The CCP’s efforts to regulate online fandoms - known as its Qinglang, or clean and clear, initiative - are really part of its larger efforts to wrangle a complex online ecosystem of celebrity culture, social media influence, queer media, and what it perceives as pernicious foreign corruption. Fan communities are known as “rice circles” - a name conjuring an image of a group eating from one another’s dinner plates, hinting at the complicated codependency between fan groups and celebrities. The CCP has heightened restrictions on fans, from banning crowds to eliminating celebrity rankings, restructuring fan clubs, and censoring queer fan-friendly media.īut fandom is never easy to negotiate, and fandom in China is especially complex. In recent years, China’s online fandom and the chaotic lengths fans go to in order to promote their celebrities have increasingly drawn the attention of the Chinese government. An entire online cottage industry exists to bolster competing fandom rumors, with gossip-mongers and superfans getting paid by shady sources to smear their idol’s rivals - and such rumors can develop into real, reputation-ruining scandals. Some fans empty their bank accounts for the cause of proving their idol can sell the most products. Most have learned to gamify rankings and competitions, with many regularly buying hundreds of items they don’t intend to use, just to boost their idol. To ensure their favorite is the best and biggest star of all, Chinese fans have built an entire industry-adjacent system of competition. While content can be controlled and celebrities can be taught to mold themselves into model citizens, human behavior remains wildly unpredictable And in China, fans who’ve been trained by corporate interests to see fandom as a competition can be the most wildly unpredictable creatures of all. While content can be controlled and celebrities can be taught to mold themselves into model citizens, human behavior remains wildly unpredictable. That incessant need to compete in the entertainment marketplace extends beyond the celebrities to their fans - and this is where things get thorny. At the same time, celebrities are virtually required to monetize their brands through sponsorships with huge corporations: The more products they can sell, the more they earn their spot on the A-list. Stars are expected to be poster children for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - to be wholesome, promote good values, avoid vice, and never, ever, get involved in a major scandal. In China, however, those stressors pale beside the unique pressure of being a star in a hyper-consumerist culture that’s also tightly controlled by a state autocracy. In exchange for fame and stardom, stars give up normal levels of privacy endure invasive scrutiny from fans, paparazzi, and the media and mold themselves to inhuman standards of beauty and perfection in order to climb the ladder of success. Celebrity, in any country, comes with its fair share of hardship.
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