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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2147 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm very intrigued by Chinese Twitter. One of my motivations behind learning Mandarin is to be able to follow the discourse there without needing to use any translation software. It almost satiates that itch of wishing to be raised in the 90s merely to witness Usenet discussions be held real-time; you must have both the cognitive acuity/technical expertise to know how to bypass the Great Firewall, and also the dedication to continue participating despite running risks of prosecution for said online activity, resulting a hodgepodge of eccentric individuals. Thus far, I've only scratched the surface and wish to continue down that rabbit hole. Are there any Chinese Twitter accounts the people here can recommend?

If it's anything like Japanese, there must be waves of argot depending on the writer and context, that change from month to month. Even LLMs used as translation tools have trouble keeping up.

Think Chinese is less prone to that than Japanese due to not having the supplementary writing systems etcetera.

I would suspect the opposite, as Chinese live under a regime that can and has arrested people for saying the wrong things online. I know the whole thing about Winnie the Pooh as a stand in for Xi, and it seems weird to think they’d do that on one topic but not on others.

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