America has spoken. The verdict is in. Eileen Gu — Olympic champion, Stanford student, Louis Vuitton model, and suspected Maoist halfpipe operative — has been canceled by a portion of the internet that also believes fluoride is a Chinese plot.
So what does a 22-year-old do when the country she was born in decides it hates her while she’s busy winning six Olympic medals in six events?
Spoiler: She goes to Fashion Week. 👗
Step One: Immediately Attend Milan Fashion Week Because Obviously
The ink was barely dry on America’s deportation fantasies when Gu announced she was staying in Milan — for Fashion Week. Not to hide. Not to defect. Not to attend a secret Maoist symposium on the People’s Correct Way to Ski a Halfpipe. To model.
“I have the other job,” she told reporters cheerfully. “The other fashion thing.”
The “other fashion thing” being, of course, a runway appearance for Louis Vuitton — a French luxury conglomerate worth $500 billion, owned by Bernard Arnault, the second richest man on Earth, and a company that exists entirely to sell $3,000 handbags to people who already have everything. Nothing says “I share the values of the Chinese working class” quite like sashaying past the proletariat in a coat that costs more than a Shanghai factory worker earns in three years. 🧥
While Gordon Chang was drafting tweets about barring her re-entry, Gu was presumably wearing something that costs more than Chang’s entire Twitter presence. 💅
Somewhere in a Facebook group called “Real Patriots Who Also Love Snow,” a man typed “GOOD RIDDANCE” — unaware that she’d be back at Stanford in California before he finished his sentence.
Step Two: Return to Stanford, Which Is Still in America (We Checked)
Yes. Stanford University. Palo Alto, California. United States of America. The nation that hates her.
Gu is an international relations major who also takes quantum physics classes, studied abroad at Oxford, and scored 1580 on the SAT — which is roughly 1580 points more than most people calling her a traitor scored on anything recently.
She will return to campus. She will attend lectures. She will probably text her friends between runs, as she reportedly did throughout the entire Olympics. 📱
The irony of a woman being called anti-American while attending America’s most prestigious university has been noted by several people, then immediately drowned out by someone posting a blurry screenshot of her Instagram caption in Mandarin.
But let’s pause on the deeper irony: Gu is sympathetic to a political system built on the idea that elite institutions are bourgeois tools of capitalist oppression — and she attends the single most elite institution in the capitalist world. Stanford’s tuition runs to $65,000 a year. Her high school charged $48,000 annually. She was presented as a debutante at Le Bal des débutantes in Paris — an event literally designed to introduce the daughters of the global elite to society. Chairman Mao would have sent her to a re-education farm. Instead, she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. 🎀
Step Three: Cash More Checks From Extremely Capitalist Western Companies
In a stunning act of Maoist resistance, Gu will continue collecting money from luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Porsche, Tiffany & Co., and Red Bull — none of which are state-owned Chinese enterprises, but all of which apparently missed the memo that they’re supposed to hate her too.
She earned $23 million last year. In endorsements. From companies headquartered in France, Germany, and the United States.
This is either the most sophisticated communist infiltration of global capitalism in history, or a 22-year-old athlete being very good at her job. The internet, which has not been asked to distinguish between these two things, has chosen Door Number One.
“She’s a founding member of Victoria’s Secret’s VS Collective,” noted one analyst. “That’s either very American or the People’s Republic has changed considerably since 1949.”
The hypocrisy is architectural. Gu has positioned herself as a bridge between cultures, a child of the collective spirit, a representative of a nation built on communist ideals — and she is simultaneously a Victoria’s Secret ambassador, a Porsche spokesperson, and a Tiffany & Co. model. The Cultural Revolution banned jewelry, persecuted the wealthy, and destroyed anything that smelled of bourgeois decadence. Eileen Gu is bourgeois decadence. She grew up in a Sea Cliff mansion overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. She is the Cultural Revolution’s nightmare wearing a Porsche endorsement deal. 🏎️
Step Four: Rewire Her Brain With Journaling, as Communists Often Do
In a recent interview, Gu revealed her secret weapon: she journals. She applies “an analytical lens” to her own thinking. She modifies her thought processes.
“You can control what you think. You can control how you think. And therefore, you can control who you are,” she said, adding that neuroplasticity was on her side at age 22.
This is either inspirational self-improvement advice or evidence of psychological reprogramming by the Chinese Communist Party, depending on how deep into a rabbit hole you currently are.
One man in Ohio reportedly read the quote and muttered, “That’s exactly what a Maoist would say.” He then went back to watching football, a sport invented in America, played by millionaires, and funded by companies that also advertise in China.
The richer irony: “You can control who you are” is not a Maoist sentiment. It is a hyper-individualist, self-optimization, Silicon Valley wellness influencer sentiment. Maoism is about erasing the self for the collective. Neuroplasticity journaling is about engineering your personal brand. Gu hasn’t absorbed the philosophy of the People’s Republic — she’s absorbed the philosophy of a $500/hour executive life coach in Palo Alto. The Little Red Book never had a chapter on manifesting your best self through analytical self-reflection. 📓
Step Five: Possibly Compete at the 2030 Winter Olympics in France. France.
The question now circulating among people who follow actual sports rather than citizenship conspiracy theory is whether Gu will compete at the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps, which would give her a shot at nine medals in nine events.
Nine medals. Nine individual Olympic events. All podiums.
Here’s the exquisite contradiction: the Chinese Communist Party — officially committed to collective achievement over individual glory — will celebrate Gu’s nine individual medals as national triumph. The Party that banned personal ambition during the Cultural Revolution will plaster her face on billboards. The system that collectivised farms and abolished private property will pay her from a government sports bureau so she can win trophies for herself, in her own name, at events broadcast globally to build her personal $23 million brand. The commune called. It wants its ideology back. 🚩
America’s response, presumably, will be nine more tweets asking for her birth certificate, nine more deportation fantasies, and nine more Facebook posts from people who have never left Ohio but have very strong opinions about dual citizenship law.
Step Six: Continue Being Unbothered to a Degree That is Itself Suspicious
Here is the most alarming development: Gu doesn’t seem to care.
When asked if she feels like a “punching bag for a certain strand of American politics,” she said, simply, “I do.” And then continued winning gold medals. 🏆
When JD Vance expressed hope she’d compete for America, she said, “I’m flattered. Thanks, JD! That’s sweet.” And then continued winning gold medals.
When the National Enquirer published her birth certificate and the internet declared DEFCON 1, she was at Milan Fashion Week. Probably wearing something from Fendi.
This level of composure has itself become suspicious. A man on Reddit wrote: “She’s too calm. That’s what they train you to do.” He did not specify who “they” are, but several people agreed.
The final hypocrisy: Gu says people “lump China into a monolithic entity” and hate it unfairly — which is a reasonable point. But she also benefits enormously from China being exactly the monolithic, state-directed entity that people fear. A free, pluralist China with genuine civil society would not have a government sports bureau cutting $14 million cheques to individual athletes to represent national prestige. The authoritarian machine she defends is the same authoritarian machine writing her training cheques. She is simultaneously the system’s product and its most glamorous advertisement. It’s almost elegant, if you don’t think about it too hard — which, to be fair, is the recommended approach for most things on the internet. 🤔
What the Funny People Are Saying
“She won six gold medals, got called a traitor, then went to Fashion Week. America could never.” — Lewis Black
“The most dangerous thing Eileen Gu did this Olympics was make everyone feel bad about their own productivity.” — Jerry Seinfeld
“She’s 22, at Stanford, worth $20 million, speaks two languages, studied at Oxford, and ran a marathon. I once called in sick to avoid a Zoom call.” — Sarah Silverman
“Only in America do we produce someone this exceptional and then spend our energy trying to deport her.” — Wanda Sykes
The Definitive Answer: What Will Gu Do Now?
She will finish her international relations degree at Stanford. She will continue modeling for brands that pay her obscene amounts of capitalist money. She will journal. She will do quantum physics problems. She will ski mountains that make other humans weep. She will walk runways. She will cash checks. She will compete in France in 2030, probably win three more medals, and the entire cycle will repeat.
And America — the country that produced her, educated her, and then decided to hate her — will watch, argue about paperwork, draft deportation memes, and quietly wonder why its own athletes keep finishing second.
The answer, of course, is not Marxism.
It’s that she’s just better. 🏂
Eileen Gu (谷爱凌), born September 3, 2003, in San Francisco, is the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history with six medals across the 2022 Beijing Games and the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Born to a Chinese mother and an unknown American father, she chose to compete for China at age 15, a decision that has made her a polarising figure in the United States despite her continued residence there, her enrolment at Stanford University, and her $23 million annual earnings from Western luxury brands. Following her gold medal in the halfpipe at the 2026 Games, Gu announced she would remain in Milan for Fashion Week before returning to Stanford. Critics in the U.S. have called her a “traitor,” speculated about her citizenship status, and in some corners attributed her choices to Maoist or communist sympathies — a theory complicated by her endorsement deals with Porsche, Louis Vuitton, and Victoria’s Secret.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!