PewDiePie Banned In China After Comparing Chinese President to Winnie the Pooh

Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another episode of Yes, That Actually Happened. 

In today’s episode, we have an incredibly insecure world leader and a Swedish YouTuber embroiled in a rather strange squabble.

Let me begin with two pictures.

Here is Chinese President Xi Jinping:

And here is Winnie the Pooh:

Do you see a resemblance between the two?

If you answered yes, then you’ve just been banned in China.

PewDiePie Banned In China After Comparing Chinese President to Winnie the Pooh

Fret not though, you’re not the only one. YouTube star PewDiePie posted a video on Sunday (Oct 20) titled “Pewdiepie Is BANNED in China”.

In the video, the Swedish YouTuber explains that he was banned because he spoke about the Hong Kong protests.

It’s also because he compared Chinese president Xi Jinping to beloved animated character and world-renowned honey glutton Winnie the Pooh in a previous video:

He also confirmed his ‘ban’ in a tweet:

PewDiePie claims that he’s been deleted from Chinese websites, saying “If you search anything PewDiePie related on any Reddit-related forum in China, or YouTube-related videos, it will just be completely blank.”

Some have disputed this claim, saying that a search of PewDiePie on China’s search engines does yield results:

Probably not a great idea to take PewDiePie's self aggrandizing claims about being banned in China at face value pic.twitter.com/xyl6KdjHsg

— Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein) October 21, 2019

Others have corroborated it, showing that their searches for the 29-year-old Swede yielded no results:

And, according to Business Insider, Redditors, reportedly in China, have said that all posts and messages about PewDiePie have been removed from online forums and social platforms in the country.

At any rate, you’re probably wondering, why Winnie the Pooh of all fictional characters?

A chubby symbol of protest

That’s because Winnie the Pooh has become something of a protest symbol in China, after people drew similarities between the animated bear and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In 2017, the China government banned Winnie the Pooh – references to the character have largely been censored in the country.

And with the recent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the bear has re-emerged as a symbol of protest against a leader who may or may not look like an animated bear.

Banned buddies

This isn’t the first time China has banned a celebrity, though.

Less than two weeks ago, Zedd said he was banned in China for liking a South Park tweet:

I just got permanently banned from China because I liked a @SouthPark tweet.

— Zedd (@Zedd) October 10, 2019

This was the tweet in question:

🎉 It's our 300th episode tonight! Which is your favorite episode and why? #southpark300 pic.twitter.com/OH25s1qAFr

— South Park (@SouthPark) October 9, 2019

It refers to an episode called “Shots!!!” that has satirical content aimed at China.

Both Zedd and PewDiePie are, understandably, upset by the ban but at least they have each other’s shoulder to cry on.

Ban unclear

Despite PewDiePie’s claim, it remains unclear what the ban actually means.

YouTube has been banned in China since 2009, but many PewDiePie fans use VPNs to circumvent China’s “Great Firewall”.

Nevertheless, it’s amusing that a President of a huge country like China has resorted to banning someone just because he was compared to Winnie the Pooh.