A Chinese fan artist has taken down a piece of art which jokingly referenced the ‘Deus Vult’ meme and issued an apology to fans who were offended by what they perceived as a use of a racist meme.
MiLK (@jokanhiyou) is a popular Chinese artist best known for creating the popular Emoting Mokou meme, which features a chibi version of the Touhou character Fujiwara no Mokou reacting in a manner described by accompanying English and Chinese captions. Since creating the first Emoting Mokou image in 2015, MiLK has drawn over 300 separate memes featuring the character, with the meme gaining widespread popularity among both Western and Eastern audiences.
On January 22nd, MiLK posted an image of Mokou clad in the armor of a medieval knight, wielding a sword and a shield bearing Saint George’s Cross, the large red cross symbol used historically by the Knights Templar, with the simple caption ‘Deus Vult’ (Archive: http://archive.is/w87Ct)
Soon after posting the meme, MiLK was met with a wave of criticism from fans who believed the Deus Vult meme, which gained popularity from the use of the phrase in the game Crusader Kings II, was inherently racist due to the use of the historical phrase by pro-Christian, anti-Muslim hate groups.
In response to the various complaints, MiLK deleted the original tweet featuring the image from her Twitter account and apologized for the “hurt and offense my meme has caused,” stating that she “thought it was from a video game.”
I am sorry for the hurt and offense my meme has caused.I didn’t know what that meant and I thought it was from a video game.I will be more careful when creating memes next times.
— 上官绯樱 (@jokanhiyou) January 22, 2020
Thank you all for your support🙏
I will continue to draw Mokou.— 上官绯樱 (@jokanhiyou) January 23, 2020
While some have said that MiLK was outright harassed and bullied into issuing her apology,evidence to support these claims has yet to be produced.
MiLK’s decision to remove the meme was subsequently praised by those who believed that the phrase was inherently racist, regardless of the context of its use, and considered MiLK’s creation of the meme to be a “mistake.”
Thank you so much for rectifying. Seems a normal inoffensive meme at outside, but it is used for hatred and xenophobia.
Acts like these are what actually defines an artist, the hability to amend mistakes and promote love, not hate
— Maestra Fénix (@MaestroFenix1) January 22, 2020
People going “That’s not offensive!”
Alt-right dog whistles are meant to look inconspicuous and innocent enough that people are overreacting, and that’s also how they spread.https://t.co/gy9PXRt3Vh pic.twitter.com/jDKiej56Jh
— Ya Girl Juniper @ Reimu for Smash! 🏴🚩 (@YaGirlJuniper) January 22, 2020
Related: Star Wars Fan Artist Criticized for Drawing ‘Busty’ Rey, Doubles Down in Response
Please don’t listen to people who say everyone is too sensitive. If they are more offended by the removal of an offensive meme than what said meme implied, they don’t mean well at all. I’m glad you looked at the situation critically.
— Mato @ The Hunter’s Journal Zine (@MatologMeatball) January 22, 2020
The amount of people offended at me for thanking MiLk and pointing out that they’re mad about racist dogwhistle being deleted is increasing. Guess that would be it for the “snowflakes” being the overreacting ones.
— Mato @ The Hunter’s Journal Zine (@MatologMeatball) January 22, 2020
Guys, you’ve been filling my notifs calling me a bully (for some reason?) for 8 hours now and at this point someone even has sent me a death threat, which is dumb. Don’t you have anything better to do than getting upset over a poorly thought out meme?
— Mato @ The Hunter’s Journal Zine (@MatologMeatball) January 22, 2020
Related: Japanese Artist najuco Harassed and Accused of Racism Due to Fan Art of Pokémon’s Nessa
However, MiLK also received support from fans who believed that she had done nothing wrong in creating the original meme and encouraged her to ignore their alleged bad faith criticisms:
NEVER APOLOGISE TO (WESTERN) PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE OFFENDED. If you do, they’ll just attack you more and more because they want to bully you!
— 🌲🚀 Subterranean Satorin’s Пыль глотаю Adventure! (@CeeTwentyseven) January 22, 2020
Do not apologize. You did nothing wrong. The people yelling at you don’t actually care about the meme. They only want to bully others, because they are pathetic.
— Shibanobi (@shibanobi) January 22, 2020
You’ve done nothing wrong, whatsoever. Anyone getting upset over this is following behind some unnecessary, political drive going on these days to cancel just about anything they see as, “offensive”. Some things, I understand.
This is one of those I don’t.
tl;dr – You good
— The Awakened (@RisingDecadence) January 23, 2020
aww, westerners can be way too sensitive sometimes, don’t worry. Some people will see a bad person use a phrase or image even once, and they will become only capable of associating it with that bad person. For reference, there are people who think the 👌 hand is offensive
— loopus (@kain_kaine) January 22, 2020
What do you make of MiLK’s decision to delete the meme?