On 22 May this year, the Chinese State Information Office (SIIO, chin. 中国国家互联网信息办公室) closed accounts on social networking sites (including DouYin -TikTok, XiaoHongShu, WeiBo) many highly popular online celebrities in China.
Among the SIIO actions were:
- Wang Hong Quan Xing (chin. 王红权星, 4.3 million followers)
- Bai Gong Zi (chin. 柏公子, 2.9 million followers) and
- Bao Yu Jia Jie (chin. 鲍鱼家姐, 2.5 million followers)
What caused SIIO? All these celebrities utilized the net to... empathize with their wealth, luxury lifestyle, unattainable to the average Chinese. Most of these people made immense money thanks to livestreaming, which is live online sales (mainly cosmetics, care products, dietary supplements, medical services, as well as products signed with their own brands), as well as through advertising contracts.
W China livestreaming is the most crucial way to sale goods, livestreamers are officially recognized professional group. There are schools here that teach this fresh profession. Livestreaming is 1 form of professional activity that is promoted by the state. At the same time, however, the attitude of restraint and modesty is promoted. It is incorrect to carry on with your wealth. In China there are inactive over 500 million people whose monthly income does not exceed the amount of about 500 PLN.
Meanwhile, Wang Hong Quan Xing, for example, became celebrated in the Chinese network as a collector of the most costly jade products, the owner of 7 luxury properties, including 1 villa of 991 sqm, which he did not even arrange, due to the fact that according to him she was poorly sunbathed.
He repeatedly declared that he would not leave the home unless he was wearing clothes and jewelry of the value of "at least 8 digits", i.e. not little than RMB 10 million (about PLN 5.5 million). In most of his social media entries and clips, he shared with the audience his fresh conquests, a ringing of kind with a pink diamond, or a ringing with a pearl the size of a pigeon egg.
He presented another models of Rolls-Royce he bought, which drove him from the studio to his jewelry store, or his second hand, in which he sold utilized luxury goods.
Bai Gong Zi in turn made himself known, as a individual addicted to buying luxury products, luxury cars, costly clothes, frequently designed specifically for him.
Bai celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday with his partner, whom he called “Master”. In a series of films “My love stories with the Master” he said, among another things, that on his birthday the Master made him a gift in the form of a Porsche for a million yuan (more than half a million zlotys), to which Bai responded by buying the Master a Vacheron Constantin watch for 325 1000 yuan (about 180 1000 zlotys). Bai traveled around the planet to store in luxury stores in various countries, with peculiar emphasis on Hermès stores. He was known as “The Hermes Collector”.
Bao Yu Jia Jie gladly showed the interiors of the 2 luxury villas she bought in Macao, as well as large quantities of bags of the most costly brands, clothes of the most celebrated designers and jewelry.
In her relations and entries on social media, for example, she shared impressions from her journey to the Cannes movie Festival, where there is an ultra lavish kind and outfit attracted the attention of global gossip media.
She was glad that these media paid more attention to her jewelry than to movie stars.
The abrupt disappearance of these and many online celebrities met mixed reactions from Chinese net users. Many of them expressed their surprise with SIIO. Fans did not cover their grief, disappointment. They liked the eccentric, nuvorish kind of idols, watching them was a kind of entertainment, a live fairy tale. However, a much larger group of commentators supported the SIIO decision. They stressed in their comments their belief that the online star environment had become toxic. With their wealth, influencers have attracted millions who observe only a luxurious lifestyle. There was no social value in their actions.
Removing these celebrities' accounts was easy to predict. This is due to the fact that the administration of online platforms in China has for 1 reason reported that they prohibit the publication of content promoting money worship, hedonistic lifestyle, empty materialism and another “harmful values”. They warned that they would delete specified entries and even block accounts. And so it did.
Since 2021, the Chinese State net Information Office has regularly campaigned “cleaning” the net with content that has enjoyed wealth, easy success, especially financial. Interestingly, specified actions besides include content based on "clicity", based on false messages, but besides those that attract attention through catchy titles that do not match the content of the publication. SIIO removes accounts through which rumors, vulgar or dangerous content are spread. For example, various kinds of "challenges". Recently, it pays peculiar attention to audio and video materials, which present materials generated utilizing artificial intelligence, in which there is no information that these materials have been produced in this way.
By the way. Well, excluded from social media celebrities crossed a thin red line by aspirating Fortune's grace. They have forgotten that they live in a country where excessive embodiment of wealth is inactive unwelcomed by the authorities, where for any time there has been a run of dealing with the “cult of money” and the thought of universal prosperity is promoted. They paid the price for their indifference. You can live richly in China, but why go at it with social media? The old Russian proverb already says, "You're going quieter, you're going further." Tише едешь, дальше будешь.
And this is the idea: in China, the problem has been seen and solved in its own way. How about us?
Author: 梁安基 Andrzej Z. Liang,
Shanghai, China
Email: [email protected]
Editorial: Leszek B.
Email: [email protected]
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