Out of the fan circle｜Blue Fang column

editor's note

In the past two days, the name of the artist Xiao Zhan may suddenly appear in your Moments and Weibo hot searches. At the same time, there are also a bunch of strange symbols such as "AO3", "lofter", "cpf" and "xzf" that confuse you.

This is actually a fierce battle in the "rice circle" . An author of a fanart (referring to a second creation based on the character setting of an existing work) published a fan article "Falling" with Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo as the protagonists. In the article, Xiao Zhan has gender recognition A hair salon girl with obstacles, Wang Yibo is a high school student who loves him. This article made some fans of Xiao Zhan very angry, thinking that the work has obscene and pornographic plots, and the "feminization" of Xiao Zhan has involved insulting Xiao Zhan's image.

In fact, whether "feminization" is a kind of demeaning of personality, whether a certain article is pornographic and obscene, whether the creation of fanfiction violates the legal rights of celebrities, and whether pornographic pornography should be banned, etc., are all related. This is a topic that can be discussed and is worth discussing . If fans of Xiao Zhan believe that a fan work is detrimental to Xiao Zhan's rights and interests, they can also take corresponding rights protection measures in accordance with the law to protect the image of idols.

Xiao Zhan fans quickly launched a large-scale report on "Falling" and other fanfiction related to Xiao Zhan . These reports also implicated two creation platforms AO3 and Lofter that store fan works. The two major websites were blocked, and many authors and CP fans (fans who regard a certain pair of characters in the work as a couple group) were completely irritated, and one of their counterattacks was to attack the "righteous master" Xiao Zhan: The works scored low, posted bad reviews, boycotted Xiao Zhan's commercial endorsement, etc.

Such a scuffle made many passers-by outside the fan circle extremely surprised. In fact, this is just one of the cases in which the "fan circle" has been out of the circle in recent years. People may feel that this kind of farce is absurd, but the logic of the "fan circle" behind the farce requires us to be vigilant .

Today we are pushing for you an article about the logic of rice circles by Lan Fang, the creator of Project C, which was first published in the 2020 issue 2 of Caixin Weekly .

In another season when various annual selections and inventory swiped the screen, I accidentally saw a piece of news that made people laugh and cry. Big V @王左中右 and Weibo, "People's Daily" initiated the selection of "Chinese Characters of the Year" in 2019. The words "Hua" and "South" were originally the most popular, but suddenly the number of votes for "Hua" increased rapidly, and finally came out on top. And an important reason why the word "Hua" won this competition is that fans of singer Hua Chenyu came to check the list. When Wang Zuozhongyou realized that the voting trend was not right, he hurriedly shouted to Hua Chenyu's fans, hoping that they would stop and vote seriously. As a result, this statement angered the fans instead—his Weibo was quickly captured by all kinds of taunts, and he had to apologize on the spot and admit his mistakes again and again.

This is actually a very typical "fan circle" incident.

The so-called "fan circle" refers to the circle formed by fans . In the Internet age, traffic often determines the fate of stars. Fans form a support club for "idol" (English idol idol transliteration), through a set of standardized and procedural operations, to maintain the image and reputation of idol, and win continuous attention and traffic for him/her. "Fanquan" members are often highly organized and actionable, and have a complete set of independent speaking skills and cultural systems . In recent years, fans have supported idols, from purchasing the right to name planets to buying out huge outdoor advertisements in cities, online and offline large-scale online and offline, which have already attracted the attention of mainstream media and academic circles. In the self-analysis of many "fan circle girls", joining the fan circle has brought them an unprecedented sense of belonging and community; and the brand-new "cultivation" model of the idol industry has given fans a huge sense of participation and control . Many fans have indeed gained encouragement and strength from growing together with their idols. The "rice circle" culture has its own characteristics and value. Even in the eyes of some scholars, this is also a way for young people to participate in the public and practice "self-organization" to some extent.

However, when the influence of the "fan circle" begins to "out of the circle", its action logic often collides violently with other "dimensions".

The core action logic of the "fan circle" is to compete for traffic . To make Idol's popularity data look better, on-site support, buying peripherals, forwarding votes, and swiping pageviews are all routine operations. The support club usually monitors the major charts and organizes fans to actively compete on the charts. And Hua Chenyu's fans followed the selection of "Chinese Characters of the Year", which is nothing more than the absurd result of fans' habit of "scrubbing the list" and accidentally getting out of the circle. And the fans seem to be beyond reproach—just making reasonable use of the existing rules.

But just generating traffic is not enough. Traffic needs to be maintained, a very important action is "anti-criminal" . Fans will closely monitor the public opinion on various media and social networks, and any negative information about idols will be aggregated to the "anti-mafia group" within the support club. The anti-mafia group will launch targeted actions - from "persuasion to delete", reporting, retaliatory bad reviews, human flesh searches, and online violence. There are also different plans and templates for different situations. In addition to defending the image of their idols, fans sometimes need to "step down" the momentum of "competitors". Since there is such a thing as "anti-gangster", there must be "black fans". "Black fans" either spontaneously or organizedly slander and smear the stars they hate. Up to now, they have developed a complete set of standardized operations, and even gave birth to professional "job black fans" (professional black fans).

The violence and melee inside the "fan circle" gradually reached an unbelievable level. Those who can become "idols" are not only entertainers in the entertainment industry, from comedians, e-sports players, sports stars, to anime characters in the second dimension, to pandas in the zoo - there are fans who tear their heads apart for them blood flow.

This kind of rift is spreading more and more frequently to public life outside the circle. The most typical is the literary criticism that is closely related to the reputation of idols. Fans can't tolerate any criticism of their idols, or even praise of "competitors". Film critic V Poison Sir shared an absurd attack that happened to him. "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" became popular, and Yi Yang Qianxi, who was born in "traffic", brought many surprises to the audience. In the article, he compared Wang Junkai, another member of TFboys, with his straightforwardness and publicity, and praised Yi Yang Qianxi for his composure and precociousness. As a result, this comment, which seemed normal to outsiders, was reported by Wang Junkai's fans on the grounds of "maliciously spreading rumors". Fans make copywriting and tutorials, report articles on a large scale, report official accounts, and insult film critics. There is no room for reasoned debate, a direct attempt to silence dissenters .

And when idols start to pay attention to certain public events, the whole set of logic of the "fan circle" will naturally be taken out of the circle and applied to more complex public issues . For example, in August 2019, artists Zhang Yixing and Wu Jinyan were attacked by overseas netizens for expressing political stances on the social network "Photo Wall" (Instagram). The move immediately angered fans. Their protection of their own artists has been further abstracted and condensed into the protection of "Brother Ah Zhong", which has received large-scale praise from the mainstream media. But this kind of "maintenance" is not limited to positive support and solidarity, or rebuttals based on factual logic, but also violent attacks on those with different opinions. Fans monitor and report microblogs that they consider not patriotic enough, human flesh, insulting relevant bloggers, labeling them as "parades in the streets", and even harassing their workplaces and schools. Fans don't pay attention to what the substantive debate is, and large-scale cyber attacks are not conducive to any rational discussion, but only contribute to further division and polarization of the public opinion field.

For fans, the "fan circle" is a relatively simple and dense public opinion field. What fans fight for their idols is the data and the ranking on the list. If they want their idols to win, they must suppress others. It's either black or white, the enemy and the enemy stand in line, the logic is simple and the threshold for participation is extremely low. However, the public opinion field "outside the circle"—whether it is literary criticism or discussion of public issues—needs another set of logic, an argument based on facts, a confrontation of multiple viewpoints, seeking common ground while reserving differences to find a rational solution, not a life-and-death relationship Win or lose the battle . When the "fan circle" culture tries to encroach on the public discussion "outside the circle", people often feel absurd and ignore it as "children messing around"; some people even use the fan circle culture to consciously create certain This kind of public opinion further incites hatred and confrontation. These seemingly "nonsense" "fan circles" out of the circle actually need us to be more vigilant, and we should use facts and logic to refute fallacies, actively reason, and bring the public discussion back to the issue itself .

Author: Blue Fang

Co-founder of Project C, graduated from China University of Political Science and Law and Sciences Po in France, and worked as a senior public policy reporter for Caijing magazine and Caixin Media.

▷ Typesetting: Yuxiang

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