Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:38:02.786Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - The 2010s

Guo Meimei: The Story of a Young Netizen Portends a Political Throwback

from Chapter 10 – 2010s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2021

Timothy Cheek
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Klaus Mühlhahn
Affiliation:
Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen
Hans van de Ven
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Chapter 10 focuses on the the rise and fall of Guo Meimei, an Internet sensation in the 2010s. Presenting herself as general manager of the Red Cross Commercial Society, her ostentatious display of wealth on the online platform Weibo attracted scorn from netizens and led to an official crackdown on the (unrelated) hapless quasi-governmental agency the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) in 2011. Criticism of the RCSC reflected growing challenges to the legitimacy of the CCP in the burgeoning online protest culture of the 2010s, characterized by “human flesh searches” and “spectating,” with serious social issues presented in a humorous style to attract interest. This story reveals complex motivations for participating in online protest events, from genuine outrage to more mundane motivations. The case led to a lasting distrust of the RCSC within China, despite being officially declared innocent of wrongdoing, and Guo Meimei’s later arrest and imprisonment on charges of operating an illegal gambling den. A spate of unrelated online controversies likewise reveal the deep-seated crisis of trust in public institutions and their officials in the PRC today, in turn spurring the widespread adoption of online public-opinion survey reports, “civilized” website awards, and other forms of Party surveillance and self-regulation through semi-automated big-data mining combined with traditional “front building” and increasingly draconian legal measures, all of which are enabled by the more easily monitored and contained closed discussion groups of WeChat.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Chinese Communist Party
A Century in Ten Lives
, pp. 213 - 230
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×