Master of all bookmarks
Yeah this is old news like a year old, forgive me I not into any social websites except vox. Anyway I've become master of all bookmarks, "All your bookmarks belong to me". Seriously this is a German based social bookmarking site, like del.icio.us
Some people were rightly pissed off at the logo and posted about it here, which led to counter arguments on whether it was offensive or not. The whole thing descended into a flame war. One commenter reflected my own experiences :
As someone of chinese decent who grew up in an all austrian environment i can tell you why the cartoon and the slogan bother me. It reminds me of kindergarden when the other kids used to sing “ching chang chung chinesen sind nicht dumm, chinesen in die ecke scheissen….” the song was most of the time finished with a knock on my head, it also reminds me of middle school and high school where people who disliked (had a grunt against me temporarilly) greeted me with “schlitzi” (slantyeyed). It reminds me of the time when i served in the military (mandatory civil service time) when unteroffiziere and offiziere and fellow recruits greeted me with ching chang chung instead of hallo or servus which by the way i understand. "
Bottom line is I've had similar experiences so yeah I do find that picture offensive and you haven't experienced anything like that, then I can feel why other people don't find it offensive. Also having the surname wong, I've had to put up with the various rhymes too.
For balance here is an excerpt from a commenter who thought the logo was not offensive.
The logo has since been changed, to something IMHO looks equally as dumb. That reminds me of people who scrawl a jumbled lines together and pass it off as being a Chinese character (It only takes a little research to see what real characters look like). Usually you see this around Chinese New year when someone is making a display. I am not saying this is the case for the new logo it just reminds me of that.
Some people were rightly pissed off at the logo and posted about it here, which led to counter arguments on whether it was offensive or not. The whole thing descended into a flame war. One commenter reflected my own experiences :
As someone of chinese decent who grew up in an all austrian environment i can tell you why the cartoon and the slogan bother me. It reminds me of kindergarden when the other kids used to sing “ching chang chung chinesen sind nicht dumm, chinesen in die ecke scheissen….” the song was most of the time finished with a knock on my head, it also reminds me of middle school and high school where people who disliked (had a grunt against me temporarilly) greeted me with “schlitzi” (slantyeyed). It reminds me of the time when i served in the military (mandatory civil service time) when unteroffiziere and offiziere and fellow recruits greeted me with ching chang chung instead of hallo or servus which by the way i understand. "
Bottom line is I've had similar experiences so yeah I do find that picture offensive and you haven't experienced anything like that, then I can feel why other people don't find it offensive. Also having the surname wong, I've had to put up with the various rhymes too.
For balance here is an excerpt from a commenter who thought the logo was not offensive.
Honestly… chill out
It’s a picture portraying ONE man, and that’s it. It’s not trying to be racist. No matter how much you want it to, it’s not saying, “Hahaha all asians look exactly like this guy! Let’s make fun of them!” Sorry.
I’m a black guy living in America. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Georgia. I know what’s it’s like to be discriminated against, and sorry, this isn’t it. Like it or not, most Asian people DO have yellow-tinted skin and relatively slanted eyes. Those are physical characteristics associated with being Asian. The image of Mr.Wong is a perfectly acceptable caricutare. I mean, I’ll tell you straight up that most black people have brown skin, big lips, and curly hair. And it’s true. Whoop de do.
The logo has since been changed, to something IMHO looks equally as dumb. That reminds me of people who scrawl a jumbled lines together and pass it off as being a Chinese character (It only takes a little research to see what real characters look like). Usually you see this around Chinese New year when someone is making a display. I am not saying this is the case for the new logo it just reminds me of that.
Comments
great post!
honestly, i always liked the original mister wong logo and never thought it was racist - like the 2nd commenter says it portrays one man: a cartoon portrait of mister wong, the nice & smartass master of all bookmarks. and nothing else.