Dou Jingtong, GenZ and the evolution of cool culture | Generation Z

If you clicked on this title, you have probably heard of "Dou Jingtong".

The first time Dou Jingtong went viral on social media was probably at the Strawberry Music Festival in 2023. In the first spring after the epidemic, she stood on the stage with her new album "Spring Outing", wearing a plaid retro jacket, bohemian-style "Maillard" striped flared pants, a black beanie, and a clean face with only a silver line drawn between her eyes.

At the finale, under the spotlight, she danced freely to the relaxing music. Once she entered the "child's door", it was like entering the deep sea, and the audience screamed. She is recognized as the new "wife". Bidding farewell to the experimental psychedelic music of the first two albums, "wanting to connect with more people, wanting to make relaxed, happy and sincere music" became her goal. The first Chinese album "Spring Outing" with a stronger melody was born in this context.

Dou Jingtong always carries the characteristics of a bedroom musician: self-control, deep participation in independent music creation mode, diverse and integrated musical style, constantly melting genre boundaries, fragmented expression and alternative independent temperament, coupled with a few atmospheric beautiful pictures, it is no problem for her to attract a group of young people of Generation Z who are trendy in urban art subculture.

She is definitely the epitome of cool in the eyes of Generation Z (GenZ).

Generation Z[1] is best known as “digital natives” and is the first generation to have access to the Internet. The most recent time the term GenZ became popular was when the American TV series Euphoria became a global hit. As a portrait of American teenagers, it is a specimen of a new generation of young people.

The word "GenZ" itself carries a global context. The mainstream media in China rarely use this generational division method. "Post-95s" and "Post-00s" are more common. But on social media, GenZ is more often a default adjective used to mock oneself and others. For example, "This is too GenZ", "East Asian GenZ girl", "GenZ moment" and so on.

When people of the same age around us talked about Dou Jingtong, we found that these two voices were the most common:

"Who wouldn't like Dou Jingtong?"

"What on earth is Dou Jingtong so cool about?"

Kaka and I are both born in the 2000s. As two young people born at the turn of the millennium, we met on the Internet. We always talk about Dou Jingtong in different scenarios and with different people. She was born in the end of 2001, a Scorpio, and hosts a niche subculture podcast "Dirty Youth". She has been a fan of Dou Jingtong for ten years. I prefer to call her a living GenZ specimen around me.

Dou Jingtong is such a good cross-section. Whenever the topic diverges and becomes exciting, we are always surprised to find that the way we look at it actually reflects the differences between different generations. In the first issue of the "Z Generation Pin" column, we want to start with Dou Jingtong to find out what the Z generation thinks is "cool" and how the "cool culture" has changed.

Interview, article | I drank a little bit of wine

Editor | Sharon

本文首发于青年志Youthology，是我的专栏“Z世代捏”的系列更新。这是一档专注于z世代青年经验、审美与创造的栏目。世界在被欲望和戾气冲击，年轻人在迷失和激荡中发出嘶嘶作响的噪音。青年志编辑部和作者“酒喝了一点点”将邀请不同的z世代朋友们，分享ta们的大脑与身体，爱和精神。最关键是，去呈现不被主流、物质、学术语言收编的原生话语。

Undoubted queerness

I drank a little bit of wine (hereinafter referred to as CC): When traveling in Thailand, we met a queer friend on Tinder. His homepage was too classic, with a few trendy and casual photos interspersed with a funny photo with a cat. The ends of his shoulder-length curly hair were blue, he wore lipstick, and his gender was ambiguous. Because he was in a band, we started recommending independent music and niche musicians to each other when we met.

Kaka: My first reaction was to recommend Dou Jingtong! I showed her her Spotify homepage, and she was curious about the "shrimp line" tattoo from her lips to her neck. I explained to her that the tattoo was related to her sister who had a cleft lip. She said, "She is so hot. Yeah she is totally my type!" When my Thai queer friend said this, we laughed. It was a perfect recommendation! This is a special GenZ aesthetic.

Dou Jingtong's queerness is a source of charm that is hard to avoid. We must admit that this is also the reason why young people around us (especially lesbians) love her so much. Some netizens joked that Dou Jingtong's style changes in recent years symbolize the aesthetic changes in the lesbian community. She changed from the handsome short-haired T-shirt in the early years to the long-haired and feminine T-shirt/H-shirt now.

(But I think the photo of her smoking a cigarette on the streets of Paris is pretty cool.)

CC: In her early years, she seemed to be into punk and electronic music, with short hair and pencil pants, looking cool just for the sake of being cool. But after releasing the album "Spring Outing", it seems that she has a stable core and what she wants to say, becoming more self-consistent and beautiful.

No matter what, her youthfulness and queer beauty have never changed.

Gaga: Her queerness immediately reminds people of Euphoria. I think Euphoria is the Z generation's Trainspotting, a classic representative of GenZ aesthetics. Hazy music, dim light, insignificant plot narrative, confused but absolutely real and addictive emotions.

cc: The first GenZ icon that I remember was Billie Eillish. When she first debuted, she wrapped her body in very loose clothing and dyed her hair a striking lizard green. This non-binary gender expression is almost her signature. Compared to her debut look, how come she is now like Dou Jingtong, starting to slide towards a more feminine expression?

I feel like you are the same. You were more "neutral" in high school and were called "refreshing little T". Was it because you didn't want to be bound by these frameworks?

Kaka: Indeed, when I was a teenager, I wanted to do more things that rebelled against my gender, but when I grew up, I became more accepting of my female identity. My growth trajectory is a bit too close to that of Dou Jingtong, which may have a lot to do with the fact that I paid attention to her in high school. Her attitude and personal style have had more or less influence on my self-identity, and I feel like I'm growing up with her.

She is a projection of my self-consciousness, and I have to say, there is a narcissistic element in it. She is a more perfect version of myself in my mind.

cc: That’s what an idol is.

Music, visuals and resonance with the times

cc: Dou Jingtong’s music has formed a certain resonance with many young musicians in China. For example, we all like the young Taiwanese R&B musician “The Crane”, the electronic musician “Fanfan” that young Yabi loves, and “LÜCY (Aunt Lucy)” who was also very popular last year.

Kaka: I have watched a music variety show called "Youth Party Plan" produced by Tencent. Although the production team is not very good, the people they choose are very representative and diverse. Lu Yanliang, Wen Zhaojie, and Tan Congchong are all men with very fluid gender temperament, but they are not pretty boys. I would like to call them queer temperament.

Another girl who left a deep impression on me was Shen Chuanqi. Her clothes and makeup were the most gorgeous in the whole show, but they were all her own unique visual system. How should I put it? I feel that only our generation would pay special attention to this matter. The visual effect alone is enough to make us excited.

Just like "Euphoria", I often joke that "Euphoria" is an MV with music, just treat it as an MV. It is an atmosphere, an aesthetic experience, which in itself inexplicably touched me. I feel that one of the main reasons why Dou Jingtong became popular must be her Instagram photos that were widely circulated on the Internet. (Laughs)

As for LÜCY, a contemporary of her generation, her songs are very imaginative and have a very bedroom or lofi feel. Even when she makes Hakka albums, she mostly uses elements to do some dancing and express herself.

cc: You said that Generation Z is a more visual generation. I did notice that you hardly read books or texts. You prefer visual things.

Kaka: Oh, to be precise, it's the web. I'm more used to browsing content on the screen. Since I had a smartphone since I was a child, I am more receptive to information and content presented on the web or app. I also quickly accepted e-books and prefer to read pictures and images.

CC: The way you express yourself is also very visual. I thought of a previous review of Temperate Polyphony, "The current written language is full of dangers. Compared with pure musical language, visual language has become an expression of personal safety." When I saw this sentence, I quite understood that people like Dou Jingtong in this era tend to use more visual methods when expressing themselves.

The first is that the internet generation is accustomed to settings where attention can only be gained by catching people’s eyes; the second is that the diversity of materials also makes visual expression more convenient; the third is the environment; words are no longer a language they are good at, nor are they something they have been trained and fed with; visual language is safer.

Cool, middle-class kids, and lucky

cc: There was an article in North Park before that compared "Trainspotting" and "Euphoria". The rebellious young people of that generation were still struggling with "how to be honest about their sexual orientation", but for GenZ, it was no longer a problem. Look at the appearance of Jules in "Euphoria", it was very natural.

The young people we see in big cities are also generally more aware of their gender and sexual orientation. They will say "I am queer" or "My pronunciation is xxx [2]", which becomes a natural thing in social situations.

Kaka: This is why I think Dou Jingtong, LÜCY, and Claire are more globalized idols of Generation Z. In other words, they are citizens of the world. Young urban middle-class children of Generation Z will like them more.

CC: Also, for people of our generation, our gender identity/concepts and whether we agree with feminism are very important. Compared to politics, class or other factors, these self-identities have a greater impact on relationships.

Kaka: Just like when Tongtong’s mother and father were active, their creations still had very obvious characteristics of the times, and it can be said that they complemented the great era at that time, but Tongtong obviously did not bear these.

Talking about her upbringing, some people still think that Dou Jingtong is a substitute or even an imitation of her mother (Faye Wong). But in my eyes, she and her mother are very different people in terms of music, appearance and personality.

Her mother is a top Alpha person who is so outspoken and free, and can say "It's none of your business" or "My trouble is that I'm too famous" in front of the media. In interviews with Tong, even during her rebellious teenage years, she never expressed anything very sharp. (On a few occasions, she chose to refuse to respond because the media always cueed her parents.)

Dou Jingtong and Faye Wong's rebellious narratives are also very different: Faye Wong's rebellion, to a certain extent, comes from the harsh family environment in her childhood. At that time, Faye Wong's mother did not agree with Faye Wong's career as a singer, and did not allow her to participate in any cultural activities, and she had to go home on time after school every day. Faye Wong's eccentricity in her works and on stage is, to a certain extent, also a conflicting response to the repression in her childhood.

But Dou Jingtong's family basically did not hinder her exploration (except for the period when she dropped out of Beijing No. 4 Middle School due to stress after being pushed by her stepfather from the northwest). Faye Wong gave her a very open and free space, and she did not particularly need to rebel to achieve self-realization.

CC: It is a kind of rebellion without purpose, framework or structure. Most of the previous rebellious culture had clear demands and purposes, such as the working class rebelling against the bourgeoisie, or students rebelling against the school system, etc. But when it came to Tongtong, she wanted to drop out of school and make music, and was not influenced by too many mainstream frameworks. This was partly because she had privileges, but the environment was indeed more relaxed.

Kaka: This brings us back to the fundamental question: why do people like Dou Jingtong? What is so cool about Dou Jingtong?

CC: I realized that I didn’t like her because I thought she was cool (Auntie laughs).

Kaka: I still like her because she is cool. I think the connotation of cool is more diverse now. It doesn’t mean you have to rebel to be cool.

cc: You think it's cool to be a relaxed, natural and happy person, right?

Kaka: Yes, but I didn’t say she was rebellious. She obviously grew up in a family where rebellion was not necessary.

cc: But I have a question. If you say that relaxation, happiness, and finding what you want to do are also cool, to what extent does this eliminate the definition of "cool"? If "cool" has no resistance, what is cool?

As you said before, between Su Yiming and Gu Ailing, you prefer Su. At that time, you posted a circle of friends, quoting the passage in the GQ program, "Family, friendship, and communities built around interests have jointly created a utopia, everyone is creating conditions for his natural development, and his growth has hardly experienced any artificial distortion." Then you said, "Well, I envy him, that's all."

Kaka: Yes, I think he is a lucky person brought by the times, and there will be a wave of people who will become lucky people like them.

CC: You are talking about yourself.

Kaka: I am not, I am not as lucky as them. Although I was born in a middle-class family in Xinjiang, and they rarely interfered with my decision-making, I grew up in a very marginal and educationally backward area, where there was not even a McDonald's... The resources I could get were completely different from those of Tong.

cc: But your mother is indeed a relatively strong person, and you are a relatively soft and sensitive person.

Kaka: Yes, if Faye Wong is an ENFP who likes to play mahjong with her colleagues, then Dou Jingtong is an INFP girl who likes to play with her own synthesizers in her bedroom. Her mother-daughter relationship is somewhat similar to my mother-daughter relationship. She probably got the luckiest INFP book, and she has also grown into a high-level INFP-A personality through the previous internal friction and self-reflection.

cc: Isn't being a "rich second generation" the most suitable career for INFP? (laughs) But it is true that young people around us, especially those who grew up in middle-class families in super first-tier cities, who are somewhat fond of subculture, will become one of Dou Jingtong's audiences.

Kaka: I’m not a top tier player, hahaha, I’m from a small city on the edge of the desert.

CC: Although you grew up in a small city, you had an iPhone in junior high school, barely experienced the TV era, and liked Wang Wei (a famous photographer in the subculture circle) in high school. Your aesthetics and surfing speed have long reached that kind of cultural capital, rather than the aesthetics of a child in a marginal area, let alone a county town.

This kind of aesthetic is very urban and carries a lot of privileges.

Dou Jingtong is blessed with good genes. She has great talent and ambition. When she wants to make an album, countless top musicians come to help her. It seems that everything she does is very easy, and she doesn't struggle like "I want to surpass my mother" because it is impossible.

She gives people the feeling that she is free and happy to "play music", very "floating". So I would say that her coolness is a light coolness, not the traditional coolness, which many people think is not true coolness. Including her queerness, it is also something that is easy to declare. Just like you, it is easy to say, "I am a queer person."

Kaka: The reason why I like this kind of person is that I project myself onto them and hope to have a more relaxed and free environment. Everyone hopes that their personality can grow like her.

On my way of growing up, I missed many things I wanted to do because of the information gap and the inferiority complex in marginal areas. I am not as lucky as Dou Jingtong. She wanted to make music, so her parents could send her to an expensive music school. I don't have that condition, so my love for Dou Jingtong is a kind of compensation, an expectation for a more inclusive environment.

CC: But when you put it that way, I don’t think it’s “cool” anymore. I just think it’s lucky. For a long time when I was growing up, I longed for a real lightness, the kind that my friends had.

When we went swimming before, I couldn't float on my back in the water. You said, "The essence is to be relaxed enough and just lie on the water." I found that I couldn't do it. Some people breathe quickly in the water, but they still learned to swim and still want to swim to the other side. But there are some people who can swim lightly and freely in this water because they have swum in various seas around the world.

I suddenly realized that I may never be able to be a relaxed person in my life. I have to be cautious and occasionally nervous. When I see these things (about privilege and luck) behind them, I feel that things that are too easy cannot be considered "cool".

Kaka: But you can’t say that those who grew up in a very open environment didn’t work hard for their ideals and passions. It’s just that they don’t need a narrative of struggle to prove themselves.

CC: But the narrative and resources of this endeavor are insignificant.

I didn't say I don't like Tongtong or want to attack her, but I want to explain a complex and contradictory feeling. This so-called ease is indeed easier to be accepted by everyone. Generation Z, a generation that grew up in the rapid economic development after 2000, including me, enjoys a kind of vigor and vitality, a kind of mood that the future will always be good.

Before the pandemic, I didn’t really understand the kind of mourning culture that “There’s no party in Caodong” refers to. But in the past few years, everyone has understood mourning culture, abstract culture, and crazy subculture.

This generation also has the most single children. All family resources are concentrated on one person, and living conditions are relatively good. If you do a lot of things for almost no cost, then praise and accolades will have no place to go in my opinion.

Kaka: I admit that they have a certain sense of superiority. But I like her, not because she is also working hard, but because she does not emphasize her efforts when she knows she is superior. Dou Jingtong will directly say that she has not suffered any hardship, and such people (rich second generation) will seem more sincere.

CC: As far as I know, many people who don't like Dou Jingtong or have no feelings for her have class subconsciousness in most cases. Alas, we are dark and twisted rat people~

But I have to admit that when I watched Dou Jingtong's live video, I saw her immersed in the stage, her eyes were bright, reflecting the light on the stage, without any worries. For a moment, I envied her very much. How could someone have such a pure soul and such clean eyes? She is like a very beautiful flower. Although it must grow in a greenhouse, it is precisely those who have not suffered that can grow such a face. When you see this face, you will inexplicably feel a little hope.

Kaka: Generally speaking, people of our generation still believe that unnecessary suffering is unnecessary. They work hard because they love it, not because they want to “get ahead and become a better person”.

For example, the sports idols of Generation Z, such as Gu Ailing and Su Yiming, go skiing for fun, and are outside the mainstream sports talent training system. They do not bear too much of the grand narrative of "homeland", but exist as an individual identity, "I want, I decide, I choose". This is their most Generation Z self, the free will of Generation Z, and to some extent, the reason why they are loved by young people.

CC: Well, personal, particularly individualistic.

Kaka: I just want to be a more relaxed, happier and freer person, but at the same time I am also a very twisted and sensitive person, um...

Thanks to the Internet generation

CC: After getting to know you, I was surprised to find that you have been exploring and traveling since the Internet was invented. When we talked about nuclear culture before, you said a golden sentence: "The essence of nuclear culture is diversity and change, trying to piece together a self through repeated overlaps and changes."

Kaka: The most popular subculture in the past two years is core culture[3]. It is obviously an online subculture, a culture that can only be produced by Generation Z. I think my self is also pieced together.

CC: I think of what Gao Jiafeng[4] said before, that he was born from a hodgepodge of things in the web browsers of Generation Z. A while ago, I was listening to the 19-year-old musician Zeng Kechun, who took a gap year and wrote and composed the album Earth Sandwich. His music is very GenZ, with a lot of opera and game elements.

Kaka: It is indeed a trait of the Internet generation. The era of segmentation changes very quickly, and various elements will attract our attention. It is also because of segmentation that we can see so many subculture circles. Everyone can care less about the mainstream voice, just build a small cocoon, and have their own little world in the wormhole world of the circle.

CC: I had a question before, and I noticed that you never seem to be confused about this point, which is "Where are you from?"

Kaka: Yes, indeed, from a very early time ago, I recognized that I came from the Internet (laughs).

The culture and information I am exposed to, as well as my self-identity, almost all come from the information and knowledge I obtain on the Internet, such as my queer identity in high school and later my feminist identity.

Even all my fantasies about the world come from the Internet, which may be because the place where I grew up was too small, too far away, and too closed. Without the Internet, I would not have grown up to be what I am now.

cc: So you are the generation that is grateful to the Internet.

Kaka: Yes, including me, a third-generation Xinjiang native, there is also a phenomenon of cultural discontinuity. We don’t have any traditional culture to speak of, and of course we can’t integrate into the national culture, so “finding a place to belong” is a particularly meaningless thing for me.

At the same time, it would be meaningless if all the criticisms against Dou Jingtong's music were attributed to the fact that she is too middle-class and lives too happily, so she cannot make any good music.

CC: Yes, when we talk about creators of Generation Z, there are also great differences among them. Our original intention is not to classify Generation Z as urban middle-class children, but we found that such children have more resources and possibilities to engage in the cultural and artistic industry. Many children in remote areas are indeed very poor, and it is difficult for them to become filmmakers and play music.

When you say that your self is a grab for the fragmentation of the Internet, this is very obvious in Dou Jingtong's music. In the process of communicating with your Thai queer friends, it is also natural to recommend each other the works of musicians from all over the world.

Kaka: Yes, we collect a lot of global music. Although the term global music aesthetics sounds quite Western-centric, after all, most of the popular music styles and musicians in the world are from the Western world. Just like Thai pop music has also widely absorbed the influence of global pop music.

CC: Talking about this, I remembered a friend born in the 1990s who told me about her adolescence growing up in a cultural atmosphere centered on Beijing's Drum Tower. But there is no cultural center in my world, because we did not catch up with the era of concentrated cultural resources.

Kaka: Yes, by the time I went to Gulou for college, most of the bars had closed down, and Wudaokou was no longer the center of the universe. So I often felt that the so-called Gulou culture and Wudaokou culture had nothing to do with me. It really had nothing to do with me, and I didn’t want to hear about it anymore!

In every city I have lived and experienced, Beijing, Chengdu, Dali, rock music, techno, hip-hop. My friends who are older than me there will tell me how good the past few years were and how much they miss them. Faced with such sighs, I occasionally feel resentful, but now I am more numb. I can't feel any vivid details of the "golden age" they talk about. If you miss it, you miss it. The missed era must not belong to us. We don't even have the right to miss it, we can only rely on imagination. Why do we need to go back to the past? Because the future is not as good as the imagination of the past. Obviously, this is not a season for carnival.

cc: What we can catch up with is the development of mass Internet, and then the self-indulgent carnival in various circles.

Kaka: It doesn’t matter, we can crawl (laughs). This is also our crazy culture.

Playground mentality, rebellion and the evolution of cool

CC: When I watched Euphoria, I didn't see that taking drugs, drinking, getting tattoos, and doing some stimulating behaviors are cool, but rather a kind of confusion. Just like everyone says, "Life is not a track but a wilderness", but in fact, when you walk into the wilderness, what happens? You still don't know where to go. Facing a white plain with no established standards, how do you make a choice? Will it be more difficult to find yourself?

Kaka: I agree, because the coolness of Generation Z has diluted the confrontation and fierce competition. Unlike their predecessors, they no longer have to choose between right and wrong, but rather rank among all the good things. This means that whatever you do is right, and your choice becomes very important. (From what Xi Rui said on the show)

cc: It is reflected in you that you want to do photography, podcasting, academic work, cultural and tourism planning, band agent... There are many things you want to do, but you don’t have a clear ambition or intention to become this or that person. These are just like your hobbies.

Kaka: Yes. I often have an amusement park mentality, thinking that I am here to play and life is for experience, but this kind of experience can easily become a kind of confusion.

One of my favorite movies last year was "The Worst Person in the World". The heroine in the movie was very much from Generation Z (Nordic version). She didn't have to worry about rent and loans, so she threw countless possibilities into her life, but she was also inconsistent in her career and love, unable to get on the so-called "right track". In the movie, I saw that when a person's life completely becomes a field instead of a track, it does not necessarily lead to spiritual self-sufficiency, but rather a more open confusion.

Our generation has been swimming in the ocean of information since we were born. There are too many interesting and new things that attract our attention, but we will soon find them boring as the next new thing appears. We may not be truly free when we seem to be exploring freely, so we can only accept that we are "the worst people in the world" and accept living a mobile life in this world.

CC: It seems that it is more difficult to construct in the era of deconstruction. After all these frameworks are torn down, the young people around me can’t find anything to construct, which is very empty. But I feel that the GenZ around me are also beginning to care less about the matter of “meaningfulness”, just like Dou Jingtong, she just thinks this thing is interesting. It’s very similar to what was said in the abstract rap song “The Athlete” that was popular last year, “Being interesting is more meaningful than being meaningful itself.”

Kaka: Yes, Dou Jingtong also said that she doesn’t want to express something too heavy. The primary function of her music is healing. That’s why she later turned to Chinese albums. Most of her audience is still Chinese, and she wants to connect with them more. (We INFPs are like this, with a strong sense of agreeableness.)

But I don’t think we don’t have resistance either. Our resistance is accomplished in a very tortuous way. It manifests itself as mourning culture, madness and abstract culture, fighting guerrilla warfare in a more relaxed and humorous way.

In the movies, one obvious feature is that the new Hollywood superhero protagonist has changed from Captain America to the Joker, and all the so-called American spirit has been replaced by a more indifferent cool temperament. You can also say that from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "Joker", it is a change in cool culture. (Source: "The Origin of Cool")

cc: When you mentioned this, I suddenly wanted to ask, do you think Cui Jian is cool?

Kaka: I think Cui Jian is very cool, but not just cool, the times have given them more meaning, very great (my god, what a big word). But because I seem to have lightened the word "cool", "be cool~" has become a catchphrase of mine, just to express the meaning of "don't take it too seriously", and it has little to do with the original rebellious spirit.

CC: When I first met you, your catchphrase was, “This is so punk!”

Kaka: Stop it, I feel like someone is going to diss me for slandering the punk spirit.

CC: Let's talk about Dou Jingtong's music. There is really nothing new. The music is going back to the old style and developing in the direction of fusion. Some people think she is not particularly outstanding. It seems that young people doing fusion all over the world produce similar things. What do you like more?

Kaka: My favorite album of Tong is "GSG", which is more experimental and more representative of her. In this album, she created a little green man, which is herself. This little green man was cautiously avoiding the surroundings at the beginning, but after repeated trials, he bravely went out into the world. It was this album's sensitive but cool little entanglement that touched me, and made me realize that a person who looks so cool actually has such a fragile part in his heart.

Personally, I like Tongtong a bit like I like a growth blogger (haha). The first time I saw her, she had a buzz cut, wore a military coat and a military cap and sang a song at the Beijing New Year's Eve concert. At that time, the Internet had not yet become popular for removing beauty and reconciling with bare face. Among a group of exquisite and beautiful stars, a happy boiled egg star was rising.

As a fan, I have witnessed the transformation and exploration of her creative style, and I am quite happy to see that she can overcome her mother tongue shame and write Chinese lyrics for her new album. The phrase "I no longer want to fill in all the gaps" is like she has taken off the little green man mask she gave herself, no longer worrying about what kind of music is awesome, and just wants to deliver some sincere music to everyone.

I think it is difficult to define "outstanding" for musicians of this era, because different circles have different aesthetics and their own outstanding works. Rather than saying that her music is outstanding, it is better to say that her music can resonate with some young people. Maybe they simply like the comfort brought by relaxing music, or maybe they are moved by the innocence and purity in her lyrics.

CC: I can't help but smile sweetly at her, which shows her charm. (laughs)

Kaka: Yes, yes, when I like a piece of music, I may also think that the technique is very impressive, but I value the connection between this music and me more. Although we previously thought that Generation Z did not like creations under grand themes, I suddenly remembered that "Rap New Generation" actually has a lot of grand and profound expressions, which we also like. It mainly depends on whether this topic is closely related to us.

CC: I think there are big differences in the forms of expression. For example, the musician Yu Zhen’s expression of women’s issues is relatively mild. The distinction between young rappers and traditional rappers is also obviously more typified. Many music is inspired by movies, novels and classic IPs. The lyrics written by post-00s rapper Capper even involve niche sexual fetishes, which is quite interesting. Many bands like Eight Immortals Restaurant and Berlin Nurse also have no source. They use music to reenact movies and write novels.

Kaka: In short, it is collage, which is to use all the materials at hand to piece together a self. Of course, this kind of patchwork does not mean that there is no originality.

CC: I find that I have a single standard for being cool, which is originality. I think some young people may not be that cool, but this is my personal opinion. What is your definition of cool?

Kaka: My definition of cool is the complexity and diversity of identity. For example, if someone is a musician and a cook at the same time, this will attract me. At the same time, my interpretation of cool is very ambiguous now. Cool has become easier, more popular, and more superficial.

cc: I suddenly remembered Faye Wong’s wish for Tong, which was quite accurate: “You can’t learn bad things, but you don’t have to be too obedient.”

Notes to editors:

[1] Researchers and popular media define Generation Z loosely using the mid-to-late 1990s as the starting birth year and the early 2010s as the ending birth year. The Pew Research Centre defines 1997 as the starting birth year for Generation Z in the Western world (particularly the United States), based on "different upbringings" such as exposure to the events of 9/11, new technologies, and political, socioeconomic developments, and uses 2012 as the ending year in its 2019 report. Other news media, management, and consulting firms use 1995 as the starting birth year for Generation Z.

[2] Pronounce here refers to the gender identity that a person wishes to be referred to by. Female identity is she/her/hers, male identity is he/his, and other or queer identities are generally referred to as they/them.

[3] “Core culture” is represented by weirdcore, dreamcore, and nostalgia core culture, and is closely related to surrealist painting, glitch art, vaporwave art, and other aesthetic schools that have developed since the 20th century. As a niche weird art, it has only been around for about three years, but it has become well-known, localized, and mainstream on the Chinese Internet. Now, “core” can also be seen as a synonym for “style” in a subculture that is more mainstream.

[4] Gao Jiafeng, HYPERPOP / Nuclear / Punk / No Style Boundaries As a producer, singer and DJ, Gao Jiafeng continues to create Chinese pop music with a distinctive personal style with an avant-garde sound and a playful approach. At the same time, he also publishes a subculture science column on social media. It’s not too much to call him an “academic sub-fucking” teacher!