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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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To the snowy summit side by side

红尘中毁誉得失如何去量?

Part 7: And now... what?

This is a post long overdue. I must admit, this is the most difficult one, so I was putting it off, reading again and again what I had already written and browsing through the internet to try and get the most complete picture.

Disclaimer: in this case, almost all of the post is my personal opinion (I tried to keep the previous post objective). I’m biased because of the XZ friendly content I’m usually exposed to and by my own views of their situation. Open to discussion, but please make sure you’ve enough information to do so.

Let’s go back to anon’s original ask:

Hello could you give us an update on xz's situation? I know we*bo and his studio has taken some steps recently but how has this affected public opinion on xz? Has it improved/ are more people favoring him or has it gotten worse?

I think I have been answering your first question in the past posts. However, about the next two:

When I was compiling information and writing the previous posts, a song kept coming back again and again to my head, specifically, this part of the lyrics:

红尘中毁誉得失如何去量?

In the mortal world, how can praise or condemnation, success and failure be measured?

(Yes, it’s from WuJi-无羁)

Innocence

What happened to XZ was a combination of incredibly bad luck, strenuous social circumstances (the pandemic), high stress in the public and a set of underlying issues that had been festering for a long time.

From being a celebrity on the way up, he suddenly became a scapegoat for a conflict he hadn’t caused and the receiver of a lot of senseless hate. He didn’t do anything from start to finish in the 2/27, but ended up the most affected from it, as the consequences reverberated all the way from March to July.

Because XZ didn’t ask the author to write such a fanfic. He didn’t request for it to be taken down. He didn’t ask his fans to report anything. And he didn’t have anything to do with ao3 being banned in the country as a response. From start to finish, he didn’t participate in any of it.

Many of the analysis I’ve watched/read determine that the cause of the problem were his fans. One of the bloggers even said that “his fans are the ones that have hindered his career the most”.

But, from my point of view, the saying of “two people can’t have an argument if one of them doesn’t want to” also applies here. From start to finish, the issue was filled with overreactions and exaggerated responses from both XZ’s fans and the rest of the people that engaged in this ridiculous fan war with them.

However, let’s keep in mind that “XZ’s fans” is also a huge generalization. Most of the people don’t have the necessary time, resources and mental energy to engage in ridiculous crusades in the name of their favoured celebrity.

Part of the reasoning of the anti-XZ faction is that he should have taken measures and steps to make sure that his fans didn’t cross the line. However, even if the people leading all of this are only a small % of his fans, they are still a lot of people. Being the receiver of their fans’ love and admiration doesn’t make him and his team able to discern who is a reasonable, sensible fan, and who is a crazed troublemaker. And being famous and admired shouldn’t make him the responsible of all of his fans actions (in my opinion). I think this is also how Western society would view the situation.

I was surprised to discover that c-society did expect him to “guide” his fans, because he has a huge influence on them and he’s supposed to guide them towards more civilized behaviour. It’s not of course what everyone thinks, but the stance his studio has taken also points in recognizing that they should have done that (there are more reasons to their stance, of course, explained in the part 5+6).

However, people did realize (I think) that most of the people that follows him gives him support silently. There are of course ardent and fervent people who jump to defend him, but even that kind of behaviour is discouraged by XZ’s studio (applying that ignoring the antis is the greatest way to defeat them).

So here it came the lyrics from WuJi. It’s true that a fraction of his fans have caused him a lot of trouble. But this kind of fans (there is a fine line between very invested and obsessed) are also the ones who push forward a lot of events, who create things like “XZ’s fans Association” and who promote his works the most. His studio did call them out in the end, and said that everyone should relax in their support, but it’s also true that this fans also had a great hand in pushing him to the top of the charts. There’s a very fine line between gain and loss here, so how can one measure the value?

(But the antis who disguise as his fans and create trouble just for the sake of ruining his reputation are a whole other issue. No excuses for them).

Finally, the answers

To answer (I know we*bo and his studio has taken some steps recently but how has this affected public opinion on xz? Has it improved/ are more people favoring him or has it gotten worse?) more exactly:

When we are talking about public opinion, it can actually be divided into 3 factions: his fans, the antis, and the actual general public who is neutral by default.

1. His fans stayed the same, supporting him through the storm. The opinion of the fans isn’t so easily swayed (though he has lost some in this process, he has also gained new followers), and the main feeling they have towards him now can be summarized in 心疼 (”xin teng”, a feeling that, in this case, can be described as “I’m really sorry that all of this has happened to you because I know that you were innocent in this”). I’ll explain a little bit more about his fans support in the last part of the post.

2. The antis can also be divided into 2 groups: “regular” antis and “professional” antis. The 2/27 Great Union community still exists, but it’s a closed off community and to enter it, the new member has to be approved by a moderator. I’ve seen public comments with the 2/27 Great Union tag, that after his interviews have morphed into “I’m a commoner and I hate XZ”, but they are a lot less active these days. Even if they still have hate after everything that happened, the average anti has gone back to their usual life after quarantine was lifted, so it’s less active.

Some of the “regular” antis will stay active, but that’s to be expected. For example, some of WYB’s solo fans were all exploding over the new vlog XZ’s Studio updated three days ago. While it’s ridiculous for the rest of us, these people will continue their “XZ is using WYB to further his own fame” campaign.

However, it’s different with the “professional” anti. As we said in previous posts, people like “B” has a lot of time, energy and resources to invest in a smear campaign against XZ. Where does all of that come from? I don’t know. What I do know is that once XZ’s topic cools down enough and another scandal of another idol, no matter how small, appears, they’ll shift to hate content about the other idol. What matters to them is to produce content that people will engage with, so they get more views and followers, and profit with it.

3. And now, the “neutral-by-default general public”. There is a problem in how we, as netizens, manage the information. In the previous post, I talked about a hater who had written an assessment because “XZ’s fans” had insulted her parents. While the main objective of the document wasn’t to see how the general public views him, I took the data she had extracted.

The general public isn’t so neutral anymore. While it’s true that XZ keeps gaining fans (he’s still riding on CQL’s success train), what general public, the average passerby, has heard from him is:

A XZ fan has stolen a deceased person’s account to keep promoting him

“XZ’s fans” attack a user’s parents on Father’s Day.

A primary school teacher promotes her favourite idol in her class.

These are bound to create a bad image and reputation in people’s mind. We know (I explained all of those incidents in previous posts) that only the teacher incident was truly caused by a XZ fan. There’s no proof that the person who insulted that user’s parents was a XZ fan, and w/ibo has proved that the “stolen” account incident was a scheme from start to finish.

However, the headache in all of those incidents is that the initial issue (“a XZ fan stole a deceased person account to continue to promote him!”) is announced widely and loudly, attracting people’s attention to it. However, people won’t dig up more information. Less than half will actually read the article or investigate more about it. W/ibo actually investigating it and discovering that it was all a plot to frame XZ isn’t given importance, nor does it go on the hot search chart. People only know what happened at first, but don’t know how the story ended. And this is a huge problem for him, because people accuse him but don’t care to know if he was actually the culprit.

(Wow, just like WWX in CQL).

So I found this to describe it.

There are still neutral people: those who couldn’t care less about the tabloids, and that never read gossip sites. These are still a great part of the general public. Anon was asking about the public opinion: the fact is that previously neutral people have only heared bad things about him for half a year, so that’s bound to affect their image of someone they’re not invested in.

If XZ were defeated, and retired, I’m sure a lot of articles like “framing the innocent” would appear. We people just like to have something to talk about.

His fans’ support

XZ ended 2019 with his followers on w/ibo numbering on 21,690,000. The exact number of his w/ibo followers right now is 26,458,877 (26,459,350 two hours later, by the time I’m editing this to post it). He continues to be liked by more people, and antis may try to reduce his popularity, but it’s a fact that his talent and effort are appreciated by people with no hidden agenda.

XZ is also slowly coming back to work and to his endorsements, which are very good news. We saw him recently in the R/SEONLY add for Chinese Qixi, in the event for Cao Yu’s anniversary, the vlog the studio updated.

Less directly, Kai Xiao Zao, one of the brands that didn’t stop working with him even after 2/27 (they are a smaller brand, and they must have invested a lot in their endorser, so they can’t just put him aside like other bigger brands did), recently put up little stands in malls all over China to promote their new product. In every stand there was a wall for customers to write and a couple of XZ cardboard cutouts.

In his interview in Yunnan, XZ had been seen wearing his red cord bracelet, to ward off bad luck. So fans started to add their own amulets to ward off bad luck and offerings to the cutouts.

They started off like this...

Fans came...

And they ended up like this. The funny fact it’s that people started to add plush toys, hats and even food to the cutouts, so based on what “XZ” is wearing one can guess where was the photo taken.

This was a widespread phenomenon in all of KXZ stands. So to say that XZ has lost support from his fans would be certainly false.

His dramas are also expected to be aired soon and have been confirmed to. His patience is paying off little by little, and he’s coming back to work.

The moral of the story

I hope we can all learn something from this. If anything, it has changed my own attitude on the Internet. I used to be very quick to answer with extreme words if I felt strongly about a topic. Now I try to tone down my responses. I’m not saying that you’d all do the same, but it’s a lesson I extract from other people’s experiences. History should serve to avoid mistakes others have committed as much as possible.

In the technology and communications based world we live in, to believe that what we do on Internet doesn’t affect real people’s everyday lives is a huge lie. So, now that we can see that XZ is slowly coming back, let’s all remember that this once happened: let’s all be kind on the internet and avoid engaging with people who dedicate themselves to spread hate.

It has been hard on him. But he’s going to top the snowy summit. Let’s do our best to support him rationally.

Prev: Part 5 and 6: A snowy summit

#gg's situation #part 7 out of 7 #finally finished #my post #ask

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alwaysfortracer85 · 2 years

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honestly, anon, I was kinda inactive these days, just came back home yesterday, so I barely checked TL and now trying to catch up, but those tweets about the cause that ended up on my TL were mtjj mocking antis and calling out the melon acc that twisted the situation tweeting it like these were fans who were leaving and not antis desperately trying to make fans leave. As for writing essays. The best ways to deal with antis are 1. Ignore them or 2. Post clarification or 3. Mock them . #1 is relevant when it's something small and insignificant. But the fatshaming situation got really big on WB and better mtjj tweet about it first than let others twist it. Mostly mtjj were mocking those stupids who thought they did smth with trying to cancel YB for his wholesome cheeks lmao. But also they felt the need to clarify because it's useful to show the world what YB has to go through since we have bitches saying how he got everything easy. As for non fans. There are no passerby on cdrama twt. I once saw a tweet of real passerby discussing YB and the likes and comments were from passerby and in fact those passerby agreed that YB is uncancellable because he doesn't do fan service and good on him. That's non fans for you. They don't care about fandom mess. While these "non fans" you are talking about are fans of other actors and actresses. They will never love YB. Most of fans treat other celebes as current or potential competitors of their faves as they should lol. All I see lately is them being pressed about YB's resources, particularly about Wuming. I see jealous tweets, spiteful tweets, some of them are watching LY and never mentioning his name or saying how he did worse than first male lead or supporting female etc. And when you see that stan list... Like, not everyone is shrimp or firefly or whatever. There are multifandom fans with their preferrences.Bragging how jiejies are going tsing yi route, how geges are having stage plays, how they are transforming into serious actors. And the one who is actually transforming is WYB lmao. So yeah, I think mtjj can do whatever without even considering other fandoms' opinions. They are never inferior. And whatever anyone thinks, at the end of the day the things that speak for the actor are representative works, awards, word of mouth in the inustry. YB is being called ugly from the time he became popular. And? Whose fault it is that ugly WYB has more fans without any fanservice. Gaining weight, losing weight, cutting hair and growing it out, acting, singing, dancing, racing, playing with Lego, eating and breathing. He does all that and doesn't care what people think. I have many reasons to stay YB's fan. One of them is that he never asked me to stay. Keep flying higher and higher, boy, and don't look down at the crowds watching you on the ground. Be it haters or supporters. Everything you do - do it for yourself

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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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Plum blossoms in the snow (I)

Part 4: April and May (I)

We have gotten to the mid point of the story.

Disclaimer: I try to keep things objective (if I include my personal opinion, it’s in cursive and in brackets), but I’m biased because of the XZ friendly content I’m usually exposed to and by my own views of their situation. Open to discussion, but please make sure you’ve enough information to do so.

In March, slowly but surely, the incident was put behind. After the anger comes the aceptance, so to say. With so many people’s inputs, his fans started to let the topic cool down, while giving him their support.

So everything was coming back to their place and seemed a lot calmer than a month before. This didn’t sit well with some people.

Antis’ attacks

The antis were quite active, trying to spark a conflict one after another, because the topic had been silent for a little bit. Remember: more interactions, more followers, more money so ignore the antis always (unless they attack you, if so, report them).

To name a few:

On early April, they placed so many negative reviews on CQL in Douban that the score fell from 7′9 to 7′3. However, people didn’t react as they wanted them to, and instead the score rose steadily back to 7′7 (as of now).

When a brand of a product that XZ endorses admitted to economic fraud, antis attacked the brand, the product and XZ. Their argument was that because XZ is so popular, more people bought the product he endorses, thus contributing to the fraud. Some fans fell for it, protesting that what the brand does had nothing to do with XZ.

Some of the antis pretended to be XZ’s fans, and with that “disguise”, attacked other netizens, prompting a statement from XZ’s fans support group. In the statement, they reject this kind of behaviour and insist that everyone should be careful with what they say and how they act.

All of this, along with spreading rumors, was trying to revive the discussion and the fan war to get more attention and followers (people have a short span of attention, especially on the internet), and profit from it.

Around mid April, both w/ibo and bil/bili blocked antis’ accounts, making antis say that XZ’s company must have paid them to do so.

Endorsements

It was positive though that in April he started to appear again in commercials and banners.

(The one on the left is a commercial from February, I couldn’t find another one with a better resolution from April. By the way, from an interview done before New Year’s Eve for that brand, we get these two little moments: 1 and 2).

You may have noticed that the endorsement for the drink it’s a joined endorsement with another celebrity. Antis tried to pit the two group of fans against one another, but fans didn’t fell for it (the learning process was hard and long, but it was showing results).

Remember the one from the right. That’s a funny one, later in July.

Plum blossoms and stars

In April, XZ reappeared again in w/ibo with that drawing of plum blossoms from his Oasis account (on 200410). Previously, he had shared a post for the National Mourning Day for the people who’ve died because of the COVID-19, and before that, it was a post from February 22, before 2/27.

There are 4 main flowers in Chinese culture (one for each season), and each has a widely known meaning attached to them.

Plum blossoms are one them, and often represent resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, because it’s a flower that blooms a brilliant red in the middle of winter and snow. It can also be a harbinger of spring.

So his first message after all of this mess to be one of perseverance and hope。 I personally find it very meaningful as to what his attitude towards the entertainment industry is.

This also calmed a lot of his fans, who had been worried of him succumbing to the antis and retiring from the industry. There had been a lot of rumours saying the he had got depression from all of this conflict, and this update effectively silenced those.

A few days later he sang a cover of the song “The hymn of the red plum blossom” for an online event “Beautiful China”. It’s a classical opera song from a film, very patriotic and well-chosen for such an event, but it could also represent his situation with the “coming of spring”. Musicians later analysed this song and deemed it too difficult for him to sing (he doesn’t have enough range for this kind of songs), but praised him for his spirit to try new, difficult things, and to bring classic songs to young people: “he’s like the plum blossom in winter: persistent against difficulties”.

XZ updated his Oasis again late in April, with a drawing inspired by posters from his university days: “hope”, “perseverance”, “acquisition”.

(This is the picture he updated on 200420, and below is a screeshot from the post in which he explains that those are drawings from his university days).

Reporting to the police

On 21st of April, XZ’s Studio issued a statement.

3 accounts (among others) had used XZ’s photos and videos to slander his name, so the studio had collected the evidence and had turned it all to the police. The accounts had been spreading rumours about him for months (about him dating other guys, plastic surgery) and insulting him for his acting skills and lack of respect towards women.

What we find most surprising is that, even in the face of a lawsuit, the antis didn’t relent and kept on trying to “black” (slander) him.

Those 3 accounts were, in their own words, chased and insulted by XZ’s fans, so they wanted to report XZ’s studio in return, for damaging their reputation.

(I don’t know exactly how this ended. I think the lawsuit is still going on, since these things take time, but the general outcome of this seems good for him. Most of the comments I’ve seen goes like “xz was just waiting for the right moment to act”, “staying silent and apologizing while collecting proof of a crime”.)

“Light Spot”

On April 25, XZ released a new song, and remarked that he thanks all well-meaning criticism and guidance, and that he’ll continue to grow from here. The song is Light Spot. There was again some drama related to this song, antis never take a rest it seems.

XZ’s apology

That week, XZ posted on w/ibo, apologizing for the troubles caused and asking people not to hurt others.

The source of the problem this time were rumours of him participating in HJ’s variety show (HJ is the host from Happy Camp with curly hair). Rumours said that he had invited XZ to participate in his new variety show on his own initiative. Haters attacked him for this, in order to prevent XZ from going to the program (remember that some of the antis’ objective is to make XZ retire from entertainment industry).

The TV station had to release a statement saying that XZ won’t participate in HJ’s show. XZ must have seen all the commotion and posted his comment asking people not to hurt HJ because of him.

Tracking down the antis

The leader of all of this commotion with HJ was a w/ibo user (let’s call her “B”) that had been a XZ hater for a long while, and her account was banned soon after this. Along with hers, many others hater accounts were blocked by w/ibo, prompted by XZ’s studio, according to other antis.

Though their accounts were blocked, B tried to come back (and even with the same username), and attacked XZ again for making “false donations” to Wuhan, and accusing him of being immoral. XZ’s Studio finally posted definite proof that their donation had been real.

B accused him of being a racist and having “abnormal sexual orientation”. She also managed to make her accusations a hot topic on w/ibo quite frequently.

This hater, with others, surprised many people in their tenacity and persistence to defame XZ. People analysed her behaviour and tendencies and extracted conclusions like these about this kind of “professional” antis:

She knows how the entertainment industry works, so she works in it or has sources inside the industry.

She knows what kind of topic will attract attention from other users.

She has good resources and is very intelligent and manipulative at the same time, so she is capable of making two groups unite against a third, for example.

She’s likely to cooperate with XZ’ competitors to spread rumors about him, to allow his competitors to get more endorsements. She incites haters and antis to boycott XZ endorsements in order to do this.

(I was asked previously if YH couldn’t have participated too in the smear campaign, to gain more endorsements for WYB. At the time, I’d been very sure that these kind of things are too much of a hassle, but now I’m not so sure that no one would do this. I mean, I don’t think YH would do this for WYB, since he is very popular and successful on his own, but for other YH’s employees or other companies for their idols... I’m not so sure anymore. But this is all especulation from me).

She often has material that a “normal” fan can’t get access to. Among the fans, there are some that are called fan representatives. They can often access the companies and agencies, so they have more information and images about a star than any other. Of course, they can’t spread it if they stop being their fan, but that doesn’t stop B from buying pictures from them.

There are also “spies” inside the fandom, who get information about a fandom from the inside.

So, in short, a great part of the general public likes the rumours and the stories she makes up, it doesn’t matter if they are true or not, and that gives her more followers.

Before XZ, she attacked the male leads from The Guardian (ZYL and BY), and used the same tactic.

(Which confirms our theory that this storm will pass for XZ, most likely because she moves on to attacking another person, but that’s a whole other story).

So at the end of April, w/ibo started to ban all the accounts that spread malicious and hate content, the numerous accounts of B among them, even though all of them had been ticked by w/ibo before (like the blue tick in twitter).

Even after being reported to the police, the account doesn’t seem to stop, making people suspect that there is money behind of this and that it’s not an account managed by one person, but rather a team. They’ll do the same to whoever is popular at the moment, so it’s not even personal, it doesn’t matter who it is, XZ, ZYL, BY, whoever.

(I don’t like conspiracy theories... if there’s no data to back them up, it all remains speculation, and it spreads more information that no one knows it’s true or not. However, this whole thing with the antis is very strange. I suppose will see what happens once XZ comes back to limelight).

Haters are also something every idol has to face.

The haters dig into an idol’s past, and make up rumours based on that. For example, XZ had a gf while he was studyinghis degree, but they broke up. Haters then said that it was because of this that he went to South Korea and got plastic surgery (false, some people do have this kind of amazing genes), and that’s why he’s so good looking. Since lies are mixed in truth, some people, especially those who just know his name, or that he’s an actor, have trouble picking it apart.

Rumours also place idols in a tight position. If they don’t answer, people will think the rumours are true. But if they sue them, haters aren’t afraid either, because the process is long, and in this process they are still getting views and new followers. It may also shift the attention to them, which is exactly what they want.

All in all, the world is complex, but even in the middle of snow you may find a little plum blossom.

←Part 3: Why does it snow? | Part 4 (II): Plums blossoms in the snow (II)→

#gg's situation series #I should have planned 8 parts instead of 7 #in my defense #I thought May would be shorter #part 4 of 7 (I)#my posts

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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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Plum blossoms in the snow (II)

Part 4: April and May (II)

(There was a mistake in the last post, that an anon pointed out. I’ve edited the post. Thank you!)

In May, some of the controversy resurfaced, in the topic of how idols and celebrities affect the younger generations, and, even how they affect younger generations by affecting those in charge of their education.

TV documentary

At the beginning of May, a documentary appeared on the news about a mother worried for her high school daughter, who neglected her studies “because she was infatuated with XZ”. Among other things, she’d ask for money to buy XZ’s new song (0’5 by the way) and she’d borrow money from her classmates to buy things he endorses.

Her daughter also appeared on the documentary, saying that her academic performance has nothing to do with XZ, but rather with the pandemic situation, as she’s not used to online classes. It turned out that she had skipped a grade, and entered high school directly from 2nd year of middle school, so she lacked the support of a network of friends and encouragement in her new situation. She said that as soon as she got her motivation back, she’d keep studying.

However, general public sided with her mother, and said that this kind of obsession with an idol was leading the youths astray.

Interview with Economic View

XZ also gave an interview, for the first time since 2/27, for Economic View, alking about many topics, the “XZ fans incident” among them (I found this video with subtitles, and I think the subtitles are quite good).

youtube

He said, among other things:

“Everything happened in the climax of the country’s fight against the epidemic. I was deeply troubled and worried while I was quarantined at home. I also felt very if this incident has brought trouble to netizens. If that’s the case, from here, I want to say a sincere ‘I’m sorry’.

Since my debut to now, I’ve never ceased to receive well-meaning criticism and guidance. I went from being a normal person to go on to the stage. From my friends, from seniors… I’m always open to them. But of course, there is malicious criticism, some fake rumours and slander, that I think don’t affect just me, but also my friends and family. I don’t feel wronged. I just don’t understand.

When I was 19-20, and I first used w/ibo, I didn’t realize. That in such a public platform, I made inappropriate comments that have hurt other people. I apologize for the consequences of the inappropriate comments I’ve made in the past.”

He also said that the fans always did public welfare projects in his name, and that he got energy from them.

“I hope fans can live their own lives well, and don’t resort to extreme actions to hurt others or themselves.”

This interview was of course praised for showing responsibility and answering almost all questions. We can all notice that his responses are very carefully worded, that he takes his time thinking about what he’s going to say and how, and that his answers are very calculated. Don’t misunderstand me. He did it very well in this interview, and I don’t think he was insincere, but he needed to be very careful about what he said at the time.

Other idols and their sasaengs

On the 9th of May, WYB posted the following:

“I work very hard, can’t I even nap for a bit in the car? My staff stood in front of your car, and you still dared to drive forward? For a long time, strangers come and knock my hotel room’s door, they install tracking devices in my car, there’s people following me no matter where I go… unbelievable! I really can’t understand you!”

A crazy fan had followed him on her car. When the security had tried to stop her, stepping in front of her car, she still tried to drive forward.

To this, UNIQ OFFICIAL account expressed their support like this:

“Against this kind of vile behaviour, report to the police! Let the law investigate their legal responsibility! To those who go against other people’s security and don’t respect your privacy, zero tolerance!”

The teacher’s incident

On the 10th, XZ posted:

“Please listen to me carefully once more! I wish you to take good care of your studies, careers, personal lives, and to place them before “chasing stars”. Study hard, take your job seriously. Be responsible and assume your obligations, follow the rules of your career and abide by professionalism. I don’t your help.”

This message may seem harsh to some of their fans. So, why did XZ publish such a comment?

A primary school teacher had posted a video of his students cheering for XZ. This angered a lot of netizens, who said that she was using a position of power to “indoctrinate” young children to like this idol. The haters affirmed that she was guiding the children to “chase” stars, and that she’s a bad influence (I actually agree with this one, you really shouldn’t do this in a classroom, but to involve XZ again is going too far).

XZ and the teacher were reported to the authorities. The Ministry of Education answered that the teacher had been suspended from her job and the school’s director had received a formal reprimand. The teacher’s w/ibo account had also been blocked. This is the main reason for XZ’s post.

Talking about unreasonable responses, after this incident with the teacher, the next day the topic “XZ’s supertopic teachers group” went on hot search in w/ibo. A group consisting of more than 1000 teachers, all fans of XZ, had been formed inside the supertopic. This was widely questioned by the netizens and haters.

To be fair, this didn’t happen just to XZ. Around the same time, another video emerged, with a teacher encouraging his kindergarten students to cheer for Wang Junkai. So with this incident, the Ministry of Education started to pay attention to similar content.

On the 14th, XZ forwarded an article by People’s Daily about teachers using their students to cheer for their idols and asking

“Don’t go beyond the limits of your professionalism. Don’t leave the circle of rationalism. The fan quan can’t circle everything” (”quan” means circle)

Many more teachers were reported, and in response, the XZ’s fans association posted this:

“There are many voices criticizing XZ’s fans right now. We accept the criticism. XZ has told his fans to “pursue the idols” in a civilized and rational way, but some still display unreasonable behaviour. These actions have a great negative impact on him. We apologize to him and to other fans in their name.”

This even extended to a teacher teaching a course of cyber-violence. She used XZ as an example of cyber violence and haters’ attack. This was brought again to the authorities by the haters, and she was suspended from her job. Luckily, her students and their parents were very supportive and defended her, so she came back to her post.

(This was just ridiculous. Really).

This is quite a curious thing: even though we can see that objectively, this teacher didn’t do anything wrong, the department deemed her at fault due to the large number of reports.

(It’s a thinking that goes along the lines of “if a lot of people think she has done something wrong, then she must have done something wrong”.)

So if haters can’t find anything to criticize in XZ, they’ll turn to his fans.

More support...

15th of May. A screenwriter and director posted a comment praising XZ and lamenting about his situation. The next day, he updated saying that he had been attacked in private comments because of his post, so he was very angry by it (he was angry with haters, not with xz).

On that day a photographer that had worked with him also praised him, saying he was humble and polite. He was also attacked by haters and antis, saying he had only praised XZ out of all the idols he had worked with, so he had to have ulterior motives, such as being paid by his studio or insulting the other idols in disguise.

People noticed that if someone defends XZ, no matter who they are, they’ll be attacked. No matter what XZ does, he’ll be criticized by some. If he doesn’t do anything, the haters turn on to his fans. Hater were trying to destroy every effort he made, and they managed it easily at first. After each appearance in public, he faces all kinds of comments. So conspiracy theories surged, about a mastermind behind the haters.

Even the lawyer that was managing XZ’s case was attacked by haters.

(Who in his right state of mind calls a lawyer with their own mobile phone to insult them? This logic and rationale amazes me…)

... and a little disappointment

At the end of May, the photos of him filming a episode of the season 2 of 青春环游记 were leaked on S/na News. He did participate in the recording, but the episode didn’t include him in the end (aired mid-June). A worker said they had been feeling pressure from various fronts, and finally felt that it’d be best not to include him (I suppose they feared the pressure from the antis).

In the midst of disappointment, his fans mostly reacted by keeping a positive attitude: “he posted two selfies lately, he shot a cute video making a drink (the douyin video), he seems in a good mood in all them. With them he was trying to cheer us fans. He has told us not to be used by others, not to get carried away by antis, not believe rumours, and to not be suspicious of his studio. What’s an episode in a variety show? He got paid anyway just for recording it. Let’s not cry over it.”

Truly, in spite of everything that happened at February and March, I think this is the kind of comments he deserves from his fans: people who are a little bit sad because he didn’t make it to the episode in the end, but who are still supporting him, waiting for his next project and listening to what he says.

←Part 4 (I): Plum blossoms in the snow (I) | Part 5 and 6: A snowy summer→

#gg's situation #part 4 of 7 (II)#my post

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