Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal

By Ernie | Tuesday, May 15, 2007 | 271 Comments

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20110527 cyec3qwk2htbn7g2hb95wuxqdh Mister Wong, the Offensive Social Bookmarking Portal Alex, I’ll take “European Web 2.0 companies that make you say WTF” for $200: In Germany, a country where there is the most broadband users in Europe, the biggest social bookmarking website isn’t Yahoo! owned del.icio.us, but a site called… Mister Wong. Why yes, that WOULD be the logo of Mister Wong to the right, thank you for noticing.

Yeeeeeah. Wow.

I mean, being an engineer in the web industry, I’m sure it has some of the standard features that make a social bookmarking portal interesting and relevant, but seriously, who were the branding and advertising geniuses that came up with this one? I mean sure, it’s based in Germany, which is practically a whole world away. Maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America. But seriously, one of their web badges has the slogan “ping pong, king kong, Mister Wong.” Which I, of course, interpret as “ching chong, Mister Wong” and get INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANGRY. It’s like Jeeves, the ask.com butler and Uncle Ben had a stereotypical illegitimate Asian son.

I mean, Christ, his face is on soccer jerseys. SOCCER JERSEYS.

And just when you think I couldn’t get anymore WTF’ed – Mister Wong has a Chinese version of their site. Seriously. Now, I’ll fully admit to being the naive American here – maybe my cultural American bias is slanted and that people from mainland Chinese won’t be completely horrified to see a caricature of someone their ethnicity touting the virtues of the social web. Hell, you have Wang Lan of the Chinese support team on the front page. “It’s okay to use this page,” she seems to beckon. “I’m Chinese too, you see?”

Since I don’t speak German and there is just an intro English page, maybe there’s a story on how the site came up with its name and branding and someone can help out. Mister Wong had better been based on a real person and saved twenty burning German orphanages, because otherwise, I’m calling foul.

(Thanks for the heads-up, MJ)

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DiscriminationTechnology

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Peter

Here’s a German interview with the CEO of the ad agency “construktiv”, which created “Mister Wong”: http://www.xpunktnull.de/11qs/11qs-mister-wong

Concerning the branding, he says: “Initially, we had planned a totally different name than ‘Mister Wong’, but one morning ‘Mister Wong’ popped into my mind. The team immediately was very fond of it and when our designer illustrated him, we said “Yes!” and were happy about it ”
http://www.wonderful-electric.co.uk wonderful electric

Yeah, I’ve been vaguely aware of this site for ages but not speaking any German and being used to invisible racism without any power movements behind me in Europe, I kinda just had to let it lie. Not many Chinese-European organisations with any clout here – most of the ones that do exist are far more interested in helping Chinese immigrants assimilate into Europe.

Shame, really.
http://jozjozjoz.com jozjozjoz

Perhaps the algorithm will kill him now that it’s already killed Jeeves.
http://chaos.corrupt.net/notes Jim

My new social bookmarking site is going to be called “Klaus der Ubermensch.”
Sam

Maybe they named it such so that it would be controversial enough to engender links (ergo PR) from offended blog authors?
Tan

It would be a different story here in America. Our Asian American leaders would definitely have a lot to say. I guess these Germans have more room for racial stereotypes because there arn’t many Asian civil rights groups there to think about comments like “ping pong, king kong, Mister Wong.”
http://www.wonderful-electric.co.uk wonderful electric

I know that in Germany, the main racial tension is over the Turkish. But in most of Europe, Asians provide nice tasty food and the odd addiction to gambling. And that’s about it.

The UK probably has a higher percentage of Asians (as in Chinese etc.) than anywhere else in Europe, and what was the issue that got them marching in the streets? The suggestion that the outbreak of foot’n'mouth disease in the UK was due to illegal imported Chinese meat.
Matt Clark

Why is this offensive? I (a white American guy) would not in any way be offended if a Chinese website called itself “Mr. Jones” and had a cartoon of a white guy on it.

Enlighten me. What on earth is offensive about the Mr. Wong website?
courageous kiwi

Matt Clark – the image is highly stereotypical. How many Asians look like that? The analog is would be a “Mr. Horowitz” site who has thick glasses, a big nose and holding a bad or money, or “Mr. Jackson”, a black man with big gums and an afro. It’s an insult to assume that’s what people of our race look like, just as if we assumed post-Federline Britney Spears or Paris Hilton were indicative of how white folks have been raised.
courageous kiwi

And Jim, haha, that’s hilarious. Is the domain registered? I think I’ll build it if it isn’t, just to make a point …
Matt Clark

Kiwi,

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The “Mister Wong” cartoon is reasonably fair representation of what an average Chinese person looks like, just as the Boston Celtics or Minnesota Vikings logo is a reasonable cartoonization of what a white person looks like.

Pathetic that an incredibly proud and honorable race of people should be reduced to slumming for victim status over a non-event like this. The irony is, the website probably though they were complimenting Chinese people by perpetuating the “stereotype” that Chinese people are pretty smart…even though Chinese people *are* pretty smart, as every reader of this blog knows!

A little Asian pride, please. This is sad and pathetic.

Matt Clark
Duy-Tan

Matt,

“A little Asian pride, please. This is sad and pathetic.”

WTF?
What do you know about Asian Pride Mr. CLARK

Because of this pride, it’s essential for us to defend and speak upon any incident that has the potential to chip it away. Also, it’s because of pride that we must not let anything go by, not even something “small” like the cartoon. Oh of course, we are an “honorable race.” If you truly have honor and respect, then you would abstain from comments like “this is sad and pathetic” in response to this racial-sensitive issue.
http://mikelee.org/ Mike

@Matt,

I can understand your confusion. I’d like to offer another viewpoint here, if I may.

In certain contexts, cartoons such as this (which are basically identity parodies) can be used as easy tools for denigrating particular individuals. You’ll see this most commonly among children – some will latch on to parodies like this, then use it to taunt other children.

In Asia, children taunt Caucasian children using parodies of Caucasians. The US has had parodies of African and Middle Eastern Americans too. You can argue these parodies are all lighthearted and meant for humor. Or you can argue that they’re hurtful and offensive.

A person typically generates one of those opposing views based on their own experiences. For many minorities who have felt discrimination and have had such parodies used as offensive tools to denigrate them, they’re very likely to see any other such parodies as offensive.

In other words, if you’re been discriminated against racially, then anything that makes fun of your racial background is going to look offensive to you. This is a pretty universal sociological construct around the world.

The general counter-argument is that our society has become too politically-correct and afraid to make light of itself. That’s a valid viewpoint too.

Or that a particular group should embrace a denigrating element and remove its derogatory power. That’s a valid viewpoint too.

There are lots of ways to look at this issue. You don’t have to agree that the Mister Wong cartoon is offensive. But I at least hope that this article and its subsequent comments help you understand that there are people out there that do find such cartoons offensive. It’s not sad and pathetic, it’s just being human.
courageous kiwi

Honor and pride? God, stop fucking watching samurai movies. I’d better not find out you’re one of those guys that gets turned on by pornos where they refer to Asian womens’ genitalia as “Kung Pao Spicy.”
http://www.neekole.com Nicole Lee

The problem with calling an entire race “honorable” and “proud” is that it somehow implies that other races are not as honorable or proud. Whatever happened to being “honored” and “proud” of HUMANKIND? Oh wait, we’re a bunch of jerks. Never mind.
http://www.wonderful-electric.co.uk Andrew

And Mister Wong has now launched in a private beta in the USA…

http://mashable.com/2007/07/02/mister-wong-us-launch/
oscar

As I love mashable I found this article and comments here by clicking on mark’s mister wong comment. I can’t believe how many people here are writing about such a nonesense. I believe most of you got it totally wrong. I’m from northern Germany too and this is why I’d like to add something to this list:

No one here would ever connect the image of mister wong to a real chinese/ asian person. I mean, we laugh about the stereotypes of germans in leather pants and no one would ever feel defended. Why? It’s just funny and has nothing to do with the reality. And ping pong, king kong, mister wong … surely has nothing to do with chingchong or whatever. I don’t know what the guys at mister wong had in mind, but maybe they just thought about a funny stupid rhyme / word play. Chingchong is what you’re thinking and interpreting. Please don’t try to take your personal experience or stereotypes about stereotypes into account when thinking about this concept. Most people here are open minded and I think it’s a bit more entertaining than del.ici.ous to have some cartoons on a website. And bear in mind: All smart people laugh about too proud people who easily feel offended (problems with self-esteem?), civil rights groups which feel offended by stereotypes, and discussions like this one here. Don’t you have real problems or problems with real racists? You wanna show how narrow minded you are? Go on with saying I feel offendend. For me, all people are absolutely equal, but each one has a unique body, soul & mind. A Chinese is no different from an American or a German. So what the heck, … I really don’t understand you! If Chinese believe they are different than others they are racists, because they are focussing too much on the concept of different races. In fact we all are sort of racists and thinking in boxes seems to be part of the way our brain works. Besides, do Americans feel offended by the TV Character Al Bundy? I suppose not.

Try to see humanity more from a holistic and united point of view. People who think differently should be no problem for you if you have enough self-esteem. And mister wong seems to be a social bookmarking service and no fun-about-asians-online-show. The cartoon stereotype seems to fit perfectly to the “master of all bookmarks” text …
tobi

Why can’t you Amerians (of any race or colour) be a bit more relaxed?
Being from Germany myself, I fail to understand this (though I don’t even like the “Mister Wong” name and the image, which I consider unprofessional rather than offensive). My thinking goes that this might be just another facet of unresolved racial tensions. If race really didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have to care.
But, please: Could your country just stop spreading that PC BS all over the world? Thank you.
Re: tobi

The road to Auschwitz was paved by indifference.

Not everyone in Germany at that time was a racist, but look what happened.
tobi

Thank you for your most interesting reply. I almost forgot that peace of history (wait, no, we are told here over and over again, ad nauseam).
And, actually, I can’t remember ever having heard anyone here speaking of Chinese people as dumb, primitive or whatever. Usually they’re regarded as pretty smart. Maybe I just don’t know the “right” people.
But if a web site chooses a Chinese name, how could that possibly have a negative connotation? And the image is, although a caricature, obviously that of a businessman.
Really, this is ridiculous. How about concentrating on all the real hate in the world and real conflicts first?
http://www.mister-wong.com/ Fabian

Hi,
My name is Fabian, one of the managers at Mister-Wong.com. First of all, I´d like to apologize to anybody that may have been offended by the use of the original illustration in the logo. It was never our intention to hurt anybody´s feelings with the character. Now, I would like to point out that we have reacted to these comments by removing the illustration in question. Please read our CEO´s statement on our blog for further information. http://blog.mister-wong.com/a-message-from-the-founder/2007/07/27/
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Courty

Honestly… chill out

It’s a picture portraying ONE man, and that’s it. It’s not trying to be racist. No matter how much you want it to, it’s not saying, “Hahaha all asians look exactly like this guy! Let’s make fun of them!” Sorry.

I’m a black guy living in America. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Georgia. I know what’s it’s like to be discriminated against, and sorry, this isn’t it. Like it or not, most Asian people DO have yellow-tinted skin and relatively slanted eyes. Those are physical characteristics associated with being Asian. The image of Mr.Wong is a perfectly acceptable caricutare. I mean, I’ll tell you straight up that most black people have brown skin, big lips, and curly hair. And it’s true. Whoop de do.

Instead of complaining that some German website using a drawing of an Asian guy as its logo dared to give him Asian features, why not focus on REAL racism? Stop diverting attention to trivial and obviously untintentional issues like this.

** To be fair, I can somewhat understand being upset with the phrase “ping pong, king kong, Mister Wong.” Behavioral stereotypes (saying people of a certain race all talk one way or behave one way) can be justifiably attacked as racist. The rest of the complaints… weak.
J.Peter Siriprakorn

on a lighter, less substantive note, i think one white equivalent of “Mr. Wong: Master of All Bookmarks” could be “Mr. Honkey: Master of The Globe.” the logo could be a cartoon hitler getting blown by eva braun as he orders his troops to search and deconstroy a screenshot of google-earth. =P

clearly what people are missing here is that there is no reason why a networked bookmarking site should have a racial stereotype at its fore — especially considering the site’s intent is to archive and trade bookmarks, a purpose which has absolutely nothing to do with identitarian issues. spearheading an ad campaign with a race caricature is just poor judgment. Mr. Wong.com’s logo and slogan trades in embarassing stereotypes with little practical justification. if it were temporary that’d be one thing. but even the site’s name hinges on this logo, so it can’t be changed. that’s the dumbest part about this — now they’re *always* going to be that chink bookmark site, and why would anyone want a chink bookmark site over, say, a spic bookmark site or a honkey bookmark site? why call attention to racial difference if you don’t need to?

also, the guy above who mentioned the Celtics is clearly not making a distinction between 1. the fact that a sports team can win-or-lose, and thus potentially earn representational clout, shift the way people identify with the symbol 2. the fact that a company of this sort does not take on an active role in refiguring itself in the public eye

i also like how people chastize us for not focusing on REAL racism, as if that requires lynching or other acts of violence — as if representations don’t also shape social life. to that comment i’d say take a look at this:

http://homepage.mac.com/jholbo/homepage/pages/blog/blogpics/orient/darkie1.jpg

(that’s a popular toothpaste we used to use in Bangkok whose logo and name were FINALLY changed from “Darkie” to “Darlie” in the last 10 years. people who don’t have a problem with the mass circulation of these sorts of images should really question their politics and their understanding of culture production)
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http://blog.gilly.ws Gilly

OMG! Everything in Germany is Hitler right!? … I can’t see anything racist in the logo…
http://www.doena-soft.de/index_en.php Karsten

“Maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America”

And I sincerly hope we’ll never be! For my taste there’s already way to much PC in the world. To fear that everything you say could piss someone off and then don’t say it at all -> I would hate such a world. It’s a cartoon picture for crying out loud. Cartoon pictures are always clichés and overdrawn.
emma Stern

hi Ernie,

i did not get it. why is this a problem for you?

Emma
jan

“sensitive to politicial correctness” seems to be a wrong discription.
“never think” is what you ment?
Ok, the image is stereotype….tell me one image of any asian in any US produced media, that isnt!!!
Seen Family Guys Asian Reporter? Wake up!
it is not about political correctness, it is hating instead of appreciating.
instead of giving a good example of the superb american skill “to communicate” you give a very good example of “US: we define political correctness”.
Did the chinese citizens complain about mr.wongs chineese page?
I dont think so. The problem seems americans consider themselves still as the
makes of right&wrong in the world. and that is simply not the case; maybe never has been.
Volker A. Brandt

The Wong logo was not racist. However, the site operators have decided to take it down, as discussed above. Now I would like to see you direct your anti-discrimination efforts closer to home, where there certainly is quite a lot to clean up in this area…

Just pointing fingers at others and yelling “Auschwitz” whenever something Germany-related crops up is not enough.
mrkraut

This is a sad discussion.

Being a German I am constantly and everywhere exposed to stereotypes.
Going to Disneyworld or any “Hofbräuhaus” in America I should be furious about how me and my fellow countrymen are pictured as fat-stupid-beerdrinking-bratwurst-eating idiots.

But you know what? I am not furious at all. What a boring world this would be if we didn’t have these funny pictures. I am glad to be a part of this colorful and diverse world and for my part, I am able to laugh about myself.
German Girl

Dear Earnie…I do not really understand what your problem is…Mr. Wong is a lookalike of a typical Chinese person…as long as s.o. is not living in Asia/Africa/Europe it is proven that people don´t see any differences in other-races-faces around (which are not part of their regular and well-known surroundings). You have to life there for some time to see a difference between Mr. Wong or Mr. Whoever.
Here in Germany we are very openminded and relaxing. Nobody thinks about ” racism” just because we use e.g. a friendly and positive chinese face.
Mr. Wong looks friendly, and ping pong is table tennis. Its a text for little children that you remember better.
You should have more self-confidence with this.
Because of your reaction it seems to me that it is not easy to be chinese in your country….here in Germany nobody cares where you come from originally.

And…maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America you say. But because of Mr. Bush you are not even having something like (correct) “politics”…. and America is hated all over the world for good reason..so what. You should work on your own BIG problems.
I am sorry if you feel not good with that…but you search for mistakes in wrong corners.
Nicolas Lehmann

Mister Wong: “Positive Racism”!

Relax, please let me explain this from the point of view of a german liberal.
The Logo of “Mister Wong” surely is very stereotypical, but not in a offensive, negative way, if you view it from a german point of view. Germans who are not racist (maybe u won’t believe it, but thats the great majority) consider chinese people as hard-working and very good business people. So the company “Mister Wong” just tried to implement this positive, yet stereotypical image of East Asians and especially Chinesee people into their corporate apperance. I have to admit this is not working very well, if you want to make business globally where some things, based on different cultural perceptions, are understood in a diferent way.

And by the way, most comments who were complaining about racism/lacking political correctness were far away from being political correct. (As a German u get used to that: Hahaha, arm steched out, marching like a soldier with stomping feet. The minority of Germans were active Nazis in the 3rd Reich)

And what would the world be without stereotypes? – Very boring I guess… (If you know a good joke that is 100% politically correct, I would like to hear it…)
what is going on

After I have read the article in a German newspaper about 8 Asians and how ANGRY they got when they saw the logo I went to their website. After reading all the comments I am a little bit releaved,because there are still some reasonable people out there who can distinguish about reality and important things. I am sorry if you guys got offended about this logo and you have a right to be offended but ( and this is just my opinion) getting angry about this logo… I am trying hard to understand why. What if the site would be a chinese website created by a chinese guy? Honestly, would be ( that much) offended? So why can’t a German or American or African do that. Another good point I have read in one of the comments is that if lets say a Chinese site called Mr. Smith and caucasian logo would be made, no one would ever get offended. Why is that so?
It is a business site that chose a chinese name and put a logo on it. It didn’t say or do anything to offend. So please explain to me why it is so racist and offensive?
I think the concept of rasicim is not given here. In the future nobody is allowed to do anything because somewhere somebody finds it offensive. Can you imagine in what kind of world we would live in? This is just too much guys. Really.
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Row

It is funny how people mostly in the USA are being so pickish on political correctness. You can covertly be racist, which is totally okay. But when something like Mr Wong (or for some US-representatives a naked Justice statue -can´t remember the English name: The lady with the sword and the balance scales-, which of course because of it being naked for good reason, it still is a statue that should be covered by clothing).

This is a good way to kill all rational debate before it can start at all. A discussion must take place on racial, religious, sexual topics but I do not think this is the way how to do it. It is to aggressive.

For me Mr. Wong is a tool; nothing more, nothing less. Do I think it funny to give something a name without an apparent history/reason? Yes I do, but does it make the name defacto racist/insulting? No I do not think so.
Alex Laurence

Hi there!

As I’m a German citizen, I have to comment this.
In Germany we are very sensible concerning racism.
With the disgrace of the WW II we are enlightened to never let something like that happen again.
So it’s pretty hard to accept the accusation of racism. Yes, there are still some dumb people who didn’t get it at all. But whose landsmen aren’t?
Of course it’s a stereotype. And it seems to be political incorrect.
I got a picture of stereotypes of Germans: beer belly, leather trousers, huge glass of beer. So do you hear me yelling? No, and the reason is: with so much problems in the world it would be ridiculous to mark this.
It was meant funny, and as you can see, even Chinese people can laugh about it.
I don’t want to attack you guys, your initiative is great!
But try looking for the real and serious problems.
Eisenvater

“Maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America.”
Afganistan/Irak and you are angry about a f****** picture.
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Thomas Wolff

Oh Boy. Could there be a more crisp definition for “idiocracy” ? It´s time to seriously consider a secession from the so called western mainstream, if we do not want to share this involution. Just let´s light a cigarette and ride east.
Thomas W

Stumbled over this article. I am glad that you have no real problems over there when there is time to diskuss a comic logo.
Found a funny thing on the top of your site. Guess what Google-Ad i am just looking on?

“Asian Girl in Germany. Cute attractive asian woman looking for love and marriage”.

So your are financing your site with clichés about asians. This is funny in the context of this discussion.
http://www.mister-wong.cn Wang Lan

Hi Ernie,
First as a chinese people abroad, I can understand your feelings. But I and my collegue (we all come from China) are working for Mister Wong for a long time, and we also test the chinese version in China. Until now I didn’t get such a feedback. Most of our chinese users only feel this icon intersting, but no one mentions it is offended to chinese people.
http://www.mister-wong.cn Wang Lan

As my personal feelings, my company and Kai is very friendly and nice to the chinese
employees. After the world War the German people is very sentsitive to the “Racist” topics.
When we promote the chinese Mister Wong portal, most chinese websites said we are the friendly social bookmark in China, and all the developers are very enthusiastic.
If you can understand chinese, I can show you some articles.
spooky0815

Hi,

Some hints for you:

- look at your country
- look at your politics ( hey Mr. Bush… yes I know – your big brothers are watching me)
- look for serious problems … and don’t waste our time with shit like that

… the only thing I do is laughing about your country and people like you :-/

A german “viele Grüße”,

spooky0815