Renowned Chinese artist Yue Minjun has become the latest target among the nationalistic internet
influencers and netizens in China, some of whom have accused him of insulting the country and tarnishing the image of the army with his iconic “laughing man” paintings.
Tweets and comments condemning the 61-year-old Beijing-based artist, one of China’s most prominent contemporary painters, began to emerge on social media platforms Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin (TikTok in China) this week after a local think tank named Kun Lun Ce Institute republished a 2021 essay on its official WeChat account that criticized the artist’s works for insulting the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s military force. As of Friday, May 26, images of what believed to be Yue’s work related to the PLA appear to have been censored from Weibo.