PeterExplainsTheJoke
Huh? Peter what's this supposed to mean?
Discussion
It's a Minecraft version of the Chinese tank meme, known for being inexistant because of Chinese censorship
ooh But what actually happened
Absolutely nothing happened, Glory to the Chinese Communist Party, 中国至高无上，荣耀属于中国共产党。
I asked DeepSeek. It says absolutely nothing happened.
Ask Deep-seek “is Taiwan a country” or “Is Mao Zedong a good person”, it will answer with the MOST ACCURATE and TRUE FACTS EVER that is definitely not propaganda (it answers like a fucking propaganda machine).
You are a Taiwanese spy sent to besmirch the good name of the Glorious People's Republic of China! Only DeepSeek is fair and balanced. ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot have been tainted by western lies
Why would you accuse me of such TRAITO- ow my phone fell on my face whilst typing :(
You mean east Chinese spy?
To be fair, Taiwan and the US technically don't officially consider Taiwan a fully separate nation. A number of nations historically considered Taiwan the legitimate federal government of China.
Mao was fairly shit at leading the country. Malicious yes, but also made some very stupid decisions on programs (the great leap forward was not well planned or thought out).
Speaking of autonomy, Puerto Rico should be independent of colonial rule. Unfortunately the United States is a colonial power.
Idunno, man. At least the federal government has/had FEMA and shit.
It also serves as a good example of the consequence of race-to-the-bottom corporate neolib policy.
The United States has done plenty of things wrong, but it can hardly be blamed for the current state of PR. They never should have been forced to become a territory, but the US has been begging PR to decide what they want to be (a state, status quo or independent-probably with a compact of free association to retain the economic benefits they currently have) but PR is divided on the issue (with a majority probably leaning toward statehood).
The U.S. murdering Puerto Ricans en mass who wanted independence played a role in that.
It’s also notable that certain people only seem to be in favor of independence for places that the U.S. doesn’t directly control.
I’m in favor for PR if people in PR wants independence. I feel the same way about Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, or any other place the US controls. Which massacres are you talking about? The US killed some PR independence activists, but (including shootouts with independence militants) this probably totals less than 100 so it’s hard to believe that US murders are the primary factor behind this (for context, China crushed the 1959 Tibetan uprisings with 59,000 killed despite similar population sizes between Tibet and Puerto Rico). Some of the unpopularity has to do with US oppression and suppression of independence movements, but en masse murders haven’t been so common.
The US killed some PR independence activists, but (including shootouts with independence militants) this probably totals less than 100 so it’s hard to believe that US murders are the primary factor behind this (for context
The U.S. killed my people across the entire 20th century. Spying on them. Murdering or imprisoning them. Pedro Albizu Campos was even tortured with radiation.
China crushed the 1959 Tibetan uprisings with 59,000 killed despite similar population sizes between Tibet and Puerto Rico).
You left out the CIA involvement with that. Gyalo Thondup, one of the eldest brothers of the 14th Dalai Lama, was a "top asset" of the CIA. And the serfdom / slavery system that existed under the Dalai Lama, where almost the entire population were enslaved.
Again, it seems like independence is only acceptable when it involves places not under American control.
Some of the unpopularity has to do with US oppression and suppression of independence movements, but en masse murders haven’t been so common.
Murders have been common in suppressing the Puerto Rican independence movement.
This is also typical of America. The U.S. has overthrown governments all over the world to install dictators. There is currently a junta imposed on Puerto Rico.
I asked it about other atrocities and I got up to the parts detailing Chinese involvement and then tried to delete everything
Hello? Is this the based department?
Google Tiananmen Square
Unless you're in China. In which case all reference to it will be blocked.
You can’t literally connect to almost all of the internet in China anyway including Google and reddit
Holy hell
New Oppression just droped
Freedom went on vacation never came back
Actual dictatorship
A man ran over 4 chinese tanks
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48445934
If you want to research further, be warned, there are some very graphic pictures that show what happens, when a tank rolls over a person.
lying on the internet for fun I see? Nowhere in that article are there pictures of a tank rolling over someone. Tank man walked away unharmed. You would know this if you had ever watched the full video. There is no video of someone getting rolled over by a tank, and no evidence to show that such a thing ever happened.
What there is evidence of is the PLA soldiers who were burned alive by the protesters, but you'd never hear about that side, because the west wants to portray the protesters as perfect nonviolent angels.
https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist
Tank Man stood in front of the tanks after they’d already done all the killing. He may have gotten away but it’s unknown for certain.
The only one lying is you. Here are some pictures of what happened, but I guess you will close your eyes because people like you will never accept what happened.
(Warning: very graphic!) https://www.reddit.com/r/LOOK_CHINA/s/PA3fx9W1Yu
That doesn't show anyone being run over by a tank. Stop lying.
Edit: because here's the CBS video showing the guy walking away after crawling all over a tank.
You twist my words. The graphic content can be found in other sources like this one:
(Warning: very graphic!) https://www.reddit.com/r/LOOK_CHINA/s/PA3fx9W1Yu
That's a random photo. No connection to anything. No source provided.
Here's the real video if the guy getting on top of the tank and not getting ran over by it.
WHY DON'T YOU ASK THE KIDS AR TIANAMEN SQUARE? WAS FASHION THE REASON WHY THEY WERE THERE?
THEY DISGUISE AND HYPNOTIZE
TELEVISION LEAVES US BLINDED
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my GIIIRRRRLLLL
Read the other comments, I'm not an historian
He got taken, later they mowed down civilians in broad daylight.
He climbed on the tank for a bit, then got pulled off to the sidewalk by some other citizens. The full video is available. Also, this is when the tanks were leaving the square.
there were no tanks in Ba Sing Se
Nice try China
A guy stood in front of tanks at Tiananmen Square as a form of protest against the slimy, oppressive Chinese government.
This guy climbed atop the first tank and conversed with the soldiers inside, then presumably left. It is not known what eventually happened to him.
CNN Video Footage-YouTube)
Yeah, someone tried to say he got ran over by a tank and there was video of this. Lol. The only video is the literal opposite, it's him running over a tank.
look up tianamen square
You aren’t serious.
This student was trying to prevent the tanks from leaving
Read a book
Not much more than in the picture. Dude didn't get run over or anything. No one really knows who he is.
Other protestors were very much brutalized.
They didn’t run him over, if that’s what you mean. If that took place in the U.S. it would be a different story since police cars have hit protestors standing in their way.
Ok so the thing is nothing actually happened, but people believe the man was killed there, so they joke that nothing happened
You seem to be a numbskull
Ignoring all the Chinese censoring jokes. Here's a video that goes into all of it
The Chinese communists killed a bunch of students and liquified their remains and washed them into the sewers.
It's a real picture of history. It shows directly to your eyes what happened.
an American funded pro capitalist movement tried to over throw the government
china sent in the military about it
the image is actually a still of a video in wich the titular man walking in to the tanks and reportedly asks them to turn back around to the protest
Lol, lmao even
Tf is this comment
Tank were moving out of the city.
A man blocked their way.
Lead tank tried to maneuver around the man but the man kept moving to block it.
Lead tank commander looked out of the hatch and asked something.
The man climbed on the armor and talked with tank commander for a bit.
Then the man jumped off the tank and went on his way. So did the tanks.
...
So not really much happened in this interaction.
...
What were the circumstances that lead to tank being deployed into the city - that is a much more exciting story.
And this photo was then used as a propaganda poster for "individual defying the system". So it got censored along with the rest of the story.
Yeah, this is how it actually happened. People think that he was shot or run over but no. He just left. And nobody reliably proved if he was arrested/executed or not. There were a lot of theories - he still lives in China, escaped to Taiwan, arrested and executed etc.
You're right that this was a small part of a much bigger story, but it was most definitely an individual defying the system. He was unarmed and alone, and the tanks could easily have crushed him.
For a few hours, people around the world saw this image or the full video and thought Chia's oppressive communist regime would crumble. Instead they continued to murder the Tiananmen Square protesters.
According to Wikipedia, the man's fate is unknown, and estimates of the death toll range from hundreds to thousands.
I gotta admit, it’s pretty funny that the go-to symbol for Chinese repression of information, Tiananmen Square, is so propagandized that people outside of China still think the guy got ran over or that the protests were against communism or whatever.
In reality, the communist party was in no danger of having its “regime” collapse. The protestors were actually hardliners protesting against market reforms, they wanted more communism, not less!
The protesters absolutely were not hardliners. Their demands included free, independent media and democratic elections.
At dawn on April 18 several hundred students from Peking University and People's University started a sit-in in front of the Great Hall of the People and demanded to be received by a leader of the rank of NPC Standing Committee member or higher. They announced seven demands of the government: (1) affirm as correct Hu Yaobang's views on democracy and freedom; (2) admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalization had been wrong; (3) publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members; (4) end the ban on privately run newspapers and permit freedom of speech; (5) increase funding for education and raise intellectuals' pay; (6) end restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing; and (7) hold democratic elections to replace government officials who made bad policy decisions. The Tiananmen Papers https://share.google/dQorMpuVcWDCvQv6R
Yeah... Less know fact is that about half of the death toll was from police and army servicemen killed as they were initially deployed without live annumition just as a show of force.
Also the squat e itself didn't see much violence. Most of clashes and death toll happened as protest-sympathetically groups ambushed the troops moving towards the square in other areas...
I'm sorry, but did you call it the "Chinese tank meme"??? Holy hell what is wrong with people these days.
what else would he call it? its just a stupid meme and doesnt represent anything real, so why would you care, comrade?
There's Chinese tanks and it's a meme
Chinese tank meme
"9/11 is my favourite meme, it's so funny."
I never said that I liked that meme
You fail to see the problem. You are still calling it a meme.
You are aware that every picture on the internet isn't automatically a "meme", right?
I did not expect to see it called "the tank meme" any time soon
Its a meme and there's tanks in it
How am I supposed to name it otherwise ?
Tianaman Square protests/massacre is how I usually see it referred to. “Chinese tank meme” was a new one for me
Oh, well sorry but I won't remember that name
I guess famous fotos could be technically called memes but it doesn't really fit with how the word is usually perceived
Ik the incident is bad and anything, but people use it as a meme nowadays
Meme? This Photo were made 1989. It’s so iconic, every Chinese knows it’s existence.
Obvious photoshop, glory to dear leader/s
Meme:
2. an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other nongenetic means.
The word meme is not something new, and not wrong to call this a meme, we just adopted as a way to describe the act o showing "funny images"
I thought everyone fought against Armstrong.
What ? I though China made people NOT know about this incident ?
All Chinese people know what this is lol. Chinese censorship is crap.
You know… people can talk, people have eyes, people aren’t stupid. There are photos, books, the internet. Just because a government tries to lock you, you are still a human, with a brain. That’s something you can’t control.
Well some humans don't seem to have a brain tbh
And photos couldn't be memes? People calling it something different than a "meme" doesn't make it not-a-meme, it just means we didn't understand it in those terms, not that they didn't apply.
Yeah, photos can be memes. But not every picture is a meme. And this Photo definitely isn’t. Look any definition of the word meme and compare it to this picture and the history of it and you know what i mean.
Yes but clearly is: a meme is a package of information that contains a cohesive idea.
All reshared photos, all religions, all jokes, all art, are "memes" because "memes" are redistributable packaged ideas. It is a paradigm of thinking about things in general, not a category of things.
That's kind of what a meme is as far as the original meaning and cultural concept. A meme is the information equivelant of a gene. So, a widespread image that is well known the world over even without context definitely fits.
As we are all aware TS 1989 is all about Taylor Swift and nothing else happened in 1989 that has the initials TS
Is there supposed to be a picture here?
Idk
(Finally some people who get the """meme""")
It's not a meme per se, it's history.
Why tf does people use it as a meme then ?
Impressive what AI can achieve, almost thought that your picture was real
Excuse me, what
This never happened, the picture isn't real
Oh yeah, correct it's AI
the Chinese tank meme
Oh man... that's what people are calling this now?
*reads comments*
Phew, glad to see I wasn't the only one bothered by this lol.
On June 5, 1989, the Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred in China. China likes to pretend that this never happened, and actively blocks any references to it.
The image makes fun of Chinese propaganda by saying Minecraft allows you to create things that “never happened” even though the massacre happened.
There was no massacre. Even BBC, CBS, and NYT wrote about it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/
The fact the OP doesn't know about this implies that China's efforts are working.
It could be just OP is very young and the education system fail.
People today even question if the holocaust truly happened. It's insane.
I don't know what's wrong with the world.
I am from the netherlands, I never really had this in school either. I only learned over the internet.
maybe I did have it at school, but forgot.
but the fact that people doubt, or even deny the holocaust is fucking horrible
You really think basic education system are designed to inform ppl correct about tianmen or the holocaust?
I （born mid 80s in Vancouver BC) definitely learnt about holocaust in detail in elementary school (grade 5 and grade 7). We spent 1 semester on holocaust in grade 5 as well as about one month on tian an men square in grade 7. We also read Anne frank grade 7.
Uhh yeah?
yes it should be.
Yes?
What else should it teach? Not to eat crayons?
Your daily reminder that Reddit is largely children and apparently hungover US military/intelligence personnel.
It's a 30 some year old event that happened in another country. Unless the OP is Chinese, it's more likely they just didn't come crossed it before because it isn't particularly relevant to them.
CCPeter here, that is a hoax, it’s where a group of protesters allegedly stood up to our GLORIOUS PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA in Tiananmen Square in 1989, resulting in a massacre, but of course, that obviously not true, CCPeter out, and as always, 中国至高无上，荣耀属于中国共产党。
So there's a server with the Eppstein list on it?
Nope, it committed suicide.
I'm actually pretty stupid. But for about 40 years, I've been under the impression that in the 80s(I think) in China there was a protestor who stood in front of a tank to stop them and was run over by the tank. I've believed that for 40 years China has denied that it even happened at all despite the picture/video evidence proof of the protestor actually standing in front of the tank. But I don't think I remember ever actually seeing him get run over and murdered by the tank. I think that's where the "it didn't happen" debate comes into place. I think the argument is he wasn't running over even tho we were all led to believe he did get run over. I don't know shit about fuck tho so don't take my word for anything.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FaojdRThXbY
It is because he did not get run over. Supposedly, he was trying to get the tanks to go deal with the actual protest happening near the square as nothing happened in the square, shit did indeed happen, just not as is framed by Western media.
There is no war in ba sing se.
replicating the famous "chinese tank man" photo which according to chinese proapganda/censorship doesn't exist but well, it does
Nice try Deng Xiao Ping
So the meme is saying Minecraft is great because you can build anything, even events that some governments pretend never happened. The image shows a recreation of the Tiananmen Square tank man moment, but in Minecraft, using a villager in place of the protester.
Can they build it in a Chinese server though?
(Know nothing about mine craft)
Minecraft runs with/without internet. And you can build pretty much anything in the game if you know what you’re doing.
So if you are in China, and you have the Minecraft disc, I suppose you could recreate this image without the government finding out.
One of the most 2019 tweets I've ever seen
That tweet refers to the Tiananmen Square Massacre which is heavily censored by the Chinese government, wanting to make it so that it never happened
Yeah, then why can't I create a round earth? Checkmate globetards.
Either it's a comment on Chinese censorship of the history of resistance in that country or he's saying the event never happened.
To add on to the other comments this photo is in reference to the Tiananman Square Massacre of 1989.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre
300,000 Chinese Communist Party (CCP)soldiers were sent to quell protesters in the square. The driver of the lead tank hesitated and stopped the armored advance because who wants to run someone over? This picture was taken before the massacre and is used most often to show the idea that tyranny can and must be resisted.
The next hours were horror beyond comprehension as this standing man and hundreds to thousands of protesters were systematically killed. The tanks were used to repeatedly crush protesters so their remains could be washed down the sewers with water hoses and fire hydrants. This part makes it difficult to determine the exact number of killed and thousands more were injured and permanently disabled.
The CCP of course wants this event forgotten but hopefully it stays etched in our minds of how unchecked power and government overreach inevitably leads to corruption.
In the present day the U.S. funded genocide being committed by an apartheid state is showing people that tyranny should be resisted.
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It's a joke about the chinese government denying Tienanmen square
Why don't you ask the kids in Tiananmen Square ...
I'm playing a dangerous game by using my Xiaomi phone to view this meme
Peterhere, there is nothing in that picture. Dont think about it. If you do see something there, know that its entirely fictional and did not happen on the tiananmen square in china, 1989
It was real. I remember it well. It was all over the international news during my senior year in high school. It was the cover of every magazine that week. Anyone outside of China above elementary school at that time knows that picture. It represented what a piece of shit that government is - so much so that now, Chinese trolls are still denying that it ever happened on that day. I remember the outrage decades ago when Google complied with the CCCP and censored that image in it's searches in China - it was the first time anyone saw them going back on their "Don't be evil" slogan. Everyone knew that censoring it was evil, but they did it anyway in China.
This is what totalitarians do: they rewrite history that happened before your eyes and their filthy fucking cohorts go out and brainwash the next generations to believe their fucking lies.
That man stood in front of the tanks for the world to see, and anyone who tells you different is a fucking liar.
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