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potteresque-ire · 3 years

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Gg,

I’ll say this using the simplest way too. I’ll also say this, knowing it doesn’t solve anything ~

You didn’t start the culture of comment control (控評) and the fan circles that execute them, which stifled any rational discussions about entertainers. You didn’t start the culture of treating constructive criticisms—even opinions that fall short of being praises—the same as malicious slandering, something to be buried under a pile of positive comments, of rainbow farts. You didn’t start the longstanding frustrations among netizens, who felt they couldn’t even gossip freely when entertainment is all about the gossip. You didn’t ignite the antagonistic views of non-fans against fans that would one day turn into support for that movement against you.

You didn’t criticise fan circle culture on one hand, and encourage the practice of comment control on another. You didn’t tie the act of comment control to patriotism, didn’t mobilise fan circles to perform comment control on message boards in support of the Hong Kong police in 2019, taking advantage of the fan circle’s high level of organisation, their experience in performing such task, and their intense need to be seen as patriotic such that their idol will be viewed favourably by the government. You didn’t praise these fans who were there for their idol 阿中哥哥 (Chinese GeGe) — a virtual idol who personified the Chinese government—and called them patriotic.

You didn’t make performative patriotism a pre-requisite for entertainers to survive in c-ent. You didn’t require performative patriotism to be placed above logic, above personal preferences in expression. You didn’t portray performative patriotism as a goal sufficient to justify any means. You didn’t teach impressionable young fans that as long as the cause was deemed by the powers-that-be as patriotic and honourable, one can ignore the laws, scale the Great Firewall and go to otherwise banned websites; one can cause havoc on and trample on their perceived enemy’s communities.

You didn’t equate silencing one’s opponent with patriotism.

You didn’t market reporting culture as an honourable, noble deed. You didn’t resurrect reporting culture from its Cultural Revolution’s grave, with the knowledge that it had always been a weapon against people expressing different opinions. You didn’t ask your media arm to pen articles about the rewards to be made by reporting. You didn’t list the people who had reported on your official website like they had made honour roll. You didn’t make reporting so open, so righteous-sounding that many didn’t think twice to join the effort, even if it was only about a piece of fiction they didn’t like.

You didn’t make reporting of certain content on a website sufficient grounds for censoring an entire website. You didn’t make censoring a thing. You didn’t censor one of the few remaining websites left with relatively free expressions, while the rest of your team was already performing heavy-handed censorship on a certain pandemic—a certain pandemic that had killed, that had brought much anger, sadness and frustration. You didn’t put a chokehold on people who had already felt they had no room left to talk, when they were bound to their homes and could do little but talk. But vent.

You didn’t create a system where venting against the powerful could get one into trouble. You didn’t marry the politically powerful with the commercially powerful. You didn’t build the society where the few people left with perceived higher social status and who could still be attacked with little consequences were entertainers—especially young, recently break-through stars with little backing from the media companies, and the commercially and politically powerful people behind these companies.

You didn’t start 227.

The moment the axe fell on AO3, Gg, there was very little you could do, very little you could say. 227 was indeed an explosion, from too high a pressure from freedoms of speech that have been too strangled. They said you were mute? So were the theys who called you that, who didn’t have the guts to take their complaint to those who deserve it. You became the eye of a storm you didn’t brew, the eye that could’ve been anyone else—anyone else who wouldn’t have known better what to do.

Offer guidance? Exactly what kind of guidance? Tell your fans that AO3, which does host material offensive to the Chinese government, has the right to remain inside the Firewall? Tell your fans that reporting is wrong?

Is your guidance asking the solo and cp fans to keep their peace? Fans fight. Solos and cpfs fight. These fights happen on a daily basis, and there would’ve been no 227 if they were the cause of 227—because everyday would’ve been a 227. 227 became 227 because one of these fights, which happened to be between your fans, also happened to have knocked upon one of the most important pillars that prop up an authoritarian dictatorship: suppression of the freedom of speech; it stumbled upon what had already been a field of landmines, the buried anger of the people who have been silenced, censored over the years.

COVID put in a full, fresh layer of landmines, still buried shallow and waiting for inexperienced youngsters—who could be fans or non-fans, fans of any idol—to trip over their sharp corners.

These days, people call the youngsters who tripped over them the shrimps. One explosion triggered another and in the din, you were accused of not warning the youngsters, and thrown into the exploding field for punishment. To set off all the other landmines in danger of exploding. No one asked why the landmines were there.

Appropriately, perhaps, or ironically ... have you thought about this, Gg? That your silence might have played a role to your survival in the industry, the support you’ve got lately from the state media? Because you took one for them, for those who created the storm and buried the landmines, who did all the things you didn’t do. Because you became a convenient punching bag for a country of 1.4 billion who needed something to punch. Because you took the blows gracefully and without complaint, didn’t utter a word that would’ve made obvious the instigator of the damage you’re now apologising for. You eased the guilt in the people doing the punching by having so many gifts they didn’t have; it must have given some people cold joy to land their fist on your gorgeous face. You’ve gritted your teeth and stayed silent even after the water armies, the yxh’s entered the scene, eager to feed on your corpse. The rot they smelled was the commercial value on you.

Have you thought about this, Gg, that you might’ve already performed the social responsibility implicitly demanded of you and in flying colours, by being the punching bag, the landmine sweeper? That when you promise to take more social responsibility in the future, that you may be asked to do something similar?

No one asked why the landmines were there. They’ll pile up again.

Yes, I’m frustrated. I read your letter and wanted to scream. I understand why you said everything you did, understand the realistic need to issue an apology and I respect and adore you, as always, for your maturity, your emotional intelligence. This letter is therefore neither a complaint nor a criticism against you; this is me, venting my frustration, from that half of me that knows painfully well that your letter is necessary and the right thing to do.

Still, the other half of me wants to say your letter is utter nonsense.

Because your only mistake, Gg, is that you’re too likeable, and too likeable, perhaps, at the wrong time. You have too many fans who made all these issues you didn’t create so much more visible. You had too many fans at a time when COVID took too many victims, when the whole sociopolitical climate demands one voice and when every fan of yours is an individual with their own voice, their own likes and dislikes. You have too many fans who dearly love you but also require you to become a “public figure”—I’m putting this term in quotes as you did—a “public figure” who can help them decipher the conflicting messages the society is sending them re: the meaning, the responsibility of a fan, a “public figure” who, as you admit yourself, requires construction from Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing.

Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing who, you also said, require mutual acceptance. Gg the Idol and Gg the regular person from Chongqing who, therefore, must have significant conflicts—mutual acceptance isn’t necessary otherwise.

Who’s this “Gg the public figure” that will emerge? Or, what? How human will he/it be? How much will he/it still be you? Where are you going to be in this “public figure”?

And that’s the most difficult thought to endure this morning. To become a better self—you keep emphasising, as if you weren’t good enough, kind enough, courteous and respectful and professional enough to begin with.

A better self, may I ask, to who?

#pie metas #too grrrrrrr right now to insert the references #sorry #* sighs *

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