From idyllic rural foraging life to packaged river snail noodles...

November 4, 2021 6:33 AM

"She drew millions of TikTok followers by selling a fantasy of rural China. Then politics intervened." On camera, Li Ziqi, one of China’s most darling vloggers, lives a peaceful, enviably pastoral life. [...]But in reality, Li Ziqi is a complicated brand. Although she has created a virtual escape from the technological ills of modernity, her success is built around the very things that her lifestyle rejects.

Other links:
- Li Ziqi Wikipedia Page
- Goldthread's Interview with Li Ziqi

Other vloggers mentioned in the article:
Country Wild Donkey
Qiaofu 9mei (Clever Woman)

Was not mentioned in article but also similar to Li Ziqi
滇西小哥dianxixiaoge

(Previously)

posted by vespertinism (28 comments total)

I always had the sense that her rural utopia content was CCP-aligned, but I felt unfair about that assumption and maybe it was taking away some of her agency. Interesting to see it laid out so (relatively) publicly here.
posted by Think_Long at 7:23 AM on November 4, 2021

I do enjoy her videos, which are beautifully shot and very peaceful. I think many of her viewers know that we're getting an edited slice of life, just like I get when I watch something with Ruth Goodman or the English Heritage videos with Mrs. Crocombe. But it is an interesting point about money made in the rural economy flowing directly back to the city. It seems like a pretty common setup for many economies, just that this time it's a city-birthed business (vlogging) based in the countryside.
posted by PussKillian at 7:24 AM on November 4, 2021

Li Ziqi's dispute with Weinian Brand Management goes beyond profit sharing disagreements, more crucially is a struggle for trademark of her name and intellectual property rights of the digital content she created.

I don't know why Li isn't celebrated more as a new feminist icon. She builds fences and pours concrete and does all kinds of 'man's work' by herself. The regulars in her videos are her grandmother and her dog. There's almost no male presence in the utopia she creates, and for that alone, comparing her to a Disney princess is absurd.

(On preview, I agree with the first comment. Attributing her appeal to alignment with "state priorities" seems private axe-grinding of some sort.)
posted by of strange foe at 7:36 AM on November 4, 2021 [16 favorites]

I'm a huuuge Dianxi Xiaoge fan. Li Ziqi is kind of in my periphery but definitely in rotation. Pretending any lifestyle vlogs arn't HEAVILY curated is really, really naive. There have been rumors of CCP involvement for years, but really who cares? If the CCP wants me to have a rose colored view of the Chinese people, great, mission accomplished, the Chinese Government not so much. For me, it actually underscores how horrid CCP policies are by making the contrast.
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:41 AM on November 4, 2021 [12 favorites]

I'd been following Li Ziqi as well. I knew that the whole "rural lifestyle" thing was likely staged - there are a couple videos with scenes where she is on a computer or watching TV with grandma, so she clearly hadn't COMPLETELY eschewed the modern lifestyle or anything that was clearly an affectation. But it was still pretty.

And I was mainly watching each video for the amazing food porn in the last several minutes anyway, and gnashing my teeth each time that "dammit why can't I get English subtitles on any of these, I want to know how to make some of this stuff." Even my roommate caught a glance as I was watching once, stuck around to watch even more, and said that "I can almost smell how good that must be."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:54 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I was mainly watching each video for the amazing food porn in the last several minutes anyway

The Food Porn was what sold me on Dianxi Xiaoge in the first place, the adorable dog sealed the deal however.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:17 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

I hadn't heard of Li Ziqi before the post, so I watched the first linked video in the main article, and, man, that is one highly processed shoot. I counted 101 cuts, most with separate camera set ups, including some elements like a rack focus shift in a couple and a few where there are cuts between the start and finish of an action, where the horse arrives in one shot, but Li Ziqi's dismount is captured from a different camera set up, meaning it was either designed for multiple takes or had multiple cameras covering the scene, with the former the more likely. With a cut every 3.5 seconds or so, the average shot length is around that of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I mean it's lovely, I'm not knocking it, but it's basically a movie, not just a slice of life that was filmed as it happened. That's not a complaint, but it does underline the attention to the purposefulness of the design and the aesthetic/ideological elements that necessarily accompany that, even when it is something lovely and generally benign. It reminds me of the earlier FPP on momblogs and the ideologies they trend towards, with the same emphasis on quasi-rural settings and identity and "competence porn". The rural aspect makes me wonder about how it feeds a sense of alternative desire to modernity and urban living by drawing on the tropes of small towns being idyllic and where everyone knows everyone else, making it easier to feel like we "know" the vloggers and may have qualms about where we see our lives going.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:35 AM on November 4, 2021 [28 favorites]

Perhaps I'm naïve, but what about the videos or channels screams CCP? There's tons of Western outdoorsy or rural video content out there.

It makes sense to me that a well-packaged slice of rural life would appeal to just about anyone tired of the pace of modern life. Doesn't feel political unless "I'd like a little bit of idyll" is now a political stance.
posted by explosion at 8:39 AM on November 4, 2021

Interesting articles.

There really is no getting away from the folk-urban continuum myth. That you can pick flowers by hand and also hire media staff isn't really much of a contradiction. One can do both things. I'm lucky that I can play a hundred year old instrument under remote-controlled LED bulbs and nobody calls me out for being inconsistent. There are people who can't read, speak a Mayan language, believe the lost tribes of Israel landed in the Yucatan, and also fly helicopters and have multiple international bank accounts. The desperation with which we seek authenticity, and the impulse to map it onto a simplified understanding of history, is pretty weird. I can't blame anybody for using it to their advantage. I can't see the appeal of these videos. But, I also don't see the harm.

(Pastoral idealists in my own culture always give me the creeps. I love the woods too. I wish I shared them with fewer religious nutjobs and nazis. But, I hope and expect it's very different in this context.)
posted by eotvos at 8:55 AM on November 4, 2021 [13 favorites]

For me, the high production values of Li Ziqi's videos are part of the appeal - they're a lovely thing to put on when I want to turn off my brain and know there will be no malfunctions, too much talking or jarring commercial breaks. She purposefully doesn't talk or present her "whole self" in her videos; she performs a kind of timeless hanfu-clad DIY maven with a cooking focus, and half the video is there just to show off the lovely Sichuan countryside. Chinese equivalent of pre-9/11 country videos, with about the same ideology quotient. If anything, the focus on traditional arts and clothing is edging on promoting Imperial China.

It does sound like the typical clash between the management company and the talent they signed during a vulnerable time, especially the commercially produced food sold under Li Ziqi's brand, with Li using whatever angles she can to get the public on her side. Wasn't there an American guy a few years back who had to change his channel name because it turned out his agency owned it, and the agency hired new people to produce content under the new name?
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:57 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

It's always bad news when a company, not even a person, comes to own anything a person actually makes. Shouldn't even be illegal, intellectual property should never be property, it is owed entirely to all living and future humans from before you even formed your first thought.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just because her content happens to be "CCP-aligned" doesn't preclude her agency. It's entirely plausible that she started the channel on her own, and state media later took notice because it happened to be the kind of content they wanted to promote. She might have a legitimate grievance with her management company and is looking for allies wherever she can.
posted by airmail at 9:14 AM on November 4, 2021

I've been seeing the reporting on this come out in the last week, and for me personally, what I read between the lines was a contractual dispute at first, but also someone in her team read the way the winds were shifting with regards to CCP's attitude with celebrities, fandom, the 'correct' lifestyle and the influencer economy, and jumped on that (I noted the phrases her official statement used) to reposition her dispute. I mean, the timelines match in terms of the increasing crackdown. That Tencent investment was no small change -- that did make waves after all.

I laughed at the concluding remarks in the main article though:
People loved Li Ziqi because they believed that she, unlike her viewers, is free from the hyper-productive, capital-fueled, politically fraught world that they wake up to every morning. They believed that she was independent and beholden to no one.

I'm forced to ask, who exactly would think this? Her original audience in China? The outside audience with their respective cultures of reality tv? With that production quality? Ms Yeah the office worker who cooks with office utensils (well, at first anyway) had more guerilla-style production value than Li.
posted by cendawanita at 9:21 AM on November 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

The thing I found odd in that first video was not the video but the comments all gushing how she doesn't use plastic.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:25 AM on November 4, 2021

Can you spell the incessant lingering odor of burning plastic on TikTok? Did she catch how basically every waterway functions as the regional landfill? Rural China can be very scenic indeed but there's a lot you'll miss if your whole impression is formed from TikTok videos.
posted by viborg at 10:57 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

It makes sense to me that a well-packaged slice of rural life would appeal to just about anyone tired of the pace of modern life. Doesn't feel political unless "I'd like a little bit of idyll" is now a political stance.

You're not wrong, but I have trouble disassociating the rural-idyll theme from being major tool of basically every ethno-state's propaganda arm in history. I say this mostly to keep myself on my toes, because my media consumption falls very heavily into this genre and I just want to stay aware.
posted by Think_Long at 11:42 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that there is politics in my media!

...goes back to watching "Tudor Monastery Farm" from the British Broadcasting Corporation, established under Royal Charter with £3.690 billion income in license fees enforced by the UK Government.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:48 AM on November 4, 2021 [9 favorites]

serpentza's Youtube channel, which is pro-China but anti-CCP, talks about LiZiqi and how it relates to the CCP (he seems to like the channel anyway).
posted by eye of newt at 11:56 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Any big media presence in China has at least the tacit blessing of the CCP; if they don't, they get yanked off the air. That doesn't make Li Ziqi propaganda, but it does mean she'll be careful to never say or do anything that might cross the censors. Not difficult on a show about idyllic rural life. Hopefully she isn't forced to repeat propaganda like the "what a shame for Hong Kong" debacle.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 1:45 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

serpentza

I would take what this clown says with a grain of salt. He's a borderline fascist who lies about China constantly, most recently claiming that China removed a black person from Dune posters because Chinese people are so racist.
posted by smithsmith at 2:51 PM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

I haven't watched any Li Ziqi videos, but I've watched a few from Dianxi Xiaoge. The videos are enjoyable but I always want to laugh because I've been to various remote areas around China... the people are great, but they are far more tolerant of hard living than I will ever be.

Some fans wondered if she’d been driven underground by the pressure of the “Kimchi Wars” — a nationalist spat between Chinese and Korean netizens that exploded in the comments section of one of Li’s videos about harvesting and preparing pickled vegetables.

That is HILARIOUS.
posted by extramundane at 3:17 PM on November 4, 2021

It makes sense to me that a well-packaged slice of rural life would appeal to just about anyone tired of the pace of modern life. Doesn't feel political unless "I'd like a little bit of idyll" is now a political stance.

It's so clearly tied to ideas about national identity, to the long arc of Chinese history, and the Chinese version of manifest destiny. The intent might not be political, but the result certainly is. This isn't something that is specific to China — it's a common theme around the world, certainly in the US and Canada, definitely in England (as happyinmotion notes), in Mexico, and I'm sure in many other countries too.

Looking back on some idyllic national past is pretty much the starting point for the rising conservatism we are seeing around the world. We've stopped imagining a better future — how could we with climate change and pending ecological collapses, a pandemic, rising inequality and more — and have begun to look back more on the past and what we believe we have lost. There's a lot that we can learn from the past and there are certainly some ideas that we abandoned too hastily, but when the idyllic past is weaponized in the service of conservative ideology, we get Trump, Brexit, and so on.
posted by ssg at 4:13 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Looking back on some idyllic national past is pretty much the starting point for the rising conservatism we are seeing around the world. We've stopped imagining a better future — how could we with climate change and pending ecological collapses, a pandemic, rising inequality and more — and have begun to look back more on the past and what we believe we have lost.

Counter-argument that it could also be a starting point for a move away from the hyper-consumerist capitalist system which is fueling much of the modern world.

I follow another online group devoted to "Hygge" stuff - it is 99% devoted to people talking about the cozy socks they just made themselves, the cozy way they feel cuddled under their blanket on the couch when the dishes are done being washed, the cozy pot pie they just made, stuff like that. Every so often, though, someone posts a picture of this kind of "throwback" lifestyle and comments about how "we gave up too much and they were smarter in the past" - and those posts get a lot of lively comments arguing back that it wasn't all idyllic in the past, and how not everyone had things easy back then, and basically it's a very vocal argument that idolizing the past is not necessarily the right way to be thinking, and that we need to adopt some ideas from the past and incorporate them into the present instead of going all throw-back about it.

And honestly, that's what's kept me in that community, even when some people in there start posting non-ironically about how they're looking forward to watching Hallmark Channel Christmas movies and such or when it feels like everyone's posting pictures of their kids or whatever - that these people are NOT trying to romanticize the past. They are trying to value a slower and less consumerist lifestyle instead, and that may actually be progressive.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on November 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

and have begun to look back more on the past and what we believe we have lost.

What good would stopping climate change be if we aren't trying to support what is likely to be lost to the past? I agree that looking back at the past is small c 'conservative' but it's certainly not big C Conservative/Republican, and newsflash lots more people are small c conservative than Republican.

Also there's a thread two up debating the quality of replicated StarTrek food that is definitely small c conservative.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Come to that, I will pleasantly admit that my reflexive suspicion to every new Silicon Valley "technology disruption" of an existing institution or industry is absolutely small-c conservative. Sometimes New Things Are Worse Actually. The trick is engaging our critical filters to think about which is which, and I would argue that the GOP and Big-C Conservatives are no less prone to adopting new things as they wrap themselves in nostalgia rhetoric, either--after all, that's a big throughline you see in the transition of Conservatives to fascists in any number of fascist takeovers.
posted by sciatrix at 8:01 AM on November 5, 2021

To my mind, looking to protect what we have may be small-c conservative, but presenting an idyllic view of a past that never actually existed tends more towards big-C conservative. When the past you're looking to protect didn't ever exist or only existed for a small proportion of people and imagery and symbolism are being used to support that, I think that's tied to a lot of the right-wing resurgence that we see around the world lately.

But sure, these categories are slippery. There's a big difference between thinking maybe we should protect our remaining forests from logging and thinking we should go back to a time when systematic racism was more acceptable. They might both be conservative in some sense, but they are worlds apart. The stories that support environmental conservation, for example, are rarely about looking to the past (in fact they are usually future-oriented, talking about future generations and so on), while stories about the past are often used in service of right-wing ideologies.
posted by ssg at 8:45 AM on November 5, 2021

Yeah, and idk how it's like for the global majoritarian group (white westerners) but a lot of that harkening back to history, from my pov (and I'm a big fan of historical reconstruction work), OFTEN, in the face of lost knowledge and the need to assert some kind of pride in our heritage, the slippery slope to our own ethnonationalism is nearly a vertical line.
posted by cendawanita at 9:21 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

a lot of that harkening back to history, from my pov (and I'm a big fan of historical reconstruction work), OFTEN, in the face of lost knowledge and the need to assert some kind of pride in our heritage, the slippery slope to our own ethnonationalism is nearly a vertical line.

Racial inequity and gender inequity are the most common clapbacks in that group about Hygge I mentioned earlier, happily ("uh, dude, the past was only 'perfect' if you were a white guy, don't be like that"). The moderator is also pretty strict about squashing those kinds of posts as well and giving people the boot.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:37 AM on November 5, 2021