National Meme Museum Launches “Reeducation Through Memery” Program

In a groundbreaking fusion of state propaganda and digital culture, Beijing has inaugurated its National Meme Museum, complete with an interactive “Reeducation Through Memery” Program aimed at turning subversive humor into state-sanctioned enlightenment.

Located inside a former tofu processing plant, the museum houses thousands of “historic memes” that have been recontextualized to serve the Party. A 2009 “Doge” image now reads, “Such Loyalty. Very Harmony. Much Surveillance. Wow.”

The museum’s flagship feature, the Reeducation Lounge, offers digital citizens a chance to correct their online behavior through controlled meme exposure therapy. Upon entering, visitors are greeted with looping slideshows like:

  • Grumpy Cat declaring: “I Support the Five-Year Plan”

  • Leonardo DiCaprio toasting: “To More Meaningful Censorship”

  • Distracted Boyfriend now choosing “Social Credit” over “Individual Rights”

“Meme resistance is real,” said program director Zhang Meme-Qi. “Our goal is to inject Party values into the very bloodstream of internet culture.”

Participants are given VR headsets and asked to spend six hours per day creating state-approved memes in categories such as:

Rewards for successful memers include bonus food rations, public praise from Weibo bots, and the rare chance to view restricted TikToks of rice harvests.

One visitor, 17-year-old Liu Ke, said, “After remixing 43 images of Xi Jinping into wholesome guidance counselor memes, I finally unlocked access to online multiplayer Mahjong.”

Western critics have dubbed the project “Weaponized Wholesomeness,” though the museum’s curators maintain that their efforts represent “patriotic joy at 72dpi.”

The museum gift shop sells red pixelated T-shirts that read: “I Ctrl+C’d the Revolution.”

China’s internet censorship policy requires real-name IDs to post online.

 

By Jasmine Kwok

Dr. Jasmine Kwok is a Hong Kong–born satirist, political humorist, and the youngest full professor of Cultural Satire Studies at the University of Macao. Crowned “The Most Read Satirist in Greater China” by Ink & Irony Magazine, Kwok’s fearless work skewering bureaucratic absurdity, cultural contradictions, and state-sponsored mediocrity has earned her both literary acclaim and a formal warrant from the Chinese Communist Party. Her essay “Why Xi Jinping Can’t Do the Crossbar Challenge” reportedly crashed WeChat servers. At just 25, she blends Seinfeld’s observational wit with Confucian sarcasm, all while evading mainland firewalls and airport security with equal skill.