cultural invasion with gain of function virus

because turnabout is hilarious

they say that “turnabout is fair play” and that “one good turn deserves another” and so perhaps it is truly fitting in the most karmic of senses to repay the gift of a gain of function derived virus to which the american populace had little in the way of pre-existing natural immunity with, wait for it: a gain of function virus to which the chinese populace has little in the way of pre-existing immunity.

and if you think you can jack up a corona-virus into something formidable by serial passaging it through a murine host, well buckle up because i am here to tell you:

you ain’t seen nothing yet.

“unleash the pathogen”

the return of the newly optimized tik tok virus is something that china is simply not ready for. nothing has prepared them for such an onslaught. and it’s going to be mayhem.

tik tok in china is nothing like tik tok in america. the algos are different, the content is different, it shuts off at night to make sure that kids stop scrolling and go to bed or do their homework. instead of the culture carnival of american influencer insanity with its impossible standards and lunacy lessons, it instills ideas like “learn math!” “become a doctor!” and “raise a family!”

during the disruption in service ahead of a possible ban in the US, the american gain of function influencer class has surged onto chinese app “rednote” and china is not ready.

this is smallpox.

this is “amway MLM getting loose on a previously uncontacted pacific island.”

this is the most highly optimized and crafted swarm sourced emergent propaganda presentation machine in the history of the world, a machine that not even hollywood can compete with, a machine honed on the most jaded and overexposed consumers in human history (the american teenager) getting loose in a place that has no experience whatsoever with this.

releasing a container ship full of leopards into the galapagos could not create carnage like this.

and as ever, private industry and free markets do the job far, far better than any government could ever dream of.

this will make the opium wars look like a pillowfight.

all one can do is step back and watch in awe as nature takes its course.

sorry china, y’all are so screwed. american teens spend decades building up a resistance to this and it STILL works. without antibodies this virus is an instant mindwipe. i actually feel bad for you. honestly, most of you did nothing to deserve this. (and if you think this is bad for the boys, wait until you see what it does to the self-esteem of the girls)

hope springs eternal

(but i wouldn’t hold my breath)

the sophistication level varies

but some of these kids are in way, way over their heads…

i don’t think facility with multiplication tables is going to get you out of this one, friend.

this is early stage illness. left unchecked for another week and this is going to start reducing chinese GDP noticeably.

welcome to the game, china. best of luck.

even letting this in for even a minute is too much. you cannot send the boy back to the farm once he has seen paris. close it down now and watch a whole generation of chinese boys go “cold turkey” and a generation of girls will forever feel off the fashion curve.

watch as the hot new thing becomes “bootleg internet to watch american influencers.” banning it will just make it all the more alluring and the forbidden knowledge all the more exclusive and coveted and in the age of “handset starlink” this is going to prove nigh impossible to stop. the great firewall will become the maginot line: built in the wrong place and useless against the new invasion

this is distilled essence of want and envy honed to a nicety in the most competitive market in the history of markets: the internet attention war.

“influencer” is a form of WMD.

michael che predicted this.

“white women took brooklyn.”

“if i was president, i’d have an all white woman army”

here it comes.

“tiananmen used to be totally sketch, but it’s super chill now.”

“china is mines now”

you want to see weaponized identity? internet influencers are weaponized identity. this is the most polished, A/B tested, hyper competitive evolved messaging in the history of messaging. goebbels and suslov and mao would weep in fear and awe to see its astonishing, all encompassing, totalitarian power. they would cower and do the wayne’s world “we’re not worthy” meme.

seeing it for the first time must be dizzying past disorientation and well into derangement and mistaking it for reality must be a full existential assault. this will make what american movies and TV did look like child’s play. people knew that that was product. this looks like real life.

and we have not even seen the chinese girls meet the american boy-fluencers yet.

and won’t that be fun mento to drop into a bottle of sprite?

will the next war be fought not in spheres of influence but spheres of influencers?

it would not be unprecedented. levis did more to undermine the soviet union than the CIA.

it’s only just beginning.

wait until we bring out the big guns.