Salon’s Andrew Leonard provides interesting commentary on an essay by Yang Guobin, associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College.

Called The Curious Case of Jia Junpeng, or The Power of Symbolic Appropriation in Chinese Cyberspace, the essay is taken from a talk given by Guobin at a conference earlier this month on how memes spread in China.

As Leonard summarizes:

Yang tells the story of how a single 12-character message — “Jia Junpeng, your mother wants you to go home to eat” — posted to an online forum frequented mainly by bored gamers frustrated with delays in the rollout of World of Warcraft in China, became a viral sensation — attracting 7 million hits and 300,000 comments in one day — that received widespread coverage from Chinese media.

Both are worth the read.

Guobin’s piece is here.

Leonard’s is here.