THE FUSE

Earlier this month, during the second stage of the 2026 NBPL Spring Tournament for the battle royale game Naraka: Bladepoint, Chinese commentator 喳喳 (“Chirp Chirp”), who is also known as Zha Zha (or Cha Cha), made an appearance on stream painted head-to-toe in black paint. As the story has made its way outside of China, readers in the West have reflexively begun to accuse Zha Zha of blackface, but what exactly is the context behind this oddly mistranslated story? As it turns out, it seems to involve a tactic among competitive players of Naraka: Bladepoint to make their characters very dark so that they can better hide from their opponents.