[seanmcdirmid]

Wolf warrior, wumao, and so on are all terms that were invented and used by the Chinese, they aren’t western inventions. Censorship in china means that they are stamped out pretty quickly, but do not doubt the ingenuity (and subversion) of the Chinese internet community in inventing and defining the terms that the west then uses to talk about china.

BTW, since you use the term MSM, I assume you are a Trump supporter, since that is a favorite term of the Trump crowd. I’ve never heard anyone else use that word before, at any rate.

[dirtyid]

> invented and used by the Chinese

They're not western inventions, but entire PRC watching circles suddenly popularizing label by formalizing jingoist PRC netizen meme as state department verbiage and have such rhetoric deseminate into MSM as the default label when discussing PRC diplomacy is where we enter manufactured propaganda territory. There's reason it's popularized over the actual foreign ministry terms like big country / great power diplomacy by PRC watchers who should actually know better, but unsurprisingly clickbaity labels like "wolf warrior" gets pushed. Deng's 韬光养晦 / hide strength bide time was translated / shorthanded fine. Xi and foreign ministry elevating 大国外交 / big country diplomacy hard in the last few years gets the wolf warrior meme treatment, because that brings an entirely different set of imaginary connotations than merely "assertive" diplomacy. And it gets repeated online by "useful idiots" with only surface knowledge for intended affect.

I'm not American and indifferent about Trump. "Western MSM" is just useful term when describing western manufactured consent / propaganda system in relation to PRC perspective. It's no different then when I describe CCP perspective as "state media narrative".

[seanmcdirmid]

Wolf warrior is just a convenient term to describe a very nationalistic Chinese netizen. It sounds way more accurate and better than "wumao". We have westerners (and especially Americans) like that as well, so it isn't a very foreign concept. Everything in the popular press is meme driven these days, that's how they make money. Even Chinese media (GlobalTimes) is getting into that kind of thing, though the verbiage used in Chinese state media is typically driven by the state, so sounds less catchy (Chinese netizens are not under any such constraints, however).

The term MSM is pretty loaded, it automatically flags you as a conspiracy theorist Q-anon Trump supporter even if you actually aren't, if that isn't your intention, you should at least be aware of the picture you are painting to others. It doesn't really make sense from a Chinese perspective, where the TVs are all broken at 7PM showing the same newscast.