• lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boats
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    1 year ago

    Genuine question, what is with serpentza and laowhy? I used to watch them before I got deprogrammed and even then, something seemed off. They were expats living in China, who speak the language and have Chinese spouses and children. To this extent, I find it strange they reverted to/still view China through an orientalist sense, since culturally, they’ve been there long enough to understand the structure and way of things. Yet, here they are, hiding in Amerika, exercising what seems to be limited knowledge on Chinese economics, history, and politics. Pumping out constant fear-mongering takes while cherry-picking stuff on social media. Every video begins with “So I have friends back there who told me how it REALLY is with XYZ”, and calling out anyone sympathetic to China a paid shill. They say they take no “sponsors”, yet, here they are, incentivized to pump out takes after takes, with millions of views, more relevant than they were when they did their China vlog stuff. YT is platforming them hard, it’s just pure fishy.

    • Blinky_katt@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      There was a period when foreigners, especially English-speaking white foreigners, were treated effusively in China, elevated above all Chinese people and often far above the natural social place these folks had back in their own countries. They got better jobs, better job situations and benefits, and Chinese people in general gave them respect and admiration based on their whiteness and exotic Westerness alone.

      Then China opened up to the world at ever increasing pace, Chinese people became more sophisticated, and an entire generation of previously-fêted foreigners lost their elevated place in society. They crashed back to earth and drifted back to the social positions they always would have had based on their personal abilities and talents.

      Laowhy and Serpentza lived through the tail part of that shift. The good and easy time they’d had in China soon ended, they were barely making ends meet, and soon had to leave. They became deeply bitter, and attributed that natural change in society to the CPC ruining the good times for everyone, not just themselves. Thereafter they fell in with various anti-China crowds within and without China, and also found just how lucrative anti-China videos are on yt.

      So it’s a combination of both a personal sense of being wronged, plus the good grift, that resulted in their channels and stance today. They were always grifters at heart, the change in money merely changed the nature of their content.