It's not even someone they like, they just use it for easy trolling just like in this thread.
Edited to add: don't feed the trolls by responding to anyone from hexbear. Just use your Lemmy client's features to block the user or the instance. Connect on Android has great blocking features.
The comparisons were first made in China, actually. The only reason we even know about the comparison is because he got so offended by them, and we keep doing it because he's upset by it. It's more about shape than colour, especially since Xi Jinping tends to wear trousers.
For context, the joke is that the authoritarian dictator of china has outlawed depictions of whiney the poo in relation to their leader after chinease people started saying he looked like the character.
You can go to jail for wearing a poo bear t-shirt. A children's cartoon is now an icon of resistance, which is wild.
This is no different than that LGBT Putin image that'll get you put in jail in russia.
The yellow skin is, in my opinion, kinda fucked though. I know that the vast majority of people on here using it don't mean it that way but the effect would be kept while not changing the skin colour. The ears and red shirt are enough. Again though, the people using it are not necessarily racist for doing so.
To pre-empt the enevitable user entirely disinterested in conversation trying to epicly own me as has been the entire post from OP, yes, I'm entirely ok with this. You can 'mark me down' as whatever you wish.
For the hexbear users (or others) who want a conversation, out of curiosity, does your issue extend to the existance of this community on our platform? Is the issue only with the yellow skin? Does this, and if so how, make the people using it racist or would you say a non-racist person would never use this?
the joke is that the authoritarian dictator of china has outlawed depictions of whiney the poo after chinease people started saying he looked like the character.
Wow, that is a joke. It's not a very good joke. Who came up with it?
Ah, I see. So it's now considered "racist" to... checks notes have the ability to publicly disagree with the leader of your nation without risking imprisonment or execution.
Yeah, okay.
Try harder, and next time, try with less taste of boot. Authoritarians and their enablers are not welcome here.
"Things can undergo a transformation, just because the original usage might have been innocent. If something starts being used by white racists or western imperialists in a racist way, would ya look at that, it’s racist.
Also, it’s covert racism. It gives people plausible deniability. Like you are doing now.
Could you demonstrate that transformation with other examples from here? Other asian people being compared to other yellow characters? Or has it remained specifically one person compared to one character?