SECOND RIGHT BROTHER becomes world famous

Sexy User Generated Propaganda Hero for China
By thomascrampton ⋅ April 27, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
Lei Feng, icon of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, please meet Second Right Brother, your Web 2.0 counterpart.

Lei Feng was a selfless and modest soldier devoted to Chairman Mao who was killed by a truck backing up. Created by Mao’s government the old fashioned way - fiat of the propaganda department - Lei Feng was intended to inspire the nation as it recovered from the failures of the Great Leap Forward.

Second Right Brother (the only name we know him by) is a member of the torch security detail who for many Chinese (women) has come to embody a new handsome hero standing up to protect China’s pride. Second right refers to his position in the security detail.

His true identity remains a mystery and Chinese Internet users, many of them women, simply refer to him as You Er GeGe or 右二哥哥, literally translated as Second Right Brother.

But Second Right Brother’s good works have not gone unnoticed by obsessive sites showing his photograph, sharing stories about him and even proposing marriage.

Once this Olympic torch relay is over, Second Right Brother may find a second career in the sphere of capitalist propaganda, aka sponsorship.