Thread by @olliekarp

In today's #dailysoup, I'll introduce a #Malaysian soc-med influencer, gaming journalist, and conspiracy theorist, Ian Miles Cheong.

He's known for disguising as a "US conservative" and spewing pro-China and pro-Russia peepotalking remarks.

This will be a bumpy ride.

1/23

After moving on from his engineering career, Cheong served as a prominent gaming journalist for various blogs and websites, including the Guardian, Ars Technica, and Gameranx.

Cheong may look like your ordinary "gaming journo", but from the inside, it is a different story.

2/23

In the early 2010s, Cheong once served as a top moderator at Reddit, posing as "SolInvictus", especially in heavily-populated Reddit forums like "AskReddit" and "TodayILearned".

However, Cheong was a pretty terrible Reddit moderator.

3/23

As a Reddit moderator, Cheong spammed a lot of random content from gaming sites like Uproxx.

What's worse was that some of these content included politically sensitive ones, including an article named "Anti-Gay Group Hilariously Freaks Out Over "The Old Republic".

4/23

Moreover, Cheong was disliked by his online peers in other platforms like Steam, especially coz of his "constant spamming of Reddit links and fake news", thus leading them calling him as "weird", "self-centered", "a drama queen", and "a laughingstock".

5/23

Coz of Cheong's spams, his "SolInvictus" account was reported to Reddit, so he changed his username to "slaterhearst" to evade accountability.

Then both "SolInvictus" and "slaterheart" disappeared, with Reddit JavaScript evidence pointing towards Cheong's Reddit ban.

6/23

After Cheong was banned in Reddit in the early 2010s, he gained online notoriety when he got involved in GamerGate, especially when he defended Zoe Quinn, a game dev infamous for "sleeping with journos for positive reviews".

7/23

Cheong's political stance was once that of a "turbo-feminist" during the Gamergate fiasco in the early 2010s.

His political stance jumped drastically from a "left-wing social justice warrior" to a "far-right pro-Trump vatnik and pro-China peepotalker".

8/23

Cheong posed as a "typical American far-right guy", appearing in notorious right-wing outlets, including "The Daily Caller", run by infamous vatnik Tucker Carlson, and a Canadian far-right news outlet, "Rebel News".

Meanwhile, he would post far-right stuff in social media.

9/23

Cheong suddenly became interested in US politics. Although he claimed that "he's not the biggest fan of Trump", he's known for pro-Trump peepotalking remarks and whataboutist tactics.

For example, Cheong claimed that "more fans of MLP and Bernie Sanders...

10/23

...have committed mass shootings than Trump supporters". He also "accused social media for calling Trump a tyrant" and claimed that "Democrats believe that Republicans want open borders so that they could vote Democrat".

Moreover, he "accused Democrats for censorship".

11/23

During the 2020 US elections, Cheong "accused Democrats for cheating", adding that "there is a chance Trump will win".

Then, Cheong "accused Democrats for using the 01/06 riots to punish Trump supporters", claiming that the "rioters are marching peacefully".

12/23

Cheong is known for spewing a cocktail of conspiracy theories, including infamous keywords like "Great Reset", "QAnon", "COVID-as-a-scamdemic", and "George Soros".

Besides that, Cheong is also known for spewing pro-China and pro-Russia peepotalking points.

13/23

When it comes to the topic of the Russian theft of Crimea in 2014, Cheong peepotalked about how "...Crimea willingly went to Russia coz they spoke Russian...".

Then, he insisted that "Crimea is Russia" and "Crimea returning to Ukraine will be impossible".

14/23

Days before Russia invaded Ukraine in 02.24.2022, Cheong claimed that "...Russia always stated that it was not going to invade".

Cheong claimed that "...this isn't to repel Ukraine. It's to repel a potential NATO invasion". He shared Pope Francis' "NATO expansion" claim.

15/23

Cheong quoted Clare Daly stating that "pumping more arms in Ukraine will just prolong the war" and that "the EU's feigning of sympathy for Ukraine makes me sick".

For more about Daly, you may refer to this #vatniksoup entry from @P_Kallioniemi:

16/23 https://t.co/1jvisy7RLg

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1618985882350141440?s=20

Then, Cheong called the donation of arms to Ukraine as "a party going on in Kiev".

He claimed that "there is no freedom of religion in Ukraine" and "Ukraine did a drone strike on the Kremlin".

17/23

Then, Cheong claimed that "the US was the one that blew up Nord Stream 2", sharing a video from Trump suggesting that "the US was responsible".

He did anti-West whataboutism when he claimed that "there are more migrants going to the US than troops in Ukraine".

18/23

Besides Clare Daly, Cheong supported and quoted a couple of vatniks mentioned in @P_Kallioniemi's #vatniksoup, including Tucker Carlson, Jeffrey Sachs, and Gonzalo Lira.

Moreover, he even appeared in a Musk-hosted Twitter space with another infamous vatnik, Kim Dotcom.

19/23

Besides pro-Russia peepotalking remarks, Cheong is also known for spewing out pro-China ones.

Cheong claimed that "Taiwan and the US are not good allies coz the US will just blow up the TSMC" and "Taiwan is an American proxy", painting the US as "an unreliable ally".

20/23

Then, Cheong spewed a cocktail of pro-China peepotalking points like "Chinese communism is better than US wokeism", "Hong Kong is a part of China", and "the Dalai Lama is a pe*o".

21/23

People thought that Cheong was a "bonafide US conservative dude" until the COVID-19 pandemic when Cheong posted pictures of #Malaysia during the lockdowns, leading to calls from online folk for Cheong to "stay away from talking about US politics".

22/23

While Cheong once claimed that "Hitler is my idol", he claimed that "there are actual N*zis in Ukraine".

23/23

Related entries:
#vatniksoup entry #158 (Kim Dotcom) -

#vatniksoup entry #120 (Russian narratives) - https://t.co/7tIKhxzQmH

Entry #52 (Pro-CCP peepotalking points) - https://t.co/0UwyfHrhZn

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1649354550568943617?s=20

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1634168118992949251?s=20

https://twitter.com/olliekarp/status/1650225950024667136?s=20

This is Entry #67 of the #dailysoup. For previous entries, kindly visit this link:

Shoutouts: @SA__moment, @P_Kallioniemi, @Beefeater_Fella, @LavrovsFELLA, @LukeShigabit.ly/thedailysoup

More shoutouts: @nickreeves9876

APPENDIX: Cheong is also a climate change denier, especially when he said that "Climate change isn't going to affect you".

1/4

Moreover, Cheong criticised people fighting climate change, and he even injected conspiracy theories with the keywords "WEF" and "Bill Gates" into the mix.

For more info about the "WEF conspiracy", you may refer to this #vatniksoup entry here:

2/4 https://t.co/AscMoBB6LE

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1595740984272650242?s=20

Cheong is also known for making out-of-context blames. For example, Cheong once blamed GamerGate and climate change for unrelated events like the Buffalo shooting and even the death of George Floyd.

3/4

Meanwhile, as per @nickreeves9876's observations, Cheong was also boosted by Elon Muskov the Vatnik x Space Karen through giving favourable replies to his tweets.



4/4

https://twitter.com/nickreeves9876/status/1658118759180107777?s=20

ANOTHER APPENDIX: When it comes to the topic of Russia's shooting down of the MH17 aircraft in 2014, Cheong blamed Malaysian Airlines for "flying over a warzone", saying "Whose genius idea was it to still fly civilian airliners in that airspace?".

JUST ANOTHER APPENDIX: A "sequel" to my #dailysoup entry on Ian Miles Cheong is offered by the #vatniksoup by @P_Kallioniemi with additional interesting info. Read more here:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1662775521472593920?t=uBdaZMyKzIItiPW6LWM9MA&s=19

@_laili_ This one indicates Ian suggesting that "China is better than America, so deal with it". This remark is also used by pro-China academics like Martin Jacques and Kishore Mahbubani.

@threadreaderapp unroll