From The Guardian’s News Blog:
What are they? Have the Pokemon been spawning the love children of Astroboy? Have five boddhisatvas turned up in Beijing as strange little manga aliens?
No, they’re Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying and Ni Ni – the five official mascots of the 2008 Olympics, unveiled earlier today in a grand ceremony in Beijing…
The post goes on to review Olympic mascots from previous Games, noting that they are all prettty lame. A frivolous post about a frivolous subject.
But then in the comments section, a slightly deranged fellow who identifies himself as Feargal Mooney writes the following:
Tat and grot from the corrupt state that shoots men and women in the back of the head for crimes, forces women to have abortions, leaves daughters to die, and holds its citizens in serfdom and ignorance. The East is scarlet with shame. Boycott Beijing 2008…
…I have seen a package from a shop with a message in Chinese written inside the wrapping paper, “Tell the world, we are slave labourers!”
While Feargal fulminates, an enterprising person from a Chinese design firm —who has somehow managed to avoid being aborted, executed or enslaved — is using the Guardian News Blog to raise his company website’s Google ranking. The design firm guy copied the text of someone else’s comment and posted it with the author name as ‘画册设计’ (brochure design). Another comment, simply “Oh gosh” is posted by ‘标志设计’ (logo design). These author names are linked to different pages of the company’s website.
- The Guardian News Blog: Cloying and Crittersweet
- Bingfeng Teahouse: The Guardian blogs about Olympics Mascots
- Comment spam design firm: 08 Vision (you go guys!)