Throwback Thursday: When Boris Johnson Flubbed Weibo

Joey Knotts, Contributing Editor | Apr 23, 2020 8:30 am | 5 comments | 490 reads

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our 12-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful stories of Beijing's days gone by.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is often compared to that other blond, crazy-haired world leader with a jarringly improvisational speaking style, but the similarities between the two are limited. For example, Donald Trump had already "mastered" social media by 2012, while Johnson’s bumbling entrance to Weibo showed that he was a relative late-comer when it came to cutting his microblogging chops.

As our blog reported eight years ago this month, Johnson, then mayor of London, logged onto Weibo with the account @BorisJohnson in what British commenters called a move to “woo Chinese voters in London.” They were likely correct, given that Ken Livingstone, the opposing mayoral candidate, registered an account ten days later.

But like his visit to Beijing during the Olympics, Johnson’s initial posts were not particularly well-received by netizens. In his 2008 visit, the mayor had invited criticism from Chinese bloggers due to his now world-famous casual attitude. The problem on Weibo, at least at first, was that he was posting in English.

"I can’t understand this sentence," wrote one commenter in an English response. Another highly upvoted comment read in Chinese, "Old man~ Can you speak a little Chinese? We are Chinese people, we are on Chinese soil."

But using English wasn’t the only misstep. Johnson also failed to use Weibo’s double-ended hashtag (writing the unclickable #BackBoris instead of #BackBoris#), and more egregiously, somehow managed to copy-paste irrelevant replies from his Twitter account to Weibo, effectively littering his own page with nonsense.

Soon afterward, Johnson’s team finally got a grasp on Weibo, and after he won re-election, the account even started translating his posts into Chinese in preparation for his next visit to Beijing. He answered netizen’s questions in Chinese, like what his favorite British food was (lamb curry), who his favorite James Bond actor was (Christopher Lee, because he had met him recently), and how to deal with traffic congestion (build more railways).

But the mayor apparently lost interest in Weibo following his 2013 visit to China. After uploading a few pictures from the trip, the account never posted again. Johnson apparently forgot the password as well, because when he reappeared on the site this year to share a video of himself talking about how he somehow contracted COVID-19 (from which he has since recovered), it was via a new account, once again in English, and embarrassingly handled @realBorisJohnson.

READ: Throwback Thursday: The Budding Days of Beijing's Urban Farming Movement

Images: China.com.cn, Weibo

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WaqarOptimist's picture WaqarOptimist Submitted by Guest on Fri, 04/24/2020 - 21:24

Giovanni Martini wrote:
WaqarOptimist wrote:
Giovanni Martini wrote:
WaqarOptimist wrote:
Giovanni Martini wrote:
WaqarOptimist wrote:
Glad that he's out of danger now and is recovering. Maybe after going so close to death he will bring some positive changes in his life! 
The only change he needs to make is learning to comb his hair. Presently, Western leaders (to use the term loosely) can be divided into two groups: 1) those who whinge and look like a dying calf in a hailstorm whenever adverse events strike; 2) those who confuse leadership with having a really bad hair day (Boris J. and you-know-who)
Haha.  Did you feel sorry when they were reporting that he's in ICU?. Despite all the negativity that he's, I was like, survive man!. Be strong and be good for the rest of your life! 
Why feel sorry? The Fates spin what they will. 
Yeah right, but still I was imagining he's on ventilator and that was very helpless scene. And no matter how bad someone is, he's surely someone's hero, most loveable person. So I was thinking about them. And how are you? 
I agree with a lot of what he does and find him, on some levels, admirable. It is just that pity demeans the one pitying. Most often it is posturing. A way of reassuring oneself that one is, after all, "deeply compassionate." If one entertains a Judeo-Christian or Buddhist view of the cosmos, this makes some sense. Most post moderns are materialist at heart; their "spirituality," a mild opiate. Given this, their pity-posturing bears a strong resemblence to masturbating to one's own image in a mirror. Self-gratifying perhaps; otherwise, profoundly pointless.The energy I might otherwise squander on pity, I put into admiration for those who show bravery, living or dying. And, yes. I entertain a view of the cosmos whereon that makes perfect sense.How am I? Physically well. Occasionally contemptuous of what I see going on in the world at large. You, I trust, continue well?

I m fine as well. I celebrated my 35th birthday this Sunday. I don't celebrate normally, but this time I actually went out and bought a cake for myself. Some people wished, majority didn't. Like Eid, I figured, any heavily expected event turns out boring in the end. 

And I don't know much about BJ. But glad to see you are the man of your own and unique opinions.. Biggrin

By the way, did you find new family for yourself?  Haha.. 

 

~~“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~~.

WaqarOptimist's picture WaqarOptimist Submitted by Guest on Fri, 04/24/2020 - 13:20

Giovanni Martini wrote:

WaqarOptimist wrote:

Giovanni Martini wrote:

WaqarOptimist wrote:

Glad that he's out of danger now and is recovering. Maybe after going so close to death he will bring some positive changes in his life! 

The only change he needs to make is learning to comb his hair. Presently, Western leaders (to use the term loosely) can be divided into two groups: 1) those who whinge and look like a dying calf in a hailstorm whenever adverse events strike; 2) those who confuse leadership with having a really bad hair day (Boris J. and you-know-who)

Haha.  Did you feel sorry when they were reporting that he's in ICU?. Despite all the negativity that he's, I was like, survive man!. Be strong and be good for the rest of your life! 

Why feel sorry? The Fates spin what they will. 

Yeah right, but still I was imagining he's on ventilator and that was very helpless scene. And no matter how bad someone is, he's surely someone's hero, most loveable person. So I was thinking about them. 

And how are you? 

~~“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~~.

WaqarOptimist's picture WaqarOptimist Submitted by Guest on Thu, 04/23/2020 - 20:53

Giovanni Martini wrote:

WaqarOptimist wrote:

Glad that he's out of danger now and is recovering. Maybe after going so close to death he will bring some positive changes in his life! 

The only change he needs to make is learning to comb his hair. Presently, Western leaders (to use the term loosely) can be divided into two groups: 1) those who whinge and look like a dying calf in a hailstorm whenever adverse events strike; 2) those who confuse leadership with having a really bad hair day (Boris J. and you-know-who)

Haha.  Did you feel sorry when they were reporting that he's in ICU?. Despite all the negativity that he's, I was like, survive man!. Be strong and be good for the rest of your life! 

~~“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~~.

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