The picture above displays a contentious topic in our world and how we consume our media. For people in China, this meme was developed to make a joke of President Xi Xingping, well he does not like jokes all that much. Because in retaliation for people spreading this comical photo of their leader next to an animated bear, President Xi has now made this photograph illegal and the sharing of it illegal. Leaving many people to speculate on the matter as to why he did it. People have speculated that this meme displays a mockery of Xi and that his authority in China should go unquestioned. Many believe this meme had a gateway effect in that it got many more people discussing President Xi and questioning him. People viewed him in a different light, I suppose one he did not enjoy very much. However, this shows how something so simplistic and humorous can have a larger greater political impact.
The contention between President Xi and his people is nothing new, nor is the idea of censorship. However, the leap of Chinese censorship has now occupied the American corporation’s bottom line. Famous video game Final Fantasy launched in China and had to censor out the pooh bear. Even more crazy idea for an American to comprehend is that when you Google this image it does not appear right away until clicked upon. It poses many questions, what values do we find ourselves beholden to? Are we going to continue to allow foreign entities to infiltrate our thought process and what we are allowed to create?
Most people will look at this and seamlessly brush it off, however, people have been sent to re-education camps for this in China. This meme has displayed the evils of an Ameritocric system that caters to that bottom line of its corporate sponsors. We need to encourage our corporations to seek out relationships with countries that have the same values as us. No one has the right to relinquish our first amendment rights here, we must treat free speech as a privilege here because as seen throughout the globe it might as well be one.