I live behind the great (fire)wall, which means I have no access to youtube, blogspot, facebook, twitter, funny or dieor any other social platform that promotes unencumbered free speech. I don’t think the powers that be had me in mind when they made their censorship laws but their decisions definitely affect me and my ability to stay in touch with my friends worldwide. We are not in a in a social media blackhole with no access to the outside world unable to interact digitally with whoever we want about whatever we want. My social media life is quite active and current on Sinocentric platforms that makes it easier for my friends to interact in a way that’s more accessible to us. For every facebook, twitter, youtube, blogspot we have an alternative that does the job in terms of keeping us connected if not better then pretty bloody close.
Instead of Facebook and Twitter, we use Weibo which has 400 million followers and counting. The only downside is you have to be able to read some Chinese otherwise your browsing is limited to the small amount of English content which defeats the whole purpose of networking.
Skype; though not firewalled is rivaled by QQ which I find more user friendly and versatile in terms of file sharing, group chatting and relaying information to a number of people at the same time.
Youtube has nothing on Youku – if I can watch Bollywood silent movies and download whole episodes of Downton Abbey at will without encountering content restrictions then I am not missing much in my life without Youtube.
My wechat is whatsapp and instagram wrapped in one sweet package that allows you to leave voicemails, send photos and find people in your area who are using the same app Google was kicked out of the mainland a few years ago after they refused to sensor content addressing the 3 t’s (Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan) but it works just fine through its Hongkong servers. You can also just "Baidu" which is just as useful. By far the most successful/popular alternative is Taobao – your Amazon.
On Taobao you can get flowers delivered, get shoes made and find hard to find food items delivered to your door within hours or days. A friend of mine bought his cat on Taobao. He did have to go to the address provided for pick up but I am sure he could have had it delivered along with food and complementary toys to his office if he needed to. I get all my Halloween costumes from Taobao and last Christmas our Butterball turkey was from there. I don’t know how they do it but it works.
For my birthday this year I was gifted a VPN which I can’t explain too much about since its not exactly endorsed by law but everyone is doing it:) I felt I needed one after years of hiding behind the wall, I was getting out of touch with my past which is spread around the globe in 4 or 5 countries. I also miss friends who have since left China to return to the real world where DVDs and music come from Netflix and itunes not from a bicycle cart on the street. Most importantly I have 7 nieces and nephews, 4 of whom I have never met living in 3 countries. Then there are friends’ weddings, birthdays and milestones I keep missing and would love to be a part of if only virtually. I can’t exactly expect people to get that top of the line espresso machine for my wedding present if I have been socially absent from their lives this long. If I was up for burning bridges though I could still be content with my thousands of followers on Weibo and 20 feeds an hour from friends around China on wechat. I think the fact that the worldwideweb is not an established monopoly makes it easier for it to be adapted and reproduced to fit the needs of wherever you are in the world.
If I wasn’t an expat, I would have very little use for Facebook and Twitter. On Weibo and wechat you are free to talk about what you want with whomever you want as long as you are not an anarchist and are fairly bilingual enough to network with non English speakers. Smart people know that Indigenous social media can no longer be ignored if one wishes to dominate the virtual world of social media. Even Brad Pitt gets it, he made his first Weibo post on January 7th and within hours he had been forwarded 47,000 times, had 22 000 comments and over 140 000 followers – and his post didn't even make sense! (Lol) Facebook may be the Cocacola of this generation but its certainly not the only thirst quenching beverage out there anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment