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Social Media Embarassment; Also, Happy Chinese New Year
As many know, this blog is produced by illegal sweat shop laborers, many from China imported just for this purpose. Only given food in relation to their improving English, many of the workers have made important contributions to our national conversation, leaving me free to pursue both my new book project as well as fulfill my life long dream of interning with the Blue Man Group. So, it is only right to celebrate Chinese New Year here by contrasting two social media videos, one made by the American Consulate in Hong Kong and the other by the British Consulate in Hong Kong.
Here’s the American version. Note the pleasant infantilization of the local staff, and of course the omnipresent security emblems both drolly mocked and celebrated. Chinese workers featured by title include chauffeurs, kitchen help and of course “residence staff,” all of which you the taxpayer pay for of course. If you can’t stomach the whole thing, please do jump to about 2:56 to listen to the head of the mission, the Consul General, painfully edge his way through a simple New year’s Greeting. And don’t miss the viewer comments, where ben14896 writes “At least it is not tedious.”
Now, let’s have a look at the British New Year’s video:
Oh snap! There’s the British Consul General rapping out an entire video in fluent Cantonese. It remains wholly unclear to me why the U.S. continues to waste tax payer’s money on these sad little social media videos. It is clearer, however, which mission presents itself as a serious player in Hong Kong, reaching local people in their own language to create a positive impression.
The Brits also have an English version on YouTube. See more of the U.S. State Department’s whacky social media video here,or this dreck. Why do these folks feel such a need to imitate the thousands of videos by high school kids and bored soldiers lip-syncing “Call Me Maybe?”
Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Department of State, the Department of Defense or any other entity of the US Government. The Department of State does not approve, endorse or authorize this blog or book. Follow us on Twitter!
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meloveconsullongtime said...
1So are they actually TRYING to push Hong Kong further into the arms of the Communists, or are they just f-cking stupid?
Evidently they’ve never learned Chinese Communism 101: The principal basis for the Chinese Communist Party’s appeal has always been Chinese grievances over humiliation by foreigners. Cf the Maoist movie “The East Is Red”, in particular ff to 6:40 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2RREUyPe38
02/13/13 2:43 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2CG Hong Kong should have asked Jackie Chan for his professional video opinion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/jackie-chan-us-corruption_n_2472104.html
02/13/13 5:20 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3Nix the dragon image, it’s the year of the snake.
The(attached)image is an appropriate symbol for the US new year
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9867865/Sea-slug-sheds-its-penis-after-sex-scientists-find.html
02/13/13 6:42 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
4Yer killen me guys. Speaking of death.. warmed over, those videos are…how do you say in Cantonese..”no words to describe”? Tedious notwithstanding, the only ones I can think of offhand is…well, “WTF did I just watch”? And WE are paying for this ridiculous crap?
They’re joking..right? I mean..this garbage has to be some kind of an “inside” joke cause no person in their right mind could produce this much stupid with a straight face. I bet the people who this was intended for are ROTFLTFAO. I mean, an enemy couldn’t have done a better job making the US of A look like complete fucking buffoons. Well, I’ve seen it all now. Our State Department of fucking bozo’s. Priceless.
02/13/13 7:18 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
5ps. If I were a betting man, I’d bet $1k someone in DOS get’s a promotion for this tripe. Any takers?
02/13/13 7:21 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
6ps2..speaking of “a straight face”, the DOS must have some kind of “straight face” training program, right? I mean, how in the world does the State Department produce videos like above, and then send out a schmuck like Michael Posner who “expressed concern” with a “straight face”…when he called “a ‘climate of impunity” over abuses by police and security forces” – in Egypt.
quote:”The official, Michael Posner, warned that failure to investigate Egyptian state agents responsible for “cruel treatment of those in their custody” – including torture – creates “a lack of meaningful accountability for these actions” unquote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/13/italy-cia-rendition-abu-omar
A lack of meaningful accountability for these actions. Right. uh huh. With a straight face no less.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Bozo’s nothwithstanding, in that DOS Parallel Universe of Ludicrous Bullshit, someone has to be a goddamned genius, cause in MY universe, that shit would be greeted by raucous, side-splitting laughter from coast to coast.
02/13/13 7:47 PM | Comment Link
jo6pac said...
7my life long dream of interning with the Blue Man Group.
I hope you try out when the book is done, it looks like a great career change to me;)
02/13/13 11:05 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
8At 1:50 on the American video the woman looks like she is wagging a soft dildo! What the? So we have weenie waggers representing us?
02/14/13 3:21 AM | Comment Link
meloveconsullongtime said...
9In the same spirit they can make a generic Blaxploitation video for all of the consulates in sub-Saharan Africa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y427bRmYCvk
02/14/13 3:37 AM | Comment Link
Lafcadio said...
10Once more, we have ample evidence that:
1) the State Department can make a home movie as bad as any other family in the world;
2) Foreign Service Officers aren’t hired for their looks; (for some, I’ve never quite figured out why they were hired).
3) collectively, the brain housing group at the State Department organism is being deprived of oxygen.
4) during Hillary’s presidential campaign, she’ll be lauded for State’s “innovative” and “groundbraking” use of social media.
Now I’m going to go “drop off a few friends at the pond,” an activity that will surely advance American foreign policy much further than all the ridiculous youtubes and tweets State has put out in the last few years.
02/14/13 10:13 AM | Comment Link
Expat said...
11Omg, so sad, so painful yet so funny to watch. A swirl of conflicting emotions. Then I lost my dinner… “Dreck” was a fitting word to describe the US Embassy in Thailand video.
Btw, in my neck of the woods we call it Tết not Chinese New Year because the Chinese don’t (yet) have a monopoly on the Lunar New Year.
02/14/13 4:53 PM | Comment Link
meloveconsullongtime said...
12And in the same spirit, I suggest the Department of Interior should make a similar kind of video for the USA’s “Native American” friends, like this one, in particular the first song and dance by Big Chief Ugh Amugh Ugh, at 0:30 to 1:40…
…because evidently the US State Department (and presumably also the Department of Interior) wants to “GO NATIVE”! Yeah?
0:30 to 1:40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYIV-jFarZk
02/14/13 5:20 PM | Comment Link
meloveconsullongtime said...
13(PS and gloss, may I presume that by now, PVB and most of his commenters have come to understand that I often try to write like the satirist Jonathan Swift? eg Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”?):
Oh and then the State Department can use THIS one for their Consulates in Fiji and other Pacific Island nations – most of whose denizens today are devout Evangelical Christians, but if State REALLY wants to “go native” then they’ll remind the Fijians et al of their “indigenous” culture of cannibalism! Oh and also of being regarded by White Racists as racially, biologically inferior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYrIIaB2Nk
02/14/13 5:31 PM | Comment Link
meloveconsullongtime said...
14PPS, and then continuing in the same spirit, then there’s THIS, for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden!:
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/
02/14/13 5:39 PM | Comment Link