Hong Kong meme creators see the funny side in a city undergoing drastic transformation
Hong Kong Free Press
The Instagram account of anonymous user @jojo_wu, which has more than 248,000 followers, is essentially a roundup of the most buzzworthy events in Hong Kong. The page’s almost 1,000 posts have been reposted by those who hail the page’s ability to poke fun at socio-political issues in a city undergoing drastic transformation.
From pro-establishment lawmaker Priscilla Leung mistakenly calling Legislative Council President Andrew Leung “master” at a meeting, to a Transformer-looking electric minibus that received mixed views, Jojo Wu’s followers lap up his quick-witted commentary on everyday events.
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Behind this meme page is a freelance social media manager in his late 20s, who refuses to disclose his real name due to fear of reprisals. Dressed in a white T-shirt featuring a character from his favourite television show Breaking Bad, Wu tells HKFP that he hopes to help Hongkongers find humour in what he described as a cycle of negative news.
Wu is an avid reader of local and international news. During his in-person interview with HKFP, his phone buzzed non-stop with updates from news organisations of different leanings.
Before launching his Instagram page in February 2020, Wu shared his take on local politics under the same pseudonym on Facebook since 2017. The creator, who says he identified as a localist prior to the 2019 extradition bill protests, used to be critical of Hong Kong’s traditional pan-democrats.
Wu was occasionally quoted as a “netizen” by Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po, which inserted his remarks in articles slamming pro-democracy politicians such as ex-lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung and Tiananmen vigil organiser Lee Cheuk-yan.
After writing on his Facebook page that he would like to be identified as “a loyal reader of Wen Wei Po” rather than a “netizen,” the newspaper began identifying him in that way.
“I just wanted to know if they actually followed my posts… I thought it was pretty funny,” Wu says, speaking in Cantonese.
Rapid growth
Wu saw his following expand after pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was forced to close in June 2021, following the arrests of its senior staff under the Beijing-imposed security law and the subsequent asset freeze ordered by the government.
Hongkongers at the time felt the need for a new platform for receiving information, he says, adding that the growth of his page was also aided by the Covid-19 pandemic, as many people stayed home and spent more time on Instagram.
Wu says more than 85 per cent of his followers are based in Hong Kong, followed by 4.3 per cent in the UK, and 2.3 per cent in Canada. Close to half of his followers are aged between 25 and 34, while those aged between 18 and 24 account for around 31 per cent.
Legal risks
Since the enactment of the national security law on June 30, 2020, the city has seen former lawmakers, pro-democracy activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars among more than 260 arrested for allegedly endangering national security.
The sweeping legislation targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorist acts, and mandates up to life imprisonment. Some of the arrests, however, were made under a separate sedition law, which was last amended decades ago when the city was a British colony and warrants a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
Among the alleged sedition offences were those accused of making “seditious” posts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and popular discussion forum LIHKG.
For Wu, who has not shied away from mocking top Hong Kong and Chinese officials, risk assessment became part of his daily practice as he reviewed his content carefully to ensure his posts were not “too extreme,” Wu says.
But instead of airing criticism directly, Wu “repackages his discontent with humour and satire,” he says.
“I believe my readers, who have been following me for some time, would know what I mean,” he adds, pointing to backhanded compliments he would pay to top officials.
He also monitors national security cases as they progress through the courts to try and gauge what may be deemed illegal, and admits that some posts have been taken down after evaluating the risks.
To avoid getting caught in the crosshairs, he has turned his focus on less sensitive issues, such as people’s livelihoods.
Nancy Lim, the administrator behind another popular Hong Kong meme page @hkmehmeh, told HKFP in person her content had also changed in light of the national security law.
Before the security law came into force was “prime time” for political meme creators, says the Korean, who studied at the University of Hong Kong. But following the closure of Apple Daily and online media outlet Stand News in 2021, Lim stopped actively reading the news, believing it to be pointless. Rather, she says she finds out about events in the city by “word of mouth.”
“I generally just ask my friends… you would be surprised by how much news I don’t read,” she says, speaking in English.
Lim also relies on her friends to help assess the risks involved in sharing memes on political issues, particularly those who are lawyers or with ties to the government.
”There are so many great memes that came out of political events, but we cannot comment of them because of the reality. At this point, instead of sulking over it, I just want to move past it,” she says.
Anonymity
Despite his mass following on Instagram, Wu does not see himself as a key opinion leader and has tried his best to keep a low profile. This despite his friends jokingly threatening to expose his identity by holding up their mobile phones and showing the line: “This is Jojo Wu.”
Asked if he worried his identity might be disclosed to the police, the creator shrugs and says he is not “too scared.”
“I think many people will be calling that tip line every day,” Wu says, laughing. “Over the past three years, I did not get arrested. Perhaps the officers also thought they should not arrest me.”
Unlike Wu, Lim has chosen not to be anonymous. Instead, she embraces publicity as a form of protection, which she believes may be beneficial if her page were ever targeted by the authorities.
“I’m genuinely worried about these [unnamed creators] because, to be honest, if the government wants to find out, it’s just a matter of time,” she says.
News consumption
Lim’s remixes of images and text are not only popular on social media, they also featured in an exhibition titled “Meme the News” organised by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) in February.
The installation documented a recent change in the way people consume the news, especially young audiences, the club said. Tt showcased six meme creators whose work was based on Hong Kong current affairs.
“The six accounts… create content that helps people process and make sense of what’s going on around them, using levity to create a feeling of togetherness, something we’ve all needed over the last few years of protests and a pandemic,” the FCC said.
Although Lim and Wu recognise that many of their followers enjoy learning about the latest events in the city through humour, they did not want their content to be considered news reports.
Wu says his intention in creating political memes was to repackage what he saw as “negative news” and encourage people to pay attention to current affairs and look up relevant news articles. Even if only one out of 100 readers did so, that was enough.
“I didn’t want people to not read the news,” Wu tells HKFP. “Maybe there is a piece of sad news, but I did not want my readers to see the negative side only.”
Lim says her meme page is like a personal diary that has documented the different stages in her life. She started off posting light-hearted content about expatriates in Hong Kong, before gradually incorporating current affairs.
“I don’t ever want to be compared to journalism,” she said.
The distinction between meme accounts and news outlets is clear, according to political communication scholar Gary Tang. The former are meant to be “for fun,” and their administrators have no responsibility to take into account “proper news agenda-setting,” Tang tells HKFP in a phone interview.
The advantages of using memes to draw attention to current affairs were obvious, but any traditional media wanting to step into the sphere should be cautious, Tang warns.
“For media organisations which are conservative, they use social media very formally. They may not want to get involved with memes, because they are catering to a broader audience whose social status may not find memes acceptable,” he says.
‘Everyone knows the risk of fake news’
While neither Lim nor Wu see themselves as journalists, both try to be meticulous with fact-checking before they post.
Competition among meme pages may prompt some creators to push content out as soon as possible before checking its accuracy, Lim said. And not everyone evaluates how appropriate their content is, she adds.
For Lim, who does not speak Chinese, verification depends on local friends who offer translation help, or give her context relating to her post.
“Everyone knows the risk of fake news, which comes in different forms, such as inaccurate details,” she says.
‘There should not be just one voice in society’
Because most meme pages tend to communicate personal views, both Lim and Wu recognise the information shared on their pages could be considered one-sided.
“I also don’t want my readers to just read my posts… my views may not be correct,” Wu said.
He pointed to the comment section, saying it was more interesting than his posts, as people with opposing views would interact and debate. It would be “meaningless” if there were only comments from those who shared his opinion, he says.
“I see comments supporting my views, but also those who disagree with me, which is a good thing… there should not be just one voice in society,” he adds.
Role of memes
Asked if meme pages, especially those which regularly shared political content, could deepen polarisation in Hong Kong, Tang says that even if meme creators made content solely based on their opinions, their views, in theory, would be balanced out by those of other creators.
An assistant professor of the Department of Social Science at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Tang is currently leading a research project on the role of memes in framing online public opinion, and to what extent this “bottom-up participatory media” could encourage political discussions.
He notes that memes related to current affairs are not as common in the Chinese-speaking world, and says he was interested in scrutinising their impact from a less critical approach than has widely been adopted by US academics.
“Memes are low-threshold materials that allow people to learn about current affairs,” Tang tells HKFP in a telephone interview. “I was wondering if memes could allow a person who does not pay attention to news to at least know there is something going on in society.”
Rather than focusing on whether memes promote polarised views, the public and academia should reflect on the socio-political issues they reflect, the scholar says.
Because these viral, humorous posts are often image-driven, Tang says meme pages inevitably focus on topics that are easily visualised. Abstract and complicated topics that relate to public policies often receive less exposure.
He cites lawmaker Leung’s slip of tongue in the legislature last month, saying that it would be more difficult to create memes on housing policies, such as the government’s plan to build 12,000 public housing flats.
“It is easier for issues with stronger images or visuals to get the agenda. This is something that requires us to think of ways to resolve it,” Tang says.
News avoidance
For Hongkongers who supported the city’s democratic development, local social and political news over the past two or three years had mostly been “bad news,” according to journalism studies and political communication scholar Francis Lee. This has led to a number of people avoiding the news altogether, Lee said last month in an article published in Ming Pao.
According to a study conducted by Lee in March, those who agreed they wanted to avoid news on socio-political changes in Hong Kong outnumbered those who disagreed. The scholar also compared people’s level of news consumption with their willingness and ability to adapt to a changing environment.
Those who were less adaptive to a “discouraging” socio-political environment may avoid the news, Lee said. However, people with a higher degree of adaptability may adjust their news consumption, rather than significantly reducing it, as a way of managing their emotions in what they saw as a poor socio-political environment.
Tang echoes Lee’s analysis, saying people who did not read the news were not necessarily indifferent to what was happening in society. While reading current affairs memes was far from the same as reading a news article, it is still better than not following the news at all, Tang says.
“Although memes carry very little information, they still inform people about a certain public agenda… memes still have their impact, and the impact is not small.”
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