畸形审美  jīxíng shěnměi

Abnormal aesthetics, vulgar scandals, and content that induces fans to blindly idolize celebrities are among the subjects of key slogans that shot to prominence in 2021, after decades spent celebrating competitiveness, worshipping influencers and imitating the worst of Hollywood celeb gossip. In September 2021, the National Radio and Television Administration announced a sudden switch. The full directive is online in English.

The new rectitude corrects past failings. Patriarchy and hierarchy are back, the party-state is more firmly in command then ever and it’s denouncing the follies of spectacular materialism.

Why the crackdown? Such campaigns erupt quite often, such as the anti-spiritual pollution campaign of the early 1980s, or the criticise Confucius campaign of the 1960s. The masses must be taught to think properly. Public opinion must be guided. Nothing new in that.

But why now? In the second half of 2021, the party-state moved fast and smashed things. It suddenly announced that celebrity worship and fan gossip are now illegal, but allows celebs to support official charities and causes. The Cyberspace Administration of China announced its long list of bans, and exemptions, fulfilling its role as gatekeeper and censor.

Laws, regulations and proclamations are clumsy ways of correcting emotions, but that is what this new directive sets out to do. The excitement of fanchat, of forming tribes to promote your faves, the commercial manipulation of star power, the endless gossip about private lives, the elevation of popular influencers to Key Online Leaders (KOLs), are of a sudden too much.

Standard aesthetics rule from now on, as defined by father-knows-best. The official Notice on Further Strengthening the Work Related to the Regulation of Online Information for Entertainment Stars issued by the Cyberspace Administration zeroes in on what is henceforth banned: “With regard to hot and sensitive social topics, celebrity accounts with skewed rhythms, confusing audiovisual content, and inciting extreme emotional information content shall be promptly dealt with and reported to relevant competent authorities.”

Instead positive emotions are to be featured; it’s official: “follow public order and good customs, adhere to correct public opinion orientation and value orientation, promote socialist core values, and maintain a healthy style and taste.”

This has been awhile coming. The girl-boy dating show 非诚勿扰; fei cheng wu rao,  known in English as If You are the One, clocked up more than 600 episodes over the 2010 – 2020 decade.  Each episode features a man entering to pick one of 24 women, advertising his wares, especially his net worth via video clips, to lure women into choosing him back. The running commentary by celeb hosts makes it clear women are judged by their bodies, men by their wealth. It sounds crass, and it is.

The flaunting of wealth rankles the hundreds of millions who missed out on getting rich, often because of the rigid and cruel hukou household registration system, the exploitative factory work culture and the prevalence of precarious gig economy work– all the extremes of authoritarian neoliberalism.

The party-state not only invests in guiding public opinion, it constantly researches what the masses think, even when the public sphere is out of bounds and people cannot express their frustrations. After four decades of being encouraged to get gloriously rich but finding systemic obstacles everywhere, the masses are fed up. Focus groups run by sociologists have been telling central leaders the gap between promise and delivery is unbearable.

So, we arrive at the two complementary campaigns launched in 2021, the common prosperity and the abnormal aesthetics campaigns. Both campaigns have the same objective: showing the party-state to be on the side of the masses, of fairness, distribution of wealth, cracking down on celebrity worship and vulgar scandals. These populist campaigns may change the atmospherics but do little to actually redistribute wealth or banish celebs.