules. These videos mostly feature white people, but sometimes also Black, Indian, or Japanese characters.

Many of the videos show foreigners engaging in uncivilized behavior and disrupting China’s cleanliness, etiquette, and public order. In these scenes, foreigners are portrayed as dirty, smelly, and disorderly. These videos predominantly feature Indian characters.

This time, it’s different. The latest wave of anti-foreign content goes beyond gender dynamics and focuses more broadly on the negative influence foreigners supposedly have on Chinese people and society.

Anti-foreign content is nothing new on Chinese social media and dates back to the early days of Chinese social media. The age of AI has brought new dynamics to such content. Last year, AI-generated anti-Black videos presented cautionary tales about Chinese women becoming involved with African men.

Chinese viral AI videos are turning foreigners into villains, flooding Chinese social media. They depict foreigners as threats to China’s social, moral, and national order. Strong, confident Chinese people confront, violently beat, and humiliate them in defense of their country. See more below🧵

I'm not, really. But I'm here.

Interesting to see The Guardian on the conceptual pairing of these 2 distinct trends today. If you want to stay updated on China’s online culture, consider subscribing to my Eye on Digital China newsletter, where my analysis of the “kill line” discourse & Chinamaxxing was published five weeks ago.

This is why I love Beijing taxi drivers, and this one minute just happened to catch it all ✔️complaining about rising prices & living costs ✔️scolding & sighing about Beijing traffic ✔️some social commentary ✔️a little communist joke

I’ve been closely tracking Chinese social media reactions to the developments in Iran over the past few days. In the end, the findings of my research say much more about China’s online discourse than about what’s happening in Iran. Read on whatsonweibo or Substack: open.substack.com/pub/eyeondig...

Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years. It's frontpage news on China Daily, and the Weibo hashtag is there (#黎智英被判20年#), but Weibo apologizes: "the topic's contents cannot be displayed."

PS What’s also unchanged: me behind my laptop, covering China’s changing online world & its offline effects, from What’s on Weibo to what’s now Eye on Digital China. Now also on Substack, subscribe 👉 eyeondigitalchina.substack.com

Amid all the changes China has seen over the past decade, I’m grateful for one constant on the street: the dancing grannies. 2016 or 2026, same energy. The speakers are louder now, but the moves remain timeless.😅

Virtually in all my photos of that year, I can see the impact of mobile economy/digitalization, but without kids being hooked on tablets yet, without people mindlessly scrolling through short videos. It was the year that TikTok/Douyin was born, but had not yet gone mainstream.

Why have people become nostalgic about 2016? Perhaps because it was a crossroads we passed without noticing. Looking at this simple scene, what do you notice? People are carrying mobile phones, but they are not yet glued to their screens. (The last guy does give a glimpse of what it would become.)

I also remember headlines about elevator accidents and failing safety tests. (The Beijinger even had a typo claiming that 94% of the city’s elevators were potentially unsafe 😓, it was closer to 7%.) So despite all the innovation and development, safety enforcement was very much a hot topic.

..but soon the first excavators arrived. And everything would change

It was the start of the so-called "Great Brickening," or the period of dramatic local urban renewals around Beijing. Sanlitun still had everything it was known for (Lugas! Aperativo! First floor!),..

It was also a moment when political concepts and ideological messaging, centered around Xi Jinping, began to surface more prominently both online and offline.

At the same time, the rural-urban digital divide was much bigger than it is today. Much lower smartphone penetration, especially among elderly users. At the same time, it was a turning point, and "Taobao Villages" started to pop up over the country.

There were fun, new startups & businesses. Like this fully digitalized 24/7 self-serve hotpot place in Beijing where you'd order your hotpot-soup-base on-screen, get your food from their shop, and rent a table per hour - while paying by WeChat. It felt futuristic.

E-commerce changed thanks to the massive rollout of centralized parcel pickup points at campuses and residential buildings. (I found it so innovative that I made the video below - it WAS really new, and in Europe I never saw it until years later)

That year, it became strikingly clear to me -in everyday street life- just how fast innovation and digitalization were moving compared to the West. Mobile payments had gone mainstream, food delivery services like Ele.me had become part of daily urban life in China & QR codes everywhere.

Since looking back on 2016 seems to be the thing people are doing right now, it feels like a good moment to dive back into my photo archives. 2016 was a special time for China. 🧵👇

One to add to the list of "the prettiest KFC I've ever seen"

It was an early morning train and I wasn't quite awake yet, but conversations with this nice guy from Fengjie woke me up a bit – especially when he asked me if I was from Xinjiang (this actually happens quite frequently..)

Happy to randomly run into little Wukong here in Beijing. It's undeniably the cat that made the most impact in China news this year. I hope the art dedicated to her will stay around for a while 🐾