#Shen Yun

[airasora]

So.

I watched Shen Yun tonight.

I thought it was just traditional Chinese dancing.

I was wrong.

Didn't think I'd be called a cancerous tumor today.

Mom and I have decided to repress the memory after we looked it up online and found out it's a goddamn cult.

The lesson learned today: Fucking look up stuff before you accidentally support anti-evolution propaganda cause you think you're just gonna see some pretty dancing 💃

[cloudselkie]

Hey DFW, it's December and that means it's almost time for Shen Yun to make their yearly appearances in the Metroplex. Here's your reminder that Shen Yun is part of the Falun Gong cult, which opposes the LGBTQIA+ community, feminism, and science in the form of being anti-medicine/anti-vaxx and anti-evolution. They have also used their "news outlet," the Epoch Times, to push for the election of people like Donald Trump and to spread conspiracy theories, including Q. Their shows also include segments of propaganda that falsify the origins of Falun Gong.

Fuck Shen Yun!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Stieb at NY Mag's Intelligencer:

One of the strangest stories in media over the past decade is the Epoch Times, a formerly free newspaper distributed on the streets of New York that focuses on conspiracist, right-wing takes and reports that are extremely critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Founded in 2000, it effectively functions as a propaganda wing of Falun Gong, the religious movement headquartered upstate that is also behind Shen Yun, the anti-communist show with the inescapable subway ads. During the Trump years, the Epoch Times successfully expanded its operation on YouTube and Facebook, reaching millions of Americans with clickbait and misinformation. According to the Justice Department, it also functioned as a massive money-laundering scheme for one of its executives.

On Monday, federal prosecutors in New York charged the Epoch Times’ chief financial officer, Bill Guan, with conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly moving at least $67 million in illegally obtained funds to bank accounts in the media outlet’s name. According to the indictment, Guan was in charge of something (rather suspiciously) called the “Make Money Online” team, in which Guan and underlings “used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds.” The alleged scheme was fairly simple, relying on prepaid debit cards, which are a common method in crypto laundering. The Make Money Online team, based abroad, would allegedly purchase “proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits” loaded onto prepaid cards. The team then allegedly traded them for cryptocurrency at 70 to 80 percent of the cards’ actual value. After making the deal, the Feds claim that those funds would then be transferred into bank accounts associated with the Epoch Times as well as into Guan’s personal bank accounts.

Turns out that far-right propaganda operation The Epoch Times is a money laundering operation.

[withbroombefore]

Went to see the Shen Yun dancers without knowing ahead of time that they're a doomsday cult. What a deeply weird experience.

[tairaawhiti]

that time of the year when the shen yun ads become inescapable

[druvjelly]

Hello! So I’m being forced to see Shen Yun against my will. So I will live blog the entire experience.

For context. My mom and grandma brought tickets as a surprise, I stated my opinion about Shen yun and Falun Gong to both them and my older brother (who agreed with me) but my mom and grandma got so angry over me saying no because “the tickets were expensive”.

Currently I’m in the theatre. Most people seeing these are seniors, most young people are there because of their parents/grandparents.

There’s a merch boot

I got this. It’s in Swedish btw but here’s my translation

The theory of evolution can’t handle modern light

Atheism hurts humanity

It brings down humanities hope

But with Dafa, the big way back to heaven. The Dafa maidens are learning themselves to the truth

I literally have the evidence right there that it’s like a cult. Imagine if Scientology went to China and made a play.

Edit: check the reblogs for the whole experience

[existing-caregiver]

[not-so-superheroine]

we advertising cults now, @staff ???

look up Falun Dafa / Falun Gong.

They oppose the CCP so the all the English media sites are extremely apologetic, but just look at the beliefs and you'll get the picture. they are also the ones behind the far-right Q-Anon conspiracy outlet The Epoch Times.

persecution does not equal "not a dangerous cult". and the fact that they are a dangerous cult should color what they say. the critique should be focused on how China handled the dangerous cult, though the US would not have superiority there.

from an ex-Falun Gong:

on The Epoch Times:

Ex Member:

One Man's experience at Shen Yun:

Ex Falun Gong testimony (as well one from a current leader in the movement):

[hans-echo]

[diskkirants]

Okay, so my mom's boyfriend is getting Shen Yun tickets and is looking for some codes for it.

I would have used the Norm Macdonald meme but with the original context being that he was talking about a trans person getting murdered and how "everyone in this story should die"... yeah it's not a good look.

If you don't know what Shen Yun is, it's basically a dance show for Falun Gong/Falun Dafa, a homophobic racist cult that you definitely should not be supporting despite persecution from the Chinese government. Two things can suck at the same time.

[ophilosoraptoro]

China Is Threatening to Kill Americans

[knight-in-sour-armor]

[lordefan2002]

Shen Yun but its just white guys w greasy hair

[deafmangoes]

We bought tickets for Shen Yun this year after choosing not to last year because of their links to the Falun Gong - however I convinced myself, wrongly, that they were just being persecuted by the CCP for their anti-communist stance. As someone who's pretty pro-socialist but anti-CCP I was willing to just swallow this.

Today was the day of the performance and after trying to determine the dress code and falling down a Wikipedia black hole, I can tell you my earlier instinct was entirely correct and I'm a moron.

The rest hidden behind the break because

ho boy, bigotry.

They're a full-blown cult. Don't let the flashy advertising fool you. Their founder believes that "race-mixing" leaves us vulnerable to alien attack and that it's a Communist plot. He teaches that homosexuality is "disgusting" and "sub-human".

His media group, which includes the 'nice' Shen Yun and less nice Epoch Times promoted Trump both before and after his election, is consistently far-right, pushes anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, promoted Covid misinformation and was anti-vaxx, and there's evidence they monetarily support nativist and neo-Nazi groups in Europe.

An article from the New York Times about the dance show says that they're not even that subtle about it during the performance. It's just so glitzy that people tend to overlook the 'problematic' parts.

Our tickets are non-refundable, so that's that.

Don't support the CCP.

Don't support Shen Yun.

[clara-the-cat]

It has begun...