How a toy bamboo cicada stung Huawei’s public image

The bamboo cicada has recently gone viral.

The sound that goes “wa-wa”, produced by this traditional Chinese toy when it is swung around, is said to resemble the gasps of amazement from the audience at a product launch by tech giant Huawei three years ago. Meme videos created by netizens based on this resemblance prompted Huawei to lodge complaints on the grounds of damage to its commercial reputation. 

The result was a mass removal of videos. Unexpectedly, the action backfired and stirred up a public relations (PR) crisis for the company. Huawei, which used to flaunt its technological confidence with the phrase “far, far ahead” and attract countless fans, now finds itself bruised and battered from a storm of public criticism.

Trending despite a purge

The incident quickly became one of the top trending topics earlier this month, propelling the bamboo cicada into the limelight as a new internet meme that everyone is pouncing on to imitate and parody. The frenzy bubbles into a peculiar phenomenon in Chinese cyberspace: the more something is deleted, the more popular it grows.

As its name suggests, the bamboo cicada is a toy made from bamboo and shaped like a cicada. When spun around, it emits a whirring sound like the chirping of the eponymous insect. According to reports by thecover.cn, Xiaoxiang Morning Herald and other sources, the onset of the public outrage started with a chance discovery by Chinese netizens late last month: the continuous wa-was of a spinning bamboo cicada sounds very much like the gasps of astonishment heard at a 2023 Huawei product launch.

The launch was for the AITO M9 electric vehicle jointly made by Huawei and the new energy vehicle manufacturer Seres. During the event, Richard Yu, Huawei’s executive director and chairman of Huawei Consumer Business Group, declared on stage that the AITO M9 was “the best SUV under 10 million RMB (US$1.4 million)”. A wave of wa-was swept through the audience in response, and this became a classic moment on the Chinese internet. 

At some point, netizens began to put the whirring of the bamboo cicada together with Yu’s sensational claim, creating highly addictive short videos with catchphrases like “the best toy under 10 million” and the punny “swinging ahead” (which has the same pronunciation in Chinese as “far, far ahead”). These went viral across major social media platforms.

Faced with a deluge of parodies, Huawei’s legal department made a concentrated effort of lodging complaints with the platforms. Its grievance was apparently about the “damage to the company’s commercial reputation” and “infringement on reputation rights”. As a result, tens of thousands of related videos were taken down. Even some ordinary videos purely about toy-making were caught up in the purge.

On 29 July, Bilibili content creator “Yiran Lai Tan Qian” posted a video in which he implied, without naming names, that a video he had shared featuring the bamboo cicada had been taken down due to a complaint from Huawei. According to him, neither the title nor the content of his removed work contained the phrase “best toy under 10 million”. He remarked, “I don’t know exactly whose rights this toy has actually infringed upon. Who got so riled up by it?”

He added, “If this sound [of the bamboo cicada] can bring to mind something bad, then you should be the one to reflect on yourself. Could it be that you’ve done something out of line, causing people to make such associations with you?”

Streisand effect takes hold

Far from making the trending word “bamboo cicada” disappear, Huawei’s heavy-handed attempt to silence expressions actually fuelled the backlash, prompting vast numbers of netizens to join in the collective mockery out of psychological reactance. The Streisand effect kicked in, whereby the more something is suppressed, the more fiercely it spreads. What was originally just a bit of self-amusement within a small circle is now common knowledge across the internet, i.e. that the bamboo cicada can produce the same sound effect as Richard Yu’s.

The Streisand effect refers to a social phenomenon whereby attempts to conceal specific information or restrict public access thereto backfire, resulting in the information being disseminated on an even larger scale. The term originated from the case of the veteran American actress Barbra Streisand, who in 2003 sought to use legal means to prevent others from viewing a photograph of her Californian seaside residence. Her actions ultimately led to the photo being looked at and downloaded by tens of thousands.

In a similar fashion, after the bamboo cicada incident shot up to the top of the trending topics lists earlier this month, the curiosity of Chinese netizens was thoroughly piqued, directly driving a surge in the sales of bamboo cicadas on e-commerce platforms. Some sellers even capitalised on the trend by marketing this traditional toy under code names like “Xuanwu Sound Toy Cicada Chirper”. (“Xuanwu”, a turtle-snake mythical beast, has been repeatedly used by Huawei as a technical designation connected to its smart cars and mobile phones, as exemplified by the Xuanwu architecture in the Mate 60 series.)

Cyberbullying or just having fun?

There are videos posted on X, claiming that the bamboo cicada versus Huawei feud is becoming more and more heated. Netizens are also getting out of hand. People are known to have spun bamboo cicadas in front of Huawei stores as an act of provocation. Extensive creativity is seen among netizens, who have gone further to use everyday items such as bottle caps, pot lids, spanners and medicine bottles to imitate the now iconic sound of the original toy.

Incidentally, the Yucheng East Railway Station, located in Liangjia town, Yucheng city, Dezhou, Shandong province, is caught in the crossfire due to how its name sounds practically identical to Richard Yu’s Chinese name. Numerous netizens have flocked to the station’s social media posts to leave comments that make fun of Yu and Huawei.

Meanwhile, the conflict at the heart of this PR maelstrom has risen to a higher level, going from the initial passing jests about Yu online to questions raised by the public about whether the boundaries of corporate rights protection are expanding too far, whether powerful giants are making use of the authority of platforms to suppress the common folks. This adds pressure on Huawei’s brand image.

The disapprovers are also concerned about another issue: that sweeping, indiscriminate execution of platform moderation can hurt the innocent unintentionally, and thus constrict the space for ordinary creators to express themselves.

Netizens commented: “I’m baffled. What has the bamboo cicada got to do with Richard Yu? The connection is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” 

“You don’t understand Huawei’s arrogance.” 

“Some brands have become off-limits to criticism; they cannot even be mentioned. This phenomenon itself is abnormal.”

Meanwhile, Huawei’s defence of its own rights seems justified to its supporters. They argue that the widespread ad hominem mockery by means of the bamboo cicada constitutes cyberbullying, so the legitimate exercise of one’s rights should not be misinterpreted. Harmony Intelligent Mobility, the smart car technology ecosystem backed by Huawei, issued a statement on 4 August, clarifying that its recent copyright complaints targeted specific infringing online content, not the bamboo cicadas.

According to some Chinese lawyers, the whole affair has gone beyond the purview of ordinary online teasing.

One of them, Li Zhenwu, as quoted in the 2 August edition of Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, highlighted that even though the relevant videos did not name anyone directly, they formed a clear, directed allusion by hitching two things together: utterances prominently associated with Richard Yu, and the sound of the bamboo cicada similar to what was heard at the product launch event. Furthermore, this was done “in oblique ways — such as through various indirect references, puns and radically altered audio — to mock, caricature and ridicule a company and an entrepreneur”.

What about complaints from netizens who claim they were reported simply for “showing a toy” or even though they “made no mention of the brand name”? Li Zhenwu thinks such claims are just twisting things around, betraying confusion about the legal distinction between explicit and implicit references. He pointed out that the recognition of infringement on reputation rights does not hinge on “direct naming”; a posted item may constitute infringement as long as its context or its combination of elements enables the public to identify the entity being referred to.

Li goes on to say that these videos with their widespread circulation perpetuate the atmosphere of mockery and ridicule in relevant public opinion, subtly influencing the public’s perception of the targeted entrepreneur and brand. As for the fact that some videos that “merely showed toys” were implicated and taken down too, the collateral damage relates to the level of operational precision in the bulk handling procedures of each platform, but it does not negate the legitimacy of the corporate complaints.

Li concluded, “Public figures do indeed need to somewhat tolerate public discussion and reasonable teasing. However, when such teasing crosses the line and turns into large-scale mockery and ridicule, rights-holders can hardly be blamed for standing up and defending their rights. For ordinary internet users, playing with memes is a source of fun, but moderation is a mark of refinement. Beyond the laughter, one should also respect the boundaries drawn by the law.”

Li Nan, a former senior executive at the Chinese tech company Meizu, has posted several comments on Weibo since 2 August with regard to the incident. He said, “The thing about the bamboo cicada [affair] is that some companies have too many people, too high a budget, and too little proper work to do.”

Another piece of his criticism went: “Removal of this stuff must have been turned into a key performance target for the maintenance of the brand leader image, and thus cast as someone’s achievement. Such preoccupation also indicates that the people working on it have been brown-nosers even before the current episode.”

Turning memes into brand asset

As for how to break the deadlock in public opinion, Li Nan remarked, “Isn’t [Xiaomi founder Lei Jun’s] ‘Are you OK’ right there? It’s self-deprecating humour.” In another post, he offers further advice: “Actually, if Mr [Richard] Yu were to hold a bamboo cicada and do a comedy exchange with [renowned Chinese stand-up comedian and internet celebrity] Fu Hang, I reckon the effect would be absolutely brilliant. It would be a chance to make history and surpass Mr Lei’s ‘Are you OK’.”

The reference goes back to a Xiaomi smartphone launch event in New Delhi, India, in 2015, where Lei Jun tried to interact with the audience in English all the way. His utterances of “Are you OK” then — spoken with a strong accent from Xiantao, Hubei — were eventually remixed by some Chinese content creators into viral parody songs. Wang Sicong, an internet celebrity and the son of Wang Jianlin (formerly China’s richest man), even reposted Lei Jun’s related Weibo post with an added exhortation, telling people to “not disgrace themselves overseas like that”. 

However, Lei Jun was not embarrassed by all this. It is rumoured that he subsequently spent a fortune to purchase the relevant copyright, set “Are you OK” as the official ringtone for Xiaomi mobile phones, and included it in the background music at Xiaomi Fans Club stores. When he appeared as a guest on China’s first-ever debate variety show You Can You BB (later known as I Can I BB), Lei plugged into the meme as soon as he took the stage, asking, “Haven’t you heard my song?”

In fact, Xiaomi even officially told all the parody uploaders: “Go ahead and have fun with it — it’s not an infringement of rights. It’s all fine as long as you’re happy.” With Lei Jun’s manoeuvres, what should have been an embarrassing slip-up best forgotten was turned into a brand asset. Xiaomi got to enjoy the massive wave of attention generated from this for a decade.

However, there is a difficulty pointed out on 3 August on “Technology T-junction”, a Chinese current affairs-focused self-media channel: Huawei, positioned as a high-end brand, is unlikely to mingle with netizens the way Lei Jun did. Even so, it is believed that the key to resolving the current crisis of PR and opinion lies, as always, not in suppression or filing complaints, but in inclusion and patience.

The article noted that when it comes to brand PR in the internet age, silencing people is ultimately a less desirable option than letting them speak freely. “The more you ban something, the more popular it becomes; the more you try to cover it up, the worse it looks” — this principle has never been mere words. Brands that can embrace popular memes are the ones that connect better with the public. Huawei’s legal department may have won in the matter of complaints, but its PR department has lost the public opinion battle. Once the bamboo cicada becomes a cultural signifier associated with Richard Yu and Huawei for good, it will be dredged up by netizens every time a controversy arises in the future. “Their way of putting an end to this meme is to have it etched onto the brand forever.”

Silencing users versus winning hearts

That Huawei is left battered by the humble bamboo cicada reflects the strong sense of psychological reactance among Chinese netizens. The reactance is against “the big bullying the small” in cyberspace. The mentality is about not yielding easily to pressure from large corporations.

In this age where traffic is all-important, if companies wish to reap the benefits of high traffic and exposure, they must be prepared to face discomfort and to even suffer injuries. A heart of glass is a no-no. They must also consciously differentiate between perceived and actual negative impacts, as well as draw a clear line between malicious smear campaigns and the public’s playing with memes. Some of the playing can be laughed off. Some of it can even be put to good use.

As the old saying goes, the water that supports a boat can also capsize it. Huawei’s recent action not only reinforces the public perception that the “big” (a large corporation) is “bullying the small”. (This, in itself, is already doing more harm than good for the company.) They also give an impression that the tech giant lacks some confidence. People now find themselves bothered by the frequent, synchronised wows (the wa-was) sounded across the floor whenever Richard Yu presented specifications, prices or new features on stage.

Given the vast landscape of Chinese public opinion, using power to apply pressure on netizens is really the worst course of action. The better choice is to not give the scoffs and scorns much attention. The best course, however, is to take a page out of Lei Jun’s book — i.e. transform all that negativity into publicity with positive value through self-deprecating humour or other tactics. 

If Huawei takes the initiative to make peace with the bamboo cicada in its subsequent PR efforts, the corporation would be able to turn the tide by demonstrating its own approachability.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “下午察：遥遥领先的华为败给小小“竹知了”？”.

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