Within that list from seven years ago, I doubt more than a handful are yet active. Memento Mori! Every other foreigner on the street knew about it, enjoyed it and would talk about the latest articles. Founded in by the anonymous Fauna, a local Shanghainese girl, it grew rapidly.
ChinaSmack had a simple and brilliant premise: it would take the top-ranked stories from Weibo somewhat cherry picked and post them with the top-ranked comments by Chinese Weibo viewers also somewhat cherry picked. It would be translated to English, but hovering your mouse over it would allow you to see the original Chinese text. This was unique in making available to an international audience the news that Chinese actually read, as well as their thoughts; both of which were before deemed inaccessible.
It was influential beyond the expat community. Global media would link to ChinaSmack and reference it. It was featured and reviewed by Forbes , and was cited and sourced by the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Time, the New York Times and more, simply because it was innovative and exceptional by providing the opinions of actual Chinese.
The downside came in that the articles and Chinese responses were cherry picked, and tended toward the sensational, with an emphasis on sex, violence and xenophobia. While it could be cathartic to the hardened expat, it also could harden and confirm existing prejudices, and overwhelm little Johnny who just got off the airplane.
That said, ChinaSmack also took care to post many more heartening posts by Chinese which rejected or cynically questioned nationalism and conventional thought. In this video that has gone viral in China, two drivers find themselves facing each other head to head in a narrow street. Who will give way to the other first? A short online "viral advertisement" on Youku features a young pretty Chinese female painter and advertises the filtering qualities of Haier air conditioners. A television commercial for Taiwanese TC Bank featuring a group of old friends who decide to revisit their youth becomes a hit with mainland Chinese netizens Hong Kong News.
Most Recent. Gucci gets K-drama fans fired up with new global ambassadors. Responses like that inspired a fake article on China Daily Show about a new government answering machine that issues stock denials on a wide variety of stories, ranging from official malfeasance to censorship. All three sites avoid politically sensitive topics such as Tibet and Taiwan; none is currently blocked by authorities. Griffiths, of Shanghaiist, says that's because Chinese officials can be quite tolerant of humor on the Internet — especially if it isn't in Chinese.
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