People in China are freaking out about what could well be the world's most epic eyeroll.
Basically here's what happened: During China's annual parliamentary session, Zhang Huijun, the woman in red, asked a government official a fawning, long-winded question. Liang Xiangyi, a reporter for Shanghai-based Yicai.com, wasn't having any of it.
Most questions asked at the session, particularly those raised by state media reporters, are scripted in advance to incorporate heavyhanded praise of government policies. The whole thing is so dull that delegates have sometimes been caught napping on camera. So Liang's spontaneous eyeroll really struck a nerve.
People acted out the scene themselves.
Amazing to see how these two ladies just exploded over Chinese social media in the span of a few hours. Fan art in the making #RedBlueCamps https://t.co/s6frv2gEgW
Then they superimposed Liang onto other long-winded speeches, including by Alibaba's Jack Ma.
对于趋炎附势，捧高踩低，吹牛拍马，助纣为虐的奴才们就该鄙视👎 梁相宜女士把我们平时内心的白眼翻了出来 #梁相宜 #马云
There was even merch.
Found my cell phone cover for the spring season on Taobao
This being China, searches for Liang's name started being blocked on Weibo, the Twitter-like microblogging service, according to freeweibo.com.
蓝衣女名字“梁相宜”超过“修宪”和“宪法”成为微博第一屏蔽词。 As of now "Liang Xiangyi" (name of the eye-rolling Chinese reporter in blue suit) has overtaken "constitutional amendments" and "constitutions" to become the No.1 most censored Weibo word. https://t.co/YgTUSp5iEy https://t.co/hTZAroS9iF
In addition to Liang's name, the search term "question-asking bitch" controversially became popular on Weibo.
In a screenshot of a chat conversation that was leaked online and published by the site What's On Weibo, Liang told a coworker that she rolled her eyes "because the woman next to me was being an idiot."
"The question was even longer than the answer," she added.
