Who is the ideal “nice man,” in your opinion? When the Ministry of the Interior asked the question, Internet users got creative, naming not only public figures and celebrities, but also cartoon characters as examples of the perfect man.
As part of an awareness campaign for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the ministry’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Committee (DSPC) launched an online contest (www.niceman.org.tw) on Wednesday, asking netizens to name who they felt was the perfect man and to give their reasons why they nominated that person. Netizens could also cast their votes for the “nice man” candidates that others nominated.
It may not be surprising that public figures and celebrities, such as popular singer-songwriter Jay Chou (周杰倫), baseball player Wang Chien-ming (王建民) or business leaders like Yulon Group chairman Kenneth Yen (嚴凱泰) have made it onto the list, but -netizens also nominated cartoon characters, such as Pokemon, Shrek, SpongeBob SquarePants, Takakazu Abe (the main character in the Japanese manga Kuso Miso Technique) and Doraemon, as portrayed by French actor Jean Reno in a Toyota TV commercial aired in Japan.
As of yesterday’s deadline, Abe led with more than 6,200 votes, the Web master of a digital technology forum followed with more than 4,600 votes, while Bill Chen, a member of the bulletin board system PTT who is well-known among its members for his out-of-place comments, came in third with more than 2,800 votes.
Commenting on the phenomenon, committee executive secretary Chien Hui-chuan (簡慧娟) said she would respect Internet users’ creativity and that she considered it as something positive.
“The purpose of the online contest is to invite people to talk about what they think are characteristics of a good man, as one of the objectives of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is to have a dialogue with men, telling men what makes a good man and asking men to show their determination not to impose violence on women,” Chien said. “Internet users’ creativity would actually make the contest less ‘dry’ and more interesting.”
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) panned the contest yesterday. Citing the NT$4.8 million (US$157,000) budget that the ministry appropriated for the online contest, Yeh said it was a waste of money and a brown--nosing event.
Yeh suspected the purpose of the contest was to make President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) the “No. 1 nice man” through online voting, and questioned why some of the nominees were deleted from the list.
“Is [the ministry] going to delete nominees until Ma ranks No. 1 on the list?” Yeh asked.
As of press time, Ma was ranked No. 64, while Pokemon was at No. 6 and Shrek was No. 9.
Defending the ministry, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) said the DPP “thinks too much” and urged the DPP to stop spinning everything as an election-related scheme.
Chien also denied the event was election-related.
“A domestic violence prevention campaign is an ongoing action of the DSPC and we actually hold events every year for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women,” she said.
She added that some nominees’ names were deleted because some Internet users had used vulgar language in the description of those nominees.
Additional reporting by Chiu Yan-ling and CNA
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