Papi Jiang, China’s hottest internet celebrity in 2016, who is known for her funny videos, has been suspended by China’s media watchdog, The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), citing vulgar language in the videos.
According to Tencent Tech, SARFT says these videos can be made available again after vulgar language and content has been removed from the videos and they pass a re-examination.
Papi Jiang, a grassroots video producer from Shanghai, makes videos that have received more than 290 million hits on major media platforms in just four months. Her videos target the post-90s generation to talk about things they’re interested in. Besides appealing topics, the way she talks about things using netspeak, some of which isn’t very polite, is also the reason why young people love her videos. In the video below, she persuades a friend to dump her womanizing boyfriend by saying that her friend’s brain was filled with “shit” for failing to see that the boy was just flirting with her. She also calls the guy’s ex-girlfriend a “bitch” and a “slut.”
AllChinaTech reached out to video platforms including Tencent Video and Baidu-backed iQiyi, and they both said they had not received official notices to remove video content belonging to Papi Jiang. For now, her videos on major platforms including Youku Tudou are still available.
Last month, Papi Jiang received RMB 12 million (USD 1.8 million) from four investors including Logic Talk Show, whose founder Luo Zhenyu is working with Papi Jiang to launch an auction on Thursday, where advertisers will bid to embed ads in her videos.
Papi Jiang already had a huge fan base before she met Luo, but his marketing strategy is working so well that every media site is writing about Papi Jiang, which has been a buzzword on Chinese social media for a while. The auction is a very good chance for enterprises to get exposure. Internet companies are believed to be the most likely bidders. The highest bid is expected to be tens of millions of RMB.
This is not the first time that SARFT has lashed out at TV programs for content with poor taste or vulgar language. Last July, it urged reality TV shows to stop producing vulgar content.
(Top photo from Weibo user @过去-再也不见)
