TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A video mocking China's authoritarian government titled "Fragile" has shattered the 12 million view mark in just one week.
On Oct. 15, Malaysian rapper Namewee (黄明志) and Taiwan-based Australian singer Kimberley Chen (陳芳語) released a mock Mandopop song titled "Fragile," or literally translated, "glass heart" (玻璃心), on Youtube. The term "glass heart" is used to describe nationalistic Chinese netizens who become easily upset when a social media post attacks the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The video is full of stinging satire directed at the CCP, from the extensive use of the color pink, which symbolizes "little pinks" (小粉紅), or jingoistic Chinese nationals, to a giant and clumsy panda. References are made to repression of the Ughurs in Xinjiang, China's claims to Taiwan, bat soup representing COVID, the Great Firewall, Xi Jinping embodied by Winnie the Pooh, censorship, and the ban on Taiwan-grown fruits.
After the song was released the Weibo accounts for both Namewee and Chen were blocked in China. However, the video became an overnight sensation in Chinese-speaking countries and areas outside of China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Friday (Oct. 22) chatter among YouTubers has spread to Europe and Oceania and was trending in nine countries. As of Friday evening, the video has accumulated 12 million views, with 543,000 likes and 112,000 comments.
Through his talent management company Asian Tone Cultural and Creative Industry, Namewee on Friday said that his agent went from happy to worried that "too many glass fragments will inevitably cut people." The artist believes the success of the video is due to a general trend and that this song is "not so amazing, it's just a mirror."
