Chinese internet culture

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features a single, illuminating number that helps you make sense of China. 710 million: the number of online shoppers in China.  The number of people in China who shop online reached 710 million in March 2020, according to the state-run China Internet Network Information Center.  The number has grown by 100 million from the end of 2018. Currently, more than half of China’s 1.4 billion population are buying things online. E-commerce has become a massive industry because of the growing spending power of China’s middle class. Also, the proliferation of online payment methods, as well as the low cost and efficient delivery infrastructure, has helped co

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features a single, illuminating number that helps you make sense of China. 3.6 percentage points: the gap between the ability for rural and urban Chinese youth to access the internet. Young people in rural China are catching up with their city counterparts when it comes to going online. About 94% of urban Chinese youth have access to the internet, compared to 90.3% of rural youth, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a government agency. The difference of 3.6 percentage points shrank from last year’s number of 5.4 percentage points, the center said in a report on internet access for people between the age of 6 and 18. China s

Archive of Our Own (AO3), one of the world’s biggest fanfiction sites, appeared to be blocked in China on Saturday as regulators further tightened internet controls. Some users furiously blamed fans of a popular actor for the government’s action. “Unfortunately, the Archive of Our Own is currently inaccessible in China,” the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a US non-profit group that operates AO3, said on its Twitter account. It added that it could not resolve the problem since the disconnection is not caused by AO3’s servers. OTW did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. Calls to the country’s internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) a

Two new “virtual idols” representing the youth wing of China’s Communist Party failed spectacularly, in large part because they were released as China still struggles to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.  The Communist Youth League posted on the Twitter-like Weibo on Monday that it would release two new animated cartoon characters.  “Let’s meet two new friends, the league’s virtual idols Hongqiman and Jiangshanjiao,” the Communist Youth League said to its 12 million followers.  The two characters’ names, which mean “abundant red flags” and “lovely land,” were both derived from poems by late Chairman Mao Zedong.  The project is the party’s latest attempt to win the hearts of China’s you

Can virality be taught? The more than 20 people gathered in a room in Shenzhen, in China’s southern Guangdong province, certainly think so.  Some have forked out as much as $1,400 for a weekend crash course on how to create short, funny videos that will get lots of views on Douyin, ByteDance’s Chinese version of its short-video app TikTok. Lots of clicks lead to potential advertising endorsements, or so the equation goes. Zhang Bo, a moon-faced man in his late 30s, is the man who promises to unlock the secrets of creating crazy popular videos.  Perched on a white table at the front of the class, Zhang regaled us with how one client made over $10.1 million in just three days following his met

A viral blog that attacked Australia’s failure to stop the months-long bush fires and implied Chinese firefighters were braver and more patriotic has stirred vigorous online debate. The post, published on China’s Facebook-like WeChat, contrasted the situation in Australia with China’s largest-ever wildfire, which lasted just under a month in 1987.  The article quickly racked up more than 23 million views, but was criticized by high-profile media commentators for insensitivity and using nationalism to generate cheap viral clicks. Friday’s article, titled “If it weren’t for the Australian bush fires, I would’ve never known that China was so powerful 33 years ago,” also suggested that Australia

Ma Gongzuo, a beekeeper in Zhejiang, China, has garnered more than 700,000 followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of video app TikTok. From opening up a hive to swimming in a river to chopping wood, he has used the service to share his day-to-day life in China’s rural areas with his followers.

Zeng Mou, who lives in Guangxi, in the southwest of China, first got his Renren account in 2006.  The Chinese social networking site was part of daily life for the college student, who would regularly post photos and engage with his friends on the platform. Fourteen years down the road, the now 33-year-old civil servant still logs on daily “just out of habit,” but there is hardly anyone to engage with. “Nobody uses it,” he said of the once-popular platform that was known as “China’s Facebook.” Old-timers like Zeng, who have been hoping for the revival of the platform, have some reason to cheer now.  Renren launched its first social networking mobile app last Monday in a bid to attract new

Chinese mobile users are spending more time than ever on their devices, according to a report published by research firm QuestMobile on Thursday. From the beginning of 2019 to the end of last November, each user spent an average of 6.2 hours a day – or 1.8 full days a week – using mobile devices to get online. The number represents an 11.3% increase over the same period last year, data from QuestMobile showed.  The average number of apps they used per month also increased from 21.3 in 2018 to 23.6 in 2019, according to the report. 6.2 hours Average time Chinese users spend on their mobile devices per day A separate report by research firm eMarketer in May last year estimated that the average

A man from northern China’s Hebei province, known as Pangzai, has become an online star for his unique “tornado” style of drinking beer. He's become an online sensation after videos of his beer drinking and brick breaking went viral online.