TikTokaganda & The Manufacture of Consent
Everything you value is a lie, according to your Chinese spy (who doubles as a factory direct shopping aid)
Over on TikTok, there’s a very strange thing happening that I wasn’t quite expecting to see this week: a sudden barrage of Chinese influencers highlighting how affordable products are in China, while taking every chance they can to rip into the U.S. economy in regards to the tariffs.
What makes this all so interesting is how well each of the posts are doing: hundreds of thousands of likes, comments, reposts… and now, even a few of the American creators are joining in on the fun and parroting many of the same talking points.
To say it hit me in the weirds is a bit of an understatement, folks. Especially since I’ve always defended TikTok against the unfounded allegations that the app is nothing but Chinese propaganda.
So… WTF is happening? And why is it happening now? Are we BASE JUMPING into the propaganda trap strapped with a wholesale-price direct-from-China Birkin parachute to break our fall?
Well…
We are all incredibly easy marks, and no amount of hand wringing about it will ever change that.
Think about how effective advertising can be on the passive mind for a second. Let’s say you’re mindlessly scrolling TikTok, and you find an ad for this sleek new Disney/Lululemon collab.
Not exactly my style, but when you’re deep in a TikTok wormhole, EVERYTHING is your style. You watch the ad in full, go to the website, drop the $128 (plus shipping), then head back to TikTok. When you’re suddenly hit with this:
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A charming sub-minute video from @lunasourcingchina, whose Instagram bio claims she is an “expert in factory sourcing in China, and soon in the world.” Throughout the video, Luna begins talking about the suppliers for Lululemon, which she says are based out of China. According to her, the products they sell are from Xiang Long Clothing and Hung Qisun Clothing.
“Both factories are located in Yiwu, here, and these two factors also supply clothing for Fila and Under Armour,” Luna says. “I guess most of you know the price of Lululemon, or other big brands, they sell you a legging for $100. Guess what? Here in these two factories, you can get them for around five to six dollars.”
It’s no secret that products made in China are often cheaper to produce, and therefore can be sold at basically any price point while still turning a profit. There’s even an entire article on Investopedia referring to China as “the world’s factory” that spells out how the manufacturing situation there is nuanced due to not only the low wages they pay employees (did you know there’s a daily AND a monthly minimum wage in China?) and their (relatively) lax commercial regulations, but also the “strong business ecosystem,” as well as “low taxes and duties, and competitive currency practices.”
But what’s interesting is what happens when you begin looking into the comments on this post.
“are we witnessesing the death of capitalism?😂”
“China really said -"say drake" 😁*big smile to the camera*”
“Now this is how you do a trade war.”
“Holy smokes China. Have your moment. You deserve it. 💙”
Further down the rabbit hole, you’re even given messaging that confirms your frustrations as an American.
Like a video advertising cheap LED signs for your business with a BANGER Trump impression?
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And, OH. THAT’S RIGHT, LUNA, WE -ARE- THE ONES PAYING THE PRICE FOR THE TARIFFS!
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You’ll even find drama-style commentary videos, where Chinese influencers criticize the heads of state in the U.S. for their derogatory handling of the trade war Trump started for no reason. Like this one, where we’re given a history lesson regarding the cultural differences in how the U.S. and China regard “peasants” as a descriptor.
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But there’s something interesting in the top comments of that last post in particular that inspired me to make this article in the first place. One simple question:
“Is the American Dream actually, in China?”
Simply put: no.
Less simply put: no, but China really wants you to think it is.
THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT:
Back in 1922, American journalist Walter Lippmann developed the phrase “manufacture of consent” to refer to how public opinion is managed by everyone from the state to the local journalists around the world. In order for democracy to flourish, public sentiment needed to be CONTROLLED. Because when left to its own devices, public opinion can be a bit of a fickle bitch.
But with Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in their seminal work “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,” the concept feels a bit more sinister. To put the work simply, “manufacturing consent” is what it looks like when the public “consents,” or is at least okay with, PR jargon passed off as facts often whitewashing an atrocity. Information is fed to the public, treated as normal, and the information then becomes the new normal. Think about how minority communities have been framed as “rising crime” communities, or how the misguided discussion of trans women in sports is often framed as a much larger issue than it actually is, but the sheer volume of discussion places importance on an issue that was largely self-created.
For a great visual example of manufactured consent, check out this post from the Noam Chomsky subreddit that highlights Newsweek’s 1983 coverage of Soviets shooting down a civilian aircraft illegally flying in their airspace, then contrasts it with their own 1988 coverage of the US shooting down a civilian aircraft -legally- flying in Iranian airspace, which resulted in the deaths of 290 civilians and 66 children.
On one side, it’s “MURDER IN THE AIR.” On the other, it’s a calm Henry Kissinger drafted explanation as to “why it happened” and how “it’s time to talk with Iran.” Newsweek wants you to be ANGRY about the Soviet “murder in the air.” But they also want you to understand that the U.S. made a little booboo, maybe we should talk, guys.
There is a really extensive history in how consent is manufactured within the United States BY the United States. But there is just as extensive a history of consent being manufactured within the United States by actors abroad.
One of the most recent examples of this can be seen just last year when Tenet Media, run by Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, was revealed to have been privately financed to the tune of at least $10 million by Russian disinfo agents. As Steven Lee Myers, Ken Bensinger, and Jim Rutenberg put it for the New York Times at the time:
“By November 2023, they had assembled a lineup of major conservative social media stars, including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin, to post original content on Tenet’s platform. The site then began posting hundreds of videos — trafficking in pointed political commentary as well as conspiracy theories about election fraud, Covid-19, immigrants and Russia’s war with Ukraine — that were then promoted across the spectrum of social media, from YouTube to TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and Rumble. It was all, federal prosecutors now say, a covert Russian influence operation…the Justice Department accused two Russians of helping orchestrate $10 million in payments to Tenet in a scheme to use those stars to spread Kremlin-friendly messages.”
Pool, Johnson, and Rubin have since denied that they were in the know about the Russian disinfo scheme, claiming they are “victims” in the situation, but that somehow makes it even worse when you think about it. The messaging was so specifically in line with these men’s personal beliefs already that it didn’t take long, or even really that much money, to turn them into useful idiots for the Russian state propaganda arm.
We see this happen again with LA Times columnist Nicholas Goldberg, who penned this opinion piece with a complete lack of self-awareness titled “How I became a tool of China’s giant anti-American propaganda machine.” Within the article, Goldberg discusses how a column he had written about political polarization within the United States had been shared on the website of China’s official Xinhua News Agency, a propaganda arm that “publishes articles in Chinese, English and other languages for consumption by millions of people around the world.”
“The Chinese government was using my column, which admittedly painted a grim, depressing picture of present-day American politics, as part of its ongoing efforts to convince its readers that the United States is less stable, democratic and egalitarian than they might think, and that it is in fact in a state of malaise, chaos and incipient crisis,” Goldberg writes. “It’s true that my column talked about “dangerous” partisanship and a “culture of extreme political polarization” in the U.S. Xinhua paraphrased my fear of “dysfunctional government” accurately. Yet somehow my words took on a harsher tone when I read them on a site dedicated to making the United States look bad. “L.A. Times columnist bashes fight between U.S. Democrats and Republicans,” was the headline.”
Goldberg correctly points out later that, according to Human Rights Watch, “free expression is severely limited. The government censors news, punishes dissenters and propagates disinformation. People have been harassed, detained or prosecuted for their online posts and private chat messages critical of the government. They’ve been slapped with spurious charges of “provoking trouble” and “insulting the country’s leaders.” Increasingly, Chinese citizens have been punished for speech deemed “unpatriotic.””
Yet by the end, he notes that if he has to be a tool of Chinese propaganda, he’ll “roll with it.” Which is a very interesting way to miss the point he SHOULD have made: the effectiveness of state propaganda is often due to how relatable the (vague) messaging truly is.
China can ignore their own history of human rights violations and the censorship of their own press apparatus, as well as their aggressively anti-Democratic system, in order to paint a picture of another country as being “uniquely” worse than them.
TIKTOKAGANDA:
Which leads me to the interesting case surrounding the consent manufactured by China.
Back in 2023, The Economist published an article examining the effectiveness of Chinese propaganda outside of its borders. It focuses on a study from Harvard, Yale, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands that found that, yes, we are all really easy marks when it comes to persuasive communication.
But when it comes to Chinese propaganda, well, they’re better than most at appealing to our base desires.
“The authors surveyed around 6,000 citizens of 19 countries,” The Economist explains. “Participants were split into four groups. The first was shown Chinese propaganda, the second was shown messaging from the American government, the third got a bit of both and the fourth was a placebo group. Before and after watching, participants were asked about the economic and political models of America and China.
Support for the China model increased substantially among those who watched Chinese state media. By the end of the study, a majority of people who viewed such messages said they preferred China’s form of government to America’s. The American propaganda had an impact, too, but less of one. In the group that watched videos from both countries, people moved towards China.
The Chinese videos do not seem to have convinced people that the country is democratic. But they strengthened perceptions that the Communist Party delivers growth, stability and competent leadership. In “an era of democratic backsliding”, audiences put considerable weight on these factors when assessing political systems, say the researchers. The study was carried out before a recent wave of covid-19 killed hundreds of thousands of people in China.”
It’s absolutely no secret that China has dumped an OBSCENE amount of money into propaganda. That same article points out that Xi Jinping “spends $7 billion to $10 billion” to “tell China’s story well.” But it’s also been discovered that their propaganda financing also goes toward simply sewing discord in the United States, like during the Spamouflage campaign, “the world’s largest known online disinformation operation,” where people on all sides of the political spectrum were targeted for harassment in order to keep Americans further divided.
As a result of Trump’s recent tariff debacle, in which he called for an absolutely insane amount of tariffs (the most since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - which itself destroyed the nation until World War II), tanked the stock market, and then said “lol jk guys the tariffs are on hold”, the U.S. has been placed in a position that I highly doubt Trump ever intended for us to be in: one where propagandists can talk a lot about the failings of the United States and BE CORRECT, all while ignoring their own failings. A point that, importantly, remains less relevant to the present day context of highlighting the failings of American capitalism.
Which leads me back to the barrage of TikToks you’ll find from Chinese creators making that exact point. When you look at all of the comments in those threads, from one vantage point, it looks a lot like the messaging on these videos is WORKING. It’s the result of Xi Jinping’s $10 billion push into “tell[ing] China’s story well.”
Considering the United States’ own history of Psyops and their own timeline with propaganda meant to create chaos abroad (some even committed recently), the tariff debacle was hands down THE dumbest thing Trump could have done. He physically handed the ball to anybody willing to play it - not only for a lay-up, but for a three, a slam dunk, AND a game winning point. The fact that we are now being targeted with the EASIEST kind of propaganda (capitalism bad and here’s why China’s prices are lower) is truly a sign that Trump did not adequately read the room, and may have actually done more to damage our faith in institutions than he ever could have imagined.
There’s something interesting happening when we look at the propaganda being disseminated on TikTok, though. There appears to be an entire emerging content ecosystem of Americans now promoting the same talking points that popped up earlier in the article. Take this one for instance, from user hkkaaa888.
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Within the video, Hawk, as we’ll call her, talks about how China is going to “cancel the 280-hour visa,” while also saying that “foreign tourists can also enjoy [a] 13% shopping tax refund.” It’s a pretty interesting video, albeit one that’s filled with a few factual errors: the “280-hour Visa” is actually a “240-hour Visa” that allows any (eligible) international travelers to stay in China for up to ten days en route to another country, and it’s not being canceled. The 13% “shopping tax refund” is actually usually around 11% - with 2% retained as a service fee. Yet - it’s a pretty fun video, right?
It might be important to note that Hawk isn’t a real person.
When you go to the hkkaaa888 account, you might notice something interesting: virtually none of the videos feature the same creator commentating on anything. Many of the descriptions are written in broken English, and there’s next to no consistency in tone or actual content. Are you familiar with the JJJacksfilms YouTube channel, where YouTuber Jacksfilms plays BBBingo while watching creators’ reaction videos to gauge whether the content is transformative - or theft?
More often than not, the creator is what Jack calls a “freebooter” - someone who steals content, sticks their “reaction” that doesn’t contain any meaningful commentary in the corner, then reaps all the benefits. That’s kinda what this is, but worse: somebody actually stole the video from a creator named Karress Marie, and popped it in the corner of stock footage.
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Thankfully for Karress, her original content appears to be doing quite well for her, at 3 million views and counting. But here’s where the trail gets a little strange for me. Now, I’m not accusing Karress of being a freebooter, or even a propagandist.
Yet I find it interesting that when Jed and I tried to find the origin of the information she’s talking about in the video (“canceling the 280-hour visa,” “foreign tourists can also enjoy [a] 13% shopping tax refund”), we found post… after post… after post… after post… after post… after post… using the exact same language, with the exact same factual errors.
We even found that when you search for “280 Hour Visa China” on TikTok… there are hundreds of videos freebooting Karress’s original video. For some reason, I’m reminded quite a bit of Nicholas Goldberg’s column and the concept of “rolling with it.”
What do you think?
This story left me both unsettled and mindboggled. The blending of commerce, algorithmic psychology, and foreign state influence into what looks like casual content is deeply concerning. What strikes me most is how easily our frustrations, both real and valid, are being co-opted into someone else’s narrative. It’s propaganda dressed as everyday relatability.
V raises an uncomfortable truth: disinformation doesn’t need to lie to be effective. It just needs to confirm what people already think or want to believe. And in a moment of profound disillusionment with our own systems, that’s a terrifyingly fertile ground.
I’m left wondering: how do we turn this ship around? Not just in terms of safeguarding national narratives but in rebuilding the public’s critical capacity to distinguish critique from manipulation and discourse from disinformation. What does media literacy look like in an era where even seemingly benign shopping tips carry menacing geopolitical subtexts?
An incredibly well done FB post was just shown to me by a friend. (I don’t live in Meta world). In it, an educated Chinese man, with good English, went point by point about the fact that the tariffs will just make oligarchs richer, whereas in China, the money is used to raise the standard of living, new roads, health care and education.
I think it’s not just TikTok. This was a 4 minute presentation.