Goodness Me - China Media Project
chinamediaproject.org
Good Me, one of China’s largest tea store chains, had a hard lesson in public relations this week after internet users decided its punchline video about workplace discipline was not funny, not at all.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3170974

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On Wednesday last week, one of China’s largest tea chains found itself at the center of an online storm after a video emerged of employees for the company apparently wearing cardboard signs and makeshift cardboard handcuffs to enforce workplace discipline — public displays of shame that had disturbing echoes of the country’s political past.

The offending post, made on September 17 to the official Douyin and Xiaohongshu accounts of the Guangdong operations of Good Me (古茗茶饮) — a tea chain with more than 5,000 locations across the country — showed several employees on site at a Good Me shop standing with their heads cast down, their hands bound in front with what appeared to be cardboard cup holders. Handwritten signs around their necks read: “The crime of forgetting to include a straw”; and “The crime of knocking over the teapot.”

[…]

For China’s media and internet authorities, the Cultural Revolution is generally not a subject to be talked about at all. And for many Chinese who remember the period, which was ended by the ouster and arrest in October 1976 of the so-called Gang of Four, it remains a silent source of pain and fear.

[…]

Most comments on the video on both platforms expressed shock and ridicule at what seemed to be extremely unfair and inhumane treatment of employees on the one hand, and an acute lack of good taste on the other. By Wednesday the video had been removed and Good Me was scrambling to contain the damage.

[…]

  • YeetPics@mander.xyzEnglish
    14·
    3 months ago

    Check it out; the version of ethics hexbear and .ml want everyone to have.

    Your simple western brain can’t imagine how good this is for everyone.

  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
    125·
    3 months ago

    OP omits the context that they posted this as a joke/meme. Still horrifying, like if you parodied the Nazi-era Star of David.

    • 0x815@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      91·
      3 months ago

      I don’t omit the context. They say it was intended as a joke after it backfired on social media, and the company’s apology - as the article states - is somewhat quiet (on the other hand, the Chinese government - usually not averse to censor content it deems unpleasant - apparently had no problem with it).

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
        61·
        3 months ago

        That’s an interesting point, but you didn’t discuss that either. I understand that it may not have been your intention to mislead, but my first impression of the headline is that this was an actual punishment.

        • 0x815@feddit.orgOPEnglish
          42·
          3 months ago

          Suppose you see such posts on social media, would you really think, “Ah, that’s a funny joke”, and laugh about it?

          As the article suggests, there haven’t been too many with that sense of humor to say the least.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        3 months ago

        Ah, I was expecting to see tankies in here attacking the use of a joke to make Chinese companies seem authoritarian… But the full context suddenly makes clear why they aren’t touching it.

  • jaybone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 months ago

    “Echoes of the country’s political past”??? lol

    The past is what, yesterday?

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
      15·
      3 months ago

      There’s no public shaming for anything (except the fraud and sex offender registry if that counts) anymore, for better or worse.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
            4·
            3 months ago

            “This doesn’t exist except it does.” Gotcha. Also, that is not what the link says. It does say it was finally abandoned though… last year.

            • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
              25·
              3 months ago

              I don’t sympathize with their current leadership, but social credit never was really a thing. Zhima Credit was indeed a big thing, but it was banking credit and quite frequently got conflated with these voluntary systems. I was in school in Hangzhou—one of the biggest trials according to the article—for four years until mid 2022, and I didn’t think it was a thing because it was too small to be noticed or talked about in class.

              Participation is fully voluntary and there are no enticement beyond losing access to minor rewards. For fear of overreach and pushback, the Chinese central government banned punishments for low scores and minor offences.[15] During the city trials, pilot programs only saw limited participation.[20] Many people living in pilot program cities are unaware of the programs.[20] In Xiamen, 210,059 users activated their social credit account, roughly 5 percent of the population of Xiamen; 60,000 or 1.5 percent of population in Wuhu participated the system; Hangzhou has 1,872,316 (15 percent) participants and fewer regularly use the system.

              And no, bank credit is not the same thing at all. That’s just your average American credit score but embedded in a monolith.