Memes

I don't think that's a useful framing. The central thesis of most "tankies" is that the version of the PRC that exists in the minds of Westerners and the version that exists in reality are fundamentally different, and that this is largely due to a concerted effort by western countries to depict China in a negative light exclusively. That does not mean that there aren't serious problems with the PRC, or that it doesn't have a long way to go, but admitting to having a negative stance without doing much investigation means that they should investigate, rather than contribute to a miasma of other ill-informed takes.