Althouse: The blog swarm, Chinese style.

June 3, 2006

The blog swarm, Chinese style.

"Many draw disturbing parallels to the Cultural Revolution, whose 40th anniversary is this year, when mobs of students taunted and beat their professors."

8 comments:

altoids1306 said...: Haha - I should probably be ashamed to say this, but the luxury of anonymonity allows me to - that's awesome.

As long as the internet swarm doesn't break the law, I'm all for public shaming, privacy be damned. If blog swarms force individuals to take responsibility for their actions, so much the better.; 6/3/06, 2:22 PM
JohnF said...: There are many things to say about this. Here's two for starters:

1. It's sort of nice that there are still places in the world where adultery is actually frowned upon.

2. I wonder how much the due process, er, problem is counterbalanced by the multiplicity of information sources on the web.; 6/3/06, 3:24 PM
somefeller said...: "The affair of the cuckolded husband first came to public attention in mid-April, after the man, who goes by the Web name Freezing Blade, discovered online correspondence between his wife, Quiet Moon, and a college student, Bronze Mustache."

Bronze Mustache. Awesome. I defy anyone to come up with a better moniker for a guy who sleeps with other people's wives. If I were to make a Hong Kong - style martial arts movie about a Chinese guy who sleeps with other people's wives, I'd name it (and him) Bronze Mustache, and cast Chow Yun Fat in it, and yes, I'd make Chow Yun Fat grow a very thick bronze flavor-saver for the film.; 6/3/06, 3:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Scary. I wonder if the government is fomenting this. Takes trolldom to a new and dangerous level.; 6/3/06, 4:55 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: This type of spontaneous group fanatacism seems to be a constant in Chinese culture- no government help needed. The hive-mentality of the East rejects Western notions of individuality and privacy.; 6/3/06, 5:24 PM
nevermind said...: The hive-mentality of the East?! Hilarious:-D! You need some serious inter-cultural therapy, mate.

Anyway, this is fabulously creepy. Now I'll piss off with my hive-mates and go sting some other individualistic, private (aka Western) blog.; 6/3/06, 7:37 PM
hokuto said...: We had some similar stuff (but with a different attitude) here in Hong Kong too.

A quarrel on public transport was posted online about a month ago. Through video editing people made hundreds of different versions, including rap music videos.

The participants end up showing up on TV and radio, and related stories are covered in multiple local newspapers.

Someone was kind (or boring) enough to create a version with bilingual subtitles. I would not say the translation is 100% correct but you would probably get what was going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHziqJWYcM; 6/4/06, 5:56 AM
SippicanCottage said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/4/06, 11:01 AM