Welcome to The Weekly Scroll!
The Weekly Scroll is a once-a-week roundup of the most interesting, strangest, and funniest stories from around the social internet.
This week, we’re looking at the war between European soccer fans and Chinese netizens, what’s driving recent French youth protests, and surprising digital political strategies in Brazil.
China vs. Mbappé
Greetings, readers of The Argument. This edition of The Weekly Scroll is coming to you from France, where I’ve been traveling this week. As you would expect, the baguettes are indeed much better than America’s, and the Vietnamese and North African food is outstanding. (The croissants are, oddly enough, no better than those I can get in New York.)
Most importantly, I’ve been getting served a lot more French content while browsing in Paris. And that means I’ve had a front-row seat for the pitched battle between French soccer fans and Chinese netizens.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about how Twitter’s automatic translation feature is leading to real-time, dynamic international discourse that wouldn’t have been possible in previous eras. In this case, the story begins with a very silly meme trend that puts French soccer superstar Kylian Mbappé’s face on various dictators.