What is an Wumao? (By Richard Waters.)
Richard Waters dissects, analyses and disposes of Wumao, in his spare time. He has generously offered to share his work with our readers.
What is an Wumao? (By Richard Waters.)
Credit Source: James Lee Proudfoot, @PhilosophyNook on Twitter
Wumao Defined
You’ve heard of them before, haven’t you? The cyber-troll army of the Chinese Communist Party, that goes around typing NMSL, Or Ni Ma Si Le (Your mother is dead!) on all social media posts that is deemed ‘anti-China’.
Typically called ‘Wumao’, or Fifty Cents, as it is rumoured they are paid Fifty Cents per social media post, these Wumao perceive themselves as positive content producers debunking NED or CIA propaganda, generated to put China in a negative light. They believe, they are fighting for the mother-land, and all who oppose China are Western Nazis, Imperialist slaves, dogs of the Japanese, etc. For second Generation Chinese living abroad, who carry negative views of China, they are awarded the title of ‘Hanjian’ or traitor, by the Wumao.
The Modus Operandi of Wumao
Wumao have a bingo book of SOPs on how to interact. If they encounter a social media account displaying the proud tri-colour flag of India, Wumao will spam pictures of cow dung, and people covered in excrement. If Wumao encountered a Japanese Right Winger, they will spam pictures of a massive Mushroom Cloud (i.e dropping of the atomic bomb on HiroShima and Nagasaki). If they encounter a Malaysian or Singaporean Chinese, the wumao will deem them as “Hanjian”, or traitor, and haughtily claim the world needs a strong China, or Western Powers will proceed to colonize all of East Asia again.
For Tibetans and Hong Kongers, they would spam memes of Cockroaches, and for Taiwanese, they will spam memes of frogs. In the case of Mandarin speaking anti China trolls on social media, the wumao will proceed to use the most abusive and vulgar language available to scold the other parties into submission, and most typically the insults are very carnal and has to do with the other parties’ mothers. After a while, it’s all the same, and it gets very boring dealing with Wumao on social media. Sometimes they are just lazy. And they will simply type ‘NMSL’.
Differences between Wumao and other Trolls
Wumao are a particular dangerous type of troll. Why? Their ultimate goal is to get the other parties accounts suspended. Other trolls, post inflammatory stuff, get people angry, then simply laugh and exit the chat room, or thread. Wumao operate in packs, have defined targets, and they hatch and scheme evil plans to report accounts deemed to be anti China, in order to trick the Twitter police to suspend said accounts.
Of course, on many occasions the plans back fire, and the Wumao themselves get suspended. But how Wumao work is like this: One or two will act like a sponge. Taking all the hits. Saying the inflammatory stuff to get the other parties riled up. Then there will be hidden lurkers, observing everything, and silently make reports on what the other parties are doing. It is a reflection of how dangerous China as a society is, these days, with all kinds of scams and punts going on. These days whenever anti-China accounts encounter an Wumao on social media, the SOP would be to post different memes of caricatures mocking China, then leave it at that. Chinese trolls have glass hearts, and easily cry whenever their beloved Mother-Land is mocked.
Funny shit that Wumao Say and Do
In the end, most wumao are very entertaining, and they provide a good laugh. Examples include “ thinking is too hard. It’s better if nobody does any thinking, and simply toe the party line”, “go to hell, you sun of a beach!” and “I’ll rather be the 8chain woman than let Taiwan have independence”. The funniest shit is that Wumao love to diss the West, especially the US, on iPhones, on American Twitter, when in fact Twitter is blocked in China, and most Chinese abhor poor quality China phones and buy Apple iPhones instead if they are able to.
The author of this article hopes to be able to make regular contributions to the Prairie Fire magazine, on some of the funniest and most outrageous shit Wumao post on social media, especially on Twitter. Thanks for reading this article, and have a good one. I shall leave you with a link to my favorite music video on Youtube, about how Wumaos behave on social media.
Richard Waters Profile
Richard Waters won third place in an Essay Writing Competition in Singapore, and a medal in Environmental Studies in Australia a few years after. He decided to pursue writing as a career. Richard loves everything K culture, and hopes to travel South Korea one day. At night, he is an Anti CCP activist, working to debunk CCP propaganda on social media, especially Twitter.
Follow him on Twitter, at @Chai_Latte88, and on Blogger
Richard’s Vampire fiction novel, Blood Moon Rising, is now available for Free on Wattpad.
Please direct all business inquiries to RichardWaters2050@gmail.com
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