TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — This meme including Taiwan in a new take on the Boxer Rebellion surfaced on Tuesday (April 14), as a growing number of nationalities join Thai netizens in their flame war with Chinese netizens on Twitter.
Over the weekend, Chinese netizens discovered to their dismay that Thai actor Vachirawit Chivaaree, also known as "Bright," who is the star of the hit TV soap opera "2gether," is not actually gay like the character he portrays but has a girlfriend. His love interest was revealed to be actress Weeraya Sukaram, who goes by the nickname "New" and the Twitter handle "nnevvy."
Bright started things off by inadvertently implying that Hong Kong is a separate country in a tweet, quickly upsetting sensitive Chinese fans. The fact that he had to apologize for such a minor detail spurred Thai netizens to leap to his defense.
Next, a Chinese netizen dug up a photo New had taken in Taiwan with Bright, commenting that she is a "cute Chinese girl." After she seemingly condemned the notion of being Chinese and responded to a friend that she was wearing "Taiwanese style" clothing, Chinese netizens became enraged.
Fury reached a fever pitch, and they began hurling insults at Thailand, with the hashtag #nnevvy soon becoming a battlefield on Twitter. Instead of directly counter-attacking with insults of their own, Thais posted countless memes showing people being completely unphased by the best that Chinese trolls could throw at them.
Over the ensuing days, other nationalities have sided with the Thais and posted memes of their own, including netizens from Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. On Tuesday, Twitter user Amazing (@this28644469) posted a painting commemorating the Seymour Expedition led by British Admiral Seymour during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
The original painting depicted a bust of Seymour overlooking waves of soldiers from the Eight-Nation Alliance bravely charging towards Chinese Boxers. In the new version, Seymour has a flag of Thailand imposed over his head, symbolizing the Thais leading the online campaign, while the flags of the Philippines, Japan, India, British Colonial Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan fly over the soldiers of the "New Eight-Nation Alliance (2020)."
As an overwhelming force of online warriors surges forward in the "Nevvy War on Twitter," a sole Boxer can be seen making an obscene comment in Chinese as an Eight-Nation soldier prepares to deliver a fatal shot. In the caption, Amazing made it clear that Taiwan is different from China and supported the freeing of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. He then thanked Thais for standing up to China and called for the bombing of the Great Firewall of China.
Ironically, the Seymour Expedition was a failure, but this was soon succeeded by the Gaselee Expedition which eventually overpowered both Boxer and Qing army forces to sack Beijing and force China to pay reparations for the uprising. The punitive expedition has often been cited by communist Chinese leaders as an example of humiliation suffered at the hands of foreign oppressors and a justification for protectionist trade policies.
Taiwan is not China. Free Hong Kong and Xinjiang and Tebet! Thank you Thais Free mainland china bomb the wall! #nnevvy #freechina pic.twitter.com/2dZ9SUWYGn
— Amazing (@this28644469) April 13, 2020
