Real Cancel Culture
Cancel culture in the US is a nagging problem with a relatively small number of ‘influencers’ driving social media onslaughts against everything from past presidents to Dr. Seuss, but in China, things get a bit more ‘cancelly’. Take H&M (HMB.SS), the Swedish clothing retailer whose position over the use of cotton produced under forced labor by Xinjiang producers seems to have struck a nerve with a more ‘robust’ cancel culture orientation on the Mainland. A number of Chinese technology companies have actually removed all references to H&M from applications, particularly the popular ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, (pvt) where the app no longer recognized H&M store locations as valid addresses. Baidu (BIDU) and Tencent (700.HK) maps no longer show H&M stores on their maps and purchases of H&M products on leading e-commerce platforms are blocked.
The ultimate ‘cancellation’ however came when H&M store employees placed an order with the country’s largest demand delivery service Meituan (3690.HK) and had it denied. H&M still has somewhat of an online presence in China on WeChat and Weibo (WB) but Tencent removed two Burberry (BRBY.LN) (another target) skins from Honor of Kings, a popular online game, just days after announcing a deal with the company to promote its outfits on its games. It looks like China has a better idea as to what ‘cancel culture’ means than we do. Then again, state controlled media does have a bit of an effect….
The ultimate ‘cancellation’ however came when H&M store employees placed an order with the country’s largest demand delivery service Meituan (3690.HK) and had it denied. H&M still has somewhat of an online presence in China on WeChat and Weibo (WB) but Tencent removed two Burberry (BRBY.LN) (another target) skins from Honor of Kings, a popular online game, just days after announcing a deal with the company to promote its outfits on its games. It looks like China has a better idea as to what ‘cancel culture’ means than we do. Then again, state controlled media does have a bit of an effect….
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