China embraces US YouTubers in push to enhance soft power
WATARU SUZUKI
SHANGHAI -- American YouTube sensation MrBeast has become the latest internet celebrity to enter China's competitive social media landscape, fueling growth opportunities for Chinese companies and a government seeking to tap into his vast fan base.
China's internet censors block such global platforms as YouTube and X, so foreigners who establish a presence on Chinese platforms gain access to the country's 1.1 billion internet users.
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SoraNews24
23 minutes ago
- SoraNews24
Visiting Shohei Ohtani's official manhole lid in his hometown and more
Always judge a manhole by its cover. As we reported earlier, Major League Baseball Japan decided to honor the current crop of top Japanese talent in the MLB in the most Japanese way possible: decorative utility hole covers! A total of 12 currently active players were immortalized in brightly colored discs of cast iron and installed at various locations across the country, usually the player's hometown or other city of significance to their lives or careers. Interestingly, a quarter of these lids can be found in Iwate Prefecture, home of MLB's biggest Japanese stars, Yusei Kikuchi, Roki Sasaki, and Showtime himself, Shohei Ohtani. Of course, all of them are huge talents, but our writer Saya Togashi decided to head out to the singular superstar Ohtani's first while it was still in a pristine, unweathered condition. Iwate is a relatively rural prefecture in the Tohoku region, but it was still just as blazing hot as Tokyo on that day. Ohtani's hometown is Oshu City, a fairly modest city of just over 100,000 people. The two-way player's manhole was treated with a great deal of respect here and the city even set up a free parking area nearby solely for people who came to see the lid. It was installed just outside Mizusawa-Esashi Station, a major station where the Shinkansen even makes a stop and not to be confused with nearby Mizusawa Station and its total lack of commemorative manhole covers. Saya arrived a little before evening and there was a crowd of people around the manhole. Since it was just a utility cover, no one was there to manage the crowd, but everyone took it upon themselves to line up in an orderly fashion anyway, taking turns to appreciate and photograph the lid. Everyone was even careful not to cast any shadows on the lid that would ruin others' photos. They were also respectful enough to not take too much time with the cover so it only took about five minutes for Saya to reach the front of the line. She gazed in awe at the Ohtani manhole. Each of the 12 lids was designed by a different artist, and this one was illustrated by Kirika Kosuzu, whose brightly colored works often fuse elements of American animation and retro Japanese styles. Those styles can be seen in the drawing of Ohtani's faces where he's both hitting and pitching as various boxes highlighting his virtues such as 'control,' 'pitching variety,' '160-kilometer-per-hour throws,' and even 'luck' fly out at us. Like all of the 12 manholes, there is a small plaque with a QR code beside it. By scanning it with your smartphone, you can unlock a short AR 'Hero's Journey' video that follows the player's rise to Major League Baseball. Saya tried to access it, but after scanning the code she had to give her browser all kinds of permissions and then scan the manhole for the AR to start. Meanwhile, every second began to feel like an hour and she could sense growing impatience of everyone in line behind her, so she gave up and walked away. She thought it would have been nice if the video could work in a way that you didn't have to be near the manhole and blocking other people's appreciation of it to watch, but otherwise, the whole experience was very nice. Our writer spent the night in Iwate and the next day decided to head over to Yusei Kikuchi's lid in Morioka City. As the capital of Iwate Prefecture, Morioka was a little more of a bustling place, and this lid was installed on the sidewalk just outside Tonan Library. There were people coming and going to see this cover as well, but not enough to make an impromptu line for it. The reason for this location became apparent once she saw the lid itself. Illustrated by Morioka-born artist Mori Masaru, it shows Kikuchi standing on an open book while pitching as he's surrounded by flames and wild plants of the area. It's titled A Bookworm who Throws . This in reference to his love of books beyond that of most professional baseball players and the fact that he often visited Tonan Library growing up. The library itself even has a dedicated Yusei Kikuchi section and fans can enjoy wandering down the very same aisles that he did. Saya really liked the way this manhole cover perfectly tied in Kikuchi to his hometown and could feel her interest in both grow. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to visit the third utility hole cover in Iwate Prefecture in honor of Roki Sasaki. It's in the coastal city of Rikuzentakata which was farther out from the main lines of transportation and harder to get to. But it's good that these lids are all so spread out across the country so many different people can get a chance to see at least one for themselves and others can find new travel destinations. Images: PR Times, Photos ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! [ Read in Japanese ]
Nikkei Asia
23 minutes ago
- Nikkei Asia
US smartphone market growth slows as India-made devices surge: report
An Apple Store in Mumbai. India has become the top manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the U.S. for the first time, research firm Canalys says. © Reuters (Reuters) -- The United States smartphone market grew just 1% in the second quarter as vendors front-loaded device inventories amid tariff concerns, while supply chain negotiations between China and the United States boosted shipments of Indian-made phones, research firm Canalys said on Monday. The imposition of U.S. tariffs has prompted smartphone makers to reorganize their supply chains to avoid higher import costs and protect their margins. China, a major hub for electronics manufacturing, has been targeted by significant tariffs, pushing hardware makers to explore other Asian countries to maintain low production costs. In response to tariffs, Apple earlier this year sought to make most of its iPhones sold in the United States at factories in India. However, the move drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatened additional tariffs on the Cupertino-based company if it did not produce domestically. "India became the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the U.S. for the very first time in Q2 2025, largely driven by Apple's accelerated supply chain shift to India amid an uncertain trade landscape between the US and China," said Sanyam Chaurasia, Principal Analyst at Canalys. "The market only grew 1% despite vendors front-loading inventory, indicating tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment and a widening gap between sell-in and sell-through," said Runar Bjorhovde, Senior Analyst at Canalys. The share of U.S. smartphone shipments assembled in China fell from 61% in the second quarter of 2024 to 25% in the second quarter of 2025. India picked up most of the decline, with Indian-made smartphone volume growing 240% year-on-year.
Yomiuri Shimbun
11 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
How American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney ‘Good Jeans' Ad Went Wrong
Last Wednesday, American Eagle announced its new ad campaign called 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.' The company's stock has soared since the ads featuring the 'White Lotus' and 'Euphoria' star dropped. The title – read as a tagline at the end of several social media videos – provoked a flurry of online discourse before the denim line has even hit stores. Reactions ran the gamut from glee to accusations that the ads promote eugenics. Here, Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian and Style Memo newsletter writer Shane O'Neill discuss the ad campaign and why it's broken the internet. Rachel Tashjian: It's hard not to read everything in pop culture as a referendum on what America means these days, huh? And marketers (especially in fashion) seem acutely aware of that, as this campaign proves. Let's start by describing what exactly we're looking at here: all-American actress Sydney Sweeney in a pair of slouchy, slightly wide-leg jeans, posing in a series of provocative images and videos as a man declares 'SYDNEY SWEENEY HAS GOOD JEANS,' for the mall brand American Eagle. And the proceeds from the jeans – $89.99 – all go to a domestic violence help line. Did I miss anything? Shane O'Neill: Well, the imagery is pretty scattershot, and so is the messaging. We have Sydney Sweeney looking kinda femme and kinda butch. We have her 'auditioning' for the commercial and also holding a camcorder, recording herself. RT: There's a narrative in these images of that small-town gal moving to the big city, hoping to become a star. I found the audition video really strange – Sweeney is a mega-actress and superbly talented, and she seems very confident and savvy about how she chooses roles. To see her in that uncomfortable setting – where a guy off-camera is asking to see her hands?! – is unsettling. A large part of her success is her ability to appeal to men and women. And that seemed to be the first point of controversy here: Many of the images and videos, like her filming herself with a camcorder or that audition moment, seem tailored for the male gaze specifically. SO: The most provocative part of the campaign is when she's talking about offspring and genes. (She says, 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color,' and the camera pans to her blue eyes. 'My jeans are blue.') Sweeney also has softer copy in the press release. She says of American Eagle, 'They have literally been there with me through every version of myself.' There's a message about mutable identity there. And that could be extended into a vision of America as a place where you're NOT bound by who you are at birth. But they went the full opposite of that. RT: I love what you're saying about the potential of this ad versus the direction it ran toward. Jeans are really fertile ground for fashion brands to explore identity and are almost always marketed with provocation: I'm thinking of the Calvin Klein ads, with Brooke Shields saying 'Nothing gets between me and my Calvins,' but also smaller labels like Eckhaus Latta. Or the Diesel ads from 2010 that declared 'SEX SELLS! Unfortunately we sell jeans.' SO: To be honest, I think the ad campaign didn't exactly know what it wanted to be. If we just had these images without any supporting text or dialogue, I don't think they'd really merit a second glance. RT: I think what's getting people talking – or rather, why everyone was watching these TikToks obsessively over the weekend and picking them apart – is how regressive the ads seem. The line about her having great jeans – several people are suggesting in the comments on Instagram and TikTok that this is a 'pro-eugenics ad.' Whether or not that's the case, it is part of a wave of imagery of influencers, pop stars and musicians that feels tethered to the values of another time. SO: Yes. The first thing I thought of when I heard the tagline 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans' was the DHS Instagram account, which posted a subtly racist painting a few weeks ago and an explicitly racist painting last week. The latter depicted a gigantic blonde buxom woman chasing away Native people to make way for White settlers. When this is the imagery being promoted by our government, a pun about 'genes' hits differently. RT: The tagline is simply bizarre. Are they trying to say that what matters is not what you look like but what you put on your body? Or that you are assigned a denim style at birth and you must never waver from it? Also: Is Sweeney the every girl or the only girl? For the past five or six years, it seemed like fashion and pop culture were very interested in – even dedicated to – body positivity. Now we're being fed a lot of images of thinness, whiteness and unapologetic wealth porn, what with this campaign, influencers like Alix Earle and Sabrina Carpenter's album cover. SO: I found that album cover really disturbing. The fact that it looked exactly like a Terry Richardson shoot from the early 2000s, the fact that it came when people are hiring him again and when Dov Charney is releasing Los Angeles Apparel ads that look exactly like the American Apparel ads he made in the early 2000s is very freaky to me. RT: It's unclear where the irony is. SO: But that arguably makes it a meaningful and successful image. RT: Look, you know I'm a fashion fanatic. Images that make you stop and think – whether you're disturbed or delighted or, even better, have no clue what to make of what you're seeing – are really exciting and too rare in this era. But it is strange to see a brand like American Eagle go in this direction. Should teenagers be served a vision of sexuality and fashion that feels so regressive? SO: Seeing these images with no accompanying text, I don't think I would have guessed 'American Eagle in 2025.' I will say that the far right's embrace of Sweeney – and the gleeful reaction from right-wing creators to 'woke' backlash to the campaign – lends credence to my initial alarm when I saw the ads. RT: She is someone appreciated across the political spectrum. Recall back in 2022 that she was called out online for a picture of a family birthday party in which an attendee was wearing a Blue Lives Matter T-shirt. And her own TikTok page pitches her as a car obsessive, not afraid to get under the hood though her hair looks perfect. She is also a Hollywood powerhouse who is producing movies and starring in iconic Gen Z movies and TV shows. How does she do this? SO: There's something about her giant sleepy eyes and slightly flared nostrils that evokes distance and disaffection. RT: As our colleague Sam pointed out, she codified the Gen Z stare on the first season of 'White Lotus.' SO: Yes! But there is something so deeply unattainable about what Sweeney serves. RT: I'm gently pushing back on that. As a woman I find her combination of sex appeal, smarts and strong but surprising instincts really inspiring. She is able to create these truly oddball characters. And I'll always be fascinated by someone who can capture attention so broadly in our fragmented pop culture landscape. But let's get back to the ad. Are the jeans good? SO: They seem to want to have it both ways: dark blue classic American girliness and a stonewashed sloppy guy's girl. RT: I thought the jeans were cute! But it's still funny that they are very sexually promoting … a baggy jean with a little adorable butterfly on the back? SO: Enter the Möbius strip of outrage, dismissal of the outrage, outrage at the dismissal of the outrage … and eventually a huge bump in stock for American Eagle. RT: Up 18 percent this morning! SO: In a time of prolonged economic uncertainty, I think other brands will learn the lesson that it pays to lean into controversy and trigger snowflakes like me. RT: Absolutely. The only thing we can say for sure: the 'success' of this ad – stirring controversy and conversation and the big stock jump – will inspire more brands to try the same.
