In case you i didn’t get the memo, everyone feels very chinese these days. All over social media, people announce “You met me in a really Chinese time,” while doing activities that are strictly Chinese coded like eating dim sum or wearing an Adidas Chinese jacket. The trend has become so popular in recent weeks that celebrities such as comedian Jimmy O Yang and promoter Hasan Piker have even joined it. It has now evolved into variations such as “Chinamaxxing” (working increasingly Chinese) and “you will change Chinese tomorrow” (a type of affirmation or blessing).
It’s hard to quantify the zeitgeist, but here at WIRED, regular internet nerds like us have noticed a distinct shift in vibe when it comes to China over the past year. Despite all the tariffs, export controls, and anti-China rhetoric, many people in the United States, especially the younger generations, love Chinese technology, Chinese products, Chinese cities, and are consuming more Chinese-made products than ever before. In a sense the only logical thing left to do was to become literally Chinese.
“It occurred to me that most of you don’t feel comfortable with your new Chinese identity,” organizer Chao Ban joked in a TikTok video that has garnered more than 340,000 likes. “Let me ask you this: Are you not scrolling through this Chinese app, maybe on a phone made in China, wearing clothes made in China, collecting dolls from China?”
It’s all in China
As is often the case with Western news about China, these memes are not intended to paint an accurate picture of life in the country. Instead, they serve as projections of “all the undesirable aspects of American life—or the decay of the American dream,” said Tianyu Fang, a Harvard PhD researcher who studies science and technology in China.
At a time when America’s infrastructure is collapsing and unimaginable forms of imperial violence are being normalized, China is starting to look a bit different. Fang says: “When people say the Chinese century, part of that is a paradoxical defeat.
As the Trump administration remakes the US government in its own image and undermines long-standing democratic principles, people are longing for another example, and they’re finding a great one in China. With its stunning skyline and dozens of high-speed trains, the country serves as a symbol of a sincere and urgent desire among many Americans for something completely different from their reality.
Critics often point to China’s massive clean energy investments to highlight the failure of America’s climate policy, or point to its urban infrastructure development to shame the US’s housing shortage. This narrative tends to emphasize China’s strengths while sidelining the negative aspects of its development—but that choice is the point. China is used less as a real place than as an empty place, a way to expose America’s shortcomings. As writer Minh Tran noted in a recent Substack blog, “In the twilight of American empire, our Orientalism is not one of support, but of desire.”
Part of why China is on everyone’s mind is that it has become almost inevitable. No matter where you live in the world, you are probably surrounded by things made in China. Here at WIRED, we’ve been absolutely writing that: Your phone or laptop or robot vacuum is made in China; your favorite AI slop joke is made in China; Labubu, the most coveted toy in the world, is made in China; the solar panels that power the Global South are made in China; the world’s best-selling EV brand, which officially surpassed Tesla last year, is made in China. Even the most talked about open source AI model comes from China. All these examples are why this newsletter is called Made in China.
