Most of the clickbait that pops up on my Facebook news feed kind of runs together—”Top 26 Daniel Radcliffe GIFs of all time,” “Top 20 cities you should visit in your 20s,” or “You’ll never believe what this girl said to her parents.”
So when a friend shared a Thought Catalog piece called “So Are We Just Not Going to Tell Chinese People that New Years Was a Month Ago?” I was a bit floored.
The author, “Nicole Mullen” uses a bunch of racist gems to illustrate her point, which is that white people should make the “progressive move” to explain to Chinese people they need to get on their level, since opposing views of time would ruin business and international co-operation.
She writes, “By now, most people have already broken all their resolutions . . . not the Chinese, they’re just now sleeping off their ‘last hangovers’ and googling gym memberships. Swearing off dog and gluten at least until Chinese Super Bowl (Chinese Super Bowl is next month).”
I think this line speaks for itself: “What I’m saying is, you can trust one group of people to build the railroads, but it takes good honest folks to come by and make the trains run on time.”
For those of you who don’t know, Chinese New Year was Jan. 31. Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, which follows the cycles of the moon phases.
Although in China, the official calendar is the Gregorian calendar—the solar calendar with 12 months that you’re familiar with—Chinese New Year is still celebrated as a major holiday with important cultural significance.
The author is actually a guy named Nick Mullen, who’s been writing for Thought Catalog since the end of July 2013. His other literary jewels include “Why Isn’t There A White Girl History Month?” and “Calling Anti-Gay stuff ‘Homophobic’ is Disrespectful to People With Phobias.”
I checked out his Twitter feed, and apparently these posts are meant to be satire. Apparently I, like many of my Chinese peers, just can’t take a joke. But I’m really struggling to grasp how aggressive racism has become an acceptable form of clickbait.
This kind of writing perpetuates the idea that somehow, by making poorly written racist jokes, we’ve moved past racism. That’s not how it works.
Trying to pass off “a billion people that all look exactly the same” as satire is not the same as acknowledging and respecting cultural differences. Ultimately, there’s a difference between treating others as your equal, and thinking their culture is yours to mock.
My race and my culture are not fodder for your blogging career. Stay away from my Chinese New Year, Nick Mullen. It’s not my fault no one gave you a red envelope.
