John Xina

About

John Xina also know as Jiang Xina or Zhong Xina is an exploitable image macro of WWE Wrestler John Cena Photoshopped to look like Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. Although the phrase "John Xina" was used on Twitter as early as 2016, it wasn't until May 2021 that image macros associated with the nickname first appeared on Instagram, due to the nickname resurfacing on Twitter in May 2021 because of a viral video of Cena defending China's military pressure for reunification with Taiwan.

Origin

The nickname "John Xina" first appeared on Twitter as early as 2016. On January 30th, 2016, Twitter^[1] account @kurususan_agfly tweeted, "JOHN Xina." On May 23rd, 2016, @kurususan_agfly used "John Xina" again in a tweet^[2] (shown below). These are the earliest known references to John Cena using the nickname.

On May 24th, 2021, a video of John Cena's Apology To China surfaced on Twitter,^[3] uploaded by user @JoeXu. The video was originally posted to the Chinese social media site Weibo,^[4] by John Cena's account RealWWEJohnCena. The video on Weibo received roughly 68,200 likes over the course of five months while Twitter user @JoeXu's repost received roughly 11,800 likes and 10,000 quote tweets.

On May 25th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @Richard_Harambe posted a quote tweet referencing John Cena as "John Xina" in reference to the Weibo video. The tweet (shown below) received 444 likes over the course of five months and included a Photoshopped image of Cena leading a communist revolution. This tweet inspired multiple Twitter^[6][7] users to use "John Xina" in their own tweets that day to poke fun at Cena's video. The hashtag #JohnXina ^[8] began trending on Twitter that day too after @Richard_Harambe's tweet.

On May 25th, 2021, conservative Twitter^[9] and Instagram meme account @grandoldmemes posted a photoshopped photo of John Cena as Xi Jinping to their Instagram.^[10] The post (shown below) received roughly 6,600 likes over the course of five months. The image was reposted to Reddit^[11] on May 26th, 2021, by user ClassicSoulboy to the subreddit /r/walkaway. The image received 100 upvotes.

On May 26th, 2021, graphic-tee company American As Fack ^[12] began selling a t-shirt with a different Photoshopped image of John Cena as Chairman Mao. The t-shirt (shown below) was covered in an article^[13] written by the website American Military News on May 27th, 2021. Screenshots of the article became its own image macro meme, reposted to sites like iFunny ^[14] in the days following.

Spread

Blown-out and oversaturated images of American As Fack's image began appearing on Reddit in the days following. On May 30th, 2021, the oversaturated image first appeared on r/CommunismMemes^[15] uploaded by the user CrimbusIsOver. The image (shown below) received roughly 1,500 upvotes over the course of four months. The image appeared in r/blursedimages^[16] the same day.

On May 27th, 2021, Reddit user Daftpunkerzz1988 posted the first known video meme using the image of John Xina to the subreddit r/ADVChina.^[17] The video received 297 upvotes over the course of four months.

In October 2021, videos^[19] relating to John Xina using the video of John Cena Speaking Chinese and Eating Ice Cream began to be included in memes revolving around the China's Social Credit System event. For instance, on October 3rd, 2021, Reddit^[18] user thebaliguns uploaded a video to r/shitposting. The video received 110 likes over the course of five days.

Overall, memes using the image macro of John Xina were prevalent on Reddit and Twitter since late May 2021, using catchphrases like "You Can't Xi Me" among others.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References