#qzone

If someone tried to tell me that China had one of the highest uses of social media in the world, I would have never believed them. Because, in my small mind, and im sure in the minds of many others, China seems like a far away and oppressed country when it comes to social media. I’d heard stories of people going on holiday there and not being able to post about it on social media until they got home. In my head it was strictly monitored and censored in all capacities.

So yes, I was shocked to find out that China has many successful social media platforms, none of which that we use in the Western world. The biggest network is QZone. As of 2014 the platform had. Around 645 million users (!!!). Although that isn’t huge when comparing to networks like Facebook, Facebook is used globally, whereas QZone is almost exclusively used in China. That’s a ridiculously large amount of people from one country.

But that’s because there is no Facebook in China. There’s no Instagram. No Twitter either. I wonder if they know what they’re missing, or if the networks they use are significantly better than ours. I might have to check that out later.

And even if they aren’t called the same names or do exactly the same things, China have an equivalent to each of the networks we have. Sina Weibo and Tencent tend to replace our idea of Twitter, and Facebook has a multitude of copycat versions.

Out of the 58% of Chinese internet users who use social media, a significant 37% are students. Now, it isn’t a completely new concept that youth have always pushed for change across the world throughout history, be it social, technological etc, but there is a massive difference in a country like China, where the government has a lot more power, and those who scream revolution have intense ramifications to answer to.

This is why the students of China have to be more resourceful and effective.

It is difficult for a social media user in China to express negative opinions on their platforms, and so young people have adapted and constructed an entire new language, constituting of symbols, images and sounds. This allows them to communicate with each other about things the government might not like to hear without being punished. Just like in many other countries around the world, the government cannot censor something if they don’t understand the language.

The language rapidly changes, so as soon as the government discover what one symbol may mean, it has been changed to something else. A now iconic meme named the Grass Mud Horse refers to images of llamas. People shared images of llamas as an act of defiance towards the government. Llama is extremely similar to the phrase for ‘fuck your mother,’ and so whenever someone. Wanted to protest against their government they shared an image of a llama.

Although the thought of having to create a whole new dialect to protest against what is happening around me terrifies me,  it seems like the youth in China are getting away with it just fine. Even thought they may use social media just us much as we do, the things they are using it to say are significantly more important.

References

‪DLD Conference 2013, DLD13 - How Social Media is changing China and Asia (Kevin Lee, Duncan Clark, Kitty Lun), 7 February, viewed 28 May 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3z2ucaR6A>  

Kemp, S 2014, Internet users pass 3 billion mark, We Are Social, viewed 28 May 2019, <http://wearesocial.sg/blog/2014/11/internet-users-pass-3-billion/>

Before we start the first issue, we’re going to cover some more rudimentary information and questions. The first thing I’ll do is answer what you should do if you want to read STC for yourself.

Where can I read STC?

If you want to look for physical copies, they exist and can be bought, but good luck. Since the comic was never reprinted after the original run, Issues are rare and typically really expensive (eBay is showing listings at well over $100 USD, and it isn’t much better elsewhere) and it goes without saying they’re all preowned. So, your best bet is online, and luckily that is a much easier endeavor.

The Sonic the Comic Archive and Grabber Zone are both good options with high quality scans. and allow you to read essentially all the Sonic stuff (I think there were some specials, like Streets of Shinobi one that aren’t here, so I’ll check on that), so I would go with either of those. If you want a slightly more cinematic feel to your reading experience, Sonic the Comic Reviews on YouTube is the way to go, but you’re only seeing the strips there and none of the other features of the magazine.

What is the recommended reading order?

Unlike the Archie stuff, which was extremely convoluted in terms of all the specials and miniseries which would wind in and out of the main issues, STC is much simpler in that you typically didn’t need to read the side stuff to follow the main story. The first side series to note is Sonic the Poster Mag (STPM), of which there were nine in total released in quick succession from late 1993 to late1994, and whose main purpose was those giant posters you could tack to the wall so you could show all your friends how sad your life was. The first two had nothing much of note, but starting with the third, a strip was included, although it wasn’t always a Sonic one. If you want to read them in chronological order, here’s the best way to do it:

Poster Mag # 3 – Sonic Sonic strip – After Issue 20

Poster Mag # 4 – Shinobi strip – After Issue 24  

Poster Mag # 5 – Sonic strip – After Issue 28

Poster Mag # 6 – Sonic strip – After Issue 30

Poster Mag # 7 – Streets of Rage strip – After Issue 37

Poster Mag # 8 – Sonic strip – After Issue 40

Poster Mag # 9 – Sonic strip – After Issue 42

Then there were the Holiday Specials, which were essentially just longer issues. The only one of these that’s important for the progression of the story is the Knuckles strip in the 1994 Special, so if there’s any special you choose to read, make sure it’s that one.

Sonic the Summer Special (1994) – After Issue 28

Sonic Holiday Special (1995) – After Issue 52

Sonic Holiday Special (1996) – After Issue 81

The last special directly connected to STC is the Knuckles Knock Out Special, which, as you could guess, was centered around Knuckles and the Chaotix, both the strips and the other features. This was published between Issues 74 and 75, so there you go. There were some other specials, but they were all reprinted stories and so we’ll just ignore them.

I’ve heard that Sonic the Comic only gets good later on…where should I start?

So, this is a warranted complaint in my opinion. Some of the early issues are truly dreadful and are enough to turn somebody off the series if they have no idea of what was coming up. A lot of the particularly bad stories were written by Mark Millar (yes, THAT Mark Millar) and have the distinct impression that he was about to go to bed one night and suddenly remembered he was a writer for STC and his drafts were due the next day. The artwork accompanying some of those issues really didn’t help matters.

So, if all you’re concerned with is the Sonic stories, I’d recommend skipping the first three issues altogether. Issue 4 is important as it’s the first strip written by Nigel Kitching, who would become head writer. Issue 5 is best forgotten. Issues 6 is a good one with some very distinct artwork, and then 7-10 are excellent and display the team of Nigel Kitching and Richard Elson at among their best. Unfortunately things quickly slide back downhill with some more Mark Millar trash. Issue 13 is the next interesting (if not necessarily great) one to pick up. Issue 14 is another Kitching issue, although a weaker one teamed with some truly dreadful artwork, so read at your own risk. Issue 17 has the next really good strip, and I’d say you can comfortably keep reading chronologically at that point.

What about the other British Books?

I’m not going to cover them in any detail here since they’re not related to STC. If you want to look at any of them right now, the Official Sonic the Hedgehog special from 1993 is worth checking since it’s Richard Elson’s very first work on Sonic and thus was probably the highest quality Sonic strip available in the English world at the time, at least in terms of artwork. The rest of the strips in that and the 1994 Special are rather forgettable and are for completionists only.

Stay Sonic is very interesting as it gave much of the very basic lore that STC would elaborate on in the following years. It’s actually something I’m going to cover in detail once I get through some of the first issues, so I won’t say much here.

This was allegedly the "雨后小故事" gif, widely spread on Qzone around 2007-2010 (I think?).

I was too young to have seen the original gif, so this might no be exactly it, but I can see why many say this was their sexual awakening, given how heavily censored everything was (and still is).

Qzone Logo Redesign Concept

Welcome to the very last blog post, what a ride it has been. But before i get all teary-

- i better get suck into this weeks topic, global social media more specifically the social media environment in China.

Firstly…

Did you know that Facebook has over 1.23 billion monthly active users worldwide?

Did you know that China has completely banned the use of Facebook? And Twitter? And Instagram? And Youtube? AND ALSO GOOGLE?

The Chinese Government has control of all internet content and has the right to ban anything that does not seem to be ‘in the interest of the state’. The Government believed that as Facebook is a foreign social media site, they do not have as much control as they would like. Furthermore, it acted as a flame that perpetuated riots in Beijing (Zucchi, 2015). The ‘Great Firewall of China’ (or the Golden Shield Project) was aimed to protect data coming in from other countries that are ‘unfavourable’ to the country. It has blocked 25% of internet content where it has seized control over their people and content on the internet which is massive. It is still in place today and is still making headlines even though it was officially launched in 2013.

I know that if this was done in Australia people would go crazy, I would honestly don’t know what i would do without Google (i say ‘Google it’ 7371963 times a day). According to one article, the Chinese public are angry at the growing internet restrictions. There are also hints to believe that even some high level officials believe that they have ‘overdone it’.

Nowadays, social media is apart of everyday life and despite the ban on Facebook and Twitter China’s internet usage has expanded more than anywhere else in the world with 513 million Internet users (Chui, Lin & Silverman 2012). The most popular social networking site is called Qzone where 44% of respondents use the most in comparison to the other social networking sites in China (Chui, Lin & Silverman 2012) that has approximately 200 million active users. There is an oversaturation of social networking sites which ultimately allows people to pick and choose what content they want to engage with.

Despite the restrictions and control the government has over the social media environment in China, it enables new growth in the social media scene which is incredible. Instead of sticking to the status quo of sites like Facebook and Twitter it encouraged Chinese sites which would boost nationalism and the economy. But honestly, how far can they go with restricting the internet before their people lose their minds?

Its fairly easy to assume that most people who have access to the internet use the well known social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. However this is not the case for a considerable amount of people, 1.35 billion to be exact. Those people live in China. The Chinese government blocks foreign social media, so the people of China cannot access specific sites. 

So yes there is an internet world where there is No Facebook, No Twitter, No Instagram and No Youtube. Crazy right? Not so crazy because through the ban on foreign social media, a host of Chinese, home grown social media sites have emerged and flourished. 

These home grown social media alternatives are experiencing huge growth and popularity. Sites like San Weibo, Tudou, RenRen and Youku similar to western versions of Twitter, Youtube and Facebook but have important differences that nuanced for the Chinese market.

Different websites service different demographics and cultural differences, giving users a more specific and tailored social media experience compared to the generic western versions of social media.

There is a variation of sites that are in a ‘Facebook’ mould in China. Take for example the site, Douban, it attracts art students and those passionate about books, cinema, culture, and music and lets users connect via those similar interests. RenRen is another, increasingly similar to Facebook, that attracts university students who use the platform to connect and interact with classmates. Qzone and Kaxin001 are other social media sites that target slightly different demographic and offer differences in the usability as a result of that difference.