Lee and Oli Barrett

Lee and Oli Barrett are a British father-son YouTuber duo based in Shenzhen, China.

Early life Lee is the father and had lived in China for a period since before 2019. Oli, the son, formerly operated a YouTube channel related to Call of Duty and moved to China in 2019. By June 2021, they had 29 million views.

The Chinese government has sponsored the Barretts for some of the videos they have produced. Ethan Paul of the South China Morning Post wrote that "Defending China" was "The key to their rapid audience expansion". Ellery and Knowles wrote that as the Barrets took stances firmer in support of the Chinese government, "the number of subscribers increased exponentially". The two argued against the description "pro-democracy" for the anti-Hong Kong government protesters in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests and that the Xinjiang internment camps are good.

Reception Gray Sergeant, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said it was difficult to trust anything the Barrett's were saying due to China's internet censorship laws. Sam Armstrong, also from the Henry Jackson Society, said "CGTN’s vloggers are modern Lord Haw-Haws." Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat called vloggers like the Barretts "useful idiots" who dictators have used to "whitewash their crimes" and asserted that "sadly the current rulers in Beijing are following the same playbook.”