:: the Chinese government’s pet dissident and well-known conceptual artist / designer / all-around decent guy Ai Weiwei (艾未未) is now on and Fanfou (a China-market Twitter clone), and has just launched a new blog. In order to verify his identity to the netizen community, Ai Weiwei posted the below semi-nude / grotesque photographs of himself. Hmm…I’m still not convinced. Mr. Ai’s grand entrance into the China Twitter-sphere is likely a tipping point: Twitter will be blocked in China soon enough.  // AjS

:: like China’s “Post-80s Generation” before it, the “Post-90s Generation” is a shorthand for a vaguely-defined demographic group of Chinese people born roughly in the same decade. On the Chinese Internet, however, “Post-90s” has connotations of a young, affluent, urban, alternative aesthetic, and includes among its ranks people born in the mid to late 80s as well — see the reader age poll on FZL8.com which has choices for ages 16-21; 30% of respondents are under 16, and 15-20% were born in the 80s.

In hopes of helping everyone better understand this sometimes odd and detached demographic, the five categories below provide a rough outline of the image and characteristics conjured up in the minds of today’s Chinese netizens by the term “Post-90s.”

non-mainstream culture ::
Remember in the early part of the decade when Han Han and other young celebrities born in the 1980s were hailed as representatives of a new, “alternative” sub-culture in China? For the post-90s generation, the term “linglei” (另类, meaning: alternative) has been replaced with “feizhuliu” (非主流) which means something like “non-mainstream,” but it still refers to an “alternative” sub-culture, only one that is expressed by today’s teens (See here on Baidu Baike for a current in-depth discussion of the phenomenon). Fashion-wise, “non-mainstream” combines goth and punk elements with styles borrowed from trendy Korean and Japanese youth culture. Hallmarks of the “non-mainstream” photo: looking up at the camera, the subject (usually a teenage girl), often wearing clunky glasses, opens her eyes wide, purses her lips, and flashes a V-sign. Trendy consumer products are often visible in frame (see the “conspicuous consumption” below). In full length photos, toes are pointed inward to give the impression of innocence combined with reluctant exhibitionism (example). Often, text or cartoony images are Photoshop’d in, or the subject’s eyes are enlarged to make her look even more like a character from manga or animation (example). That example comes from a whole gallery of similar images that have been entered into a “Cool” contest on 360Quan. More angsty and emo are bloody, apparently Photoshop’d self-mutilation images. They’re not incredibly common, but their shock value has made disproportionately representative of the crazy moodiness of China’s Post-90s generation.

argot ::
“Martian” language is a form of online writing that prizes linguistic and typographical playfulness: it combines abbreviations, letters, and numbers, with character combinations that correspond to pronunciations drawn from different Chinese dialects or tones of voice. It’s been around for a while, and is generally associated with online youth culture. The Huoxingwen BBS discussion portal has forums for various dialects, software that translates back and forth from standard written Mandarin to Martian, and conversation exchange. The Martian dialect most closely identified with the post-90s alternative subculture is “brain damaged writing” (脑残文), which is essentially standard Mandarin written using the most obscure characters possible. Traditional and rare variant characters are only the beginning: wrapping characters in other radicals, using duplicate and triplicate forms, and finding seldom-used characters that have a common character as a minor component are all valid techniques. Pinyin and English get rendered in Greek or Cyrillic. In its extreme stages, brain damaged writing literally splits the characters apart and builds them out of isolated radicals and phonetic symbols, example: ロ艾~~还媞叧リ冩 莪ㄋ，亻尒看，叧リヌ寸莪ㄖㄅ噫苋那庅茤，ㄝ子媞册リㄋロ巴 is an expansion of 哎，还是别提我了。你看，别对我的意见那么多。好是删了吧.

haunts ::
Although it would be misleading to assume that China’s Post-90s only hang out in one space on the Internet, 360Quan is a major focal point for post-90s teenagers, as evidenced by its overall “alternative” aesthetic and the tagline “young, stylish SNS” in the title bar. PK is a big activity on 360Quan: users can challenge each other head-to-head and vie for votes from the 360Quan userbase. PK categories include “alternative culture” (非主流), “sunniness” (阳光), “figure” (身材), “beauty” (美丽), “being cool” (搞酷), and “on the street” (街头). 360Quan also provides space for online “clans” (家族), ad-hoc groups of users linked by common interest or mutual acquaintance, a large number of whose names use Martian and brain-damaged writing. A wealth of similarly-targeted BBSs and social networks, successful and otherwise, can be found simply by searching for “90后” (meaning: post-90) in Baidu or other large search engines. Post-90s Home is one of the larger ones. Douban.com is also host to various post-90s communities, including The Nineties, with 1,281 members, and People of the Nineties with 1,190 members at time of writing. The BBS format and general tenor of Douban means that these forums feature some interesting discussions of post-90s identity – what does it mean to be part of that group?

conspicuous consumption ::
For better or for worse, China’s post-90s generation is seen as fairly materialistic. Born into an age of relative abundance, today’s urban teenagers seem entirely comfortable with consumerist culture, which they embrace fully without the ethical or cultural guilt shown by earlier generations, to the point that showing off wealth and possessions in online photo sets is a fairly common practice. A recent thread in the post-90s forum on Sina’s Women’s Channel asked members how much they typically spend on their clothes, in order to dispel the myth that they are a generation of spendthrifts. Brand-names pop up throughout the thread, and one netizen who claimed to be a 15-year-old girl attending high school in the US reported her current clothing and handbags were worth 37,030 RMB, generating a follow-up profile piece. Another post-90 girl won the moniker Sack-Girl (麻袋女) for carrying a bag full of cash to this year’s Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition. Her blog, “International Aristocrat,” expresses disdain toward Shanghainese and the Auto exhibition itself.

mockery ::
Inevitably, there has been a backlash. Baidu’s Postbar has a high-traffic “anti-alternative” BBS discussion forum where members post examples of post-90s culture to mock the generation. The top post for the time being is a poll: “What do you hate most about alternative culture?” The choices (which include “A disgrace to Photoshop,” “Pigeon-toed and costumed (fake Japan-esque + fake punk),” and “fake cons, fake CK”) sketch out a rough picture of how “alternative” is seen in the popular imagination. Chun Baba turned his acerbic barbs onto alternative post-90s in a (hilarious!) fake news broadcast that rounds up some of the Photoshop abominations mocked on the Baidu post. Another video blogger cooked up a widely-reposted 17-minute-long rant blasting the worship of Korean and Japanese culture that inspires post-90s alternative fashion. Finally, Douban hosts the “Post-90s Who Are Not Like Post-90s” group whose 288 members announce that they are not “alternative” and that they “wear their clothing properly,” unlike the widespread image of “punky” and “rebellious” post-90s kids.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]

:: below is a screenshot of the tell-all Chinese Internet tabloid blog chinaSMACK.com’s homepage at the time of writing. Hacked? Blocked? Your thoughts? From the : “chinaSMACK cannot be access right now. Denial of Service (DoS) attack since this afternoon. Do not know why. Cannot stop it. Only wait / hope.” H/T Joel.  // AjS

:: as mentioned a couple months ago, I’ve been trying my hand at lomography. Below is the result of my continued struggle to make sense of this silly hipster gadget. The slideshow has few good snaps (all luck) taken at the MIDI festival in Zhenjiang and a spattering of other places around Shanghai. Enjoy.  // AjS

:: I recently had the opportunity to chat with an ex-Red Guard. This ex-Red Guard kindly allowed me to photograph some documents and things from his experience during the Cultural Revolution as a middle school student, and his participation in the national “down to the countryside, up to the mountains” (下乡, 上山) campaigns as a teenager / twenty-something. I have done some photoshop’ing on these photos to conceal the identify of this ex-Red Guard, but I can assure you, these are genuine artifacts straight from his scrapbook.  // AjS

:: below is a patch that was sewed onto the clothing (chest) of Red Guards, it reads: “Red Guard, Shanghai City Middle School Red Guard Representative Meeting, Yangpu Military Zone.” (Before the Cultural Revolution, Yangpu was, and is now, simply referred to as a “district,” it was “militarized” for purposes of the 10 year campaign.)

:: below is a certificate stating this ex-Red Guard’s participation in the Shanghai City, Wusong Middle School Red Guard Representative Meeting. The handwritten / cursive Chinese script to the left and right of Chairman Mao’s bust reads: “Rely on the helmsman when sailing the seas, rely on Mao Zedong thought when carrying out revolution (大海航行靠舵手, 干革命靠毛泽东思想).”

:: below is the outside front and back cover of a Red Guard passbook. The front cover (right) simply says: Red Guard (vertically), and Shanghai City Wusong Middle School Team / Unit (horizontally). The back cover (left) says: “The Three Main Rules of Discipline (三大纪律): 1) obey orders in all your actions, 2) do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses / people, and 3) turn in everything captured. The Eight Points for Attention (八项注意): 1) speak politely, 2) pay /price fairly for what you buy / sell, 3) return everything you borrow, 4) pay for anything you damage, 5) do not hit or swear at people, 6) do not damage crops, 7) do not take liberties with women, and 8) do not ill-treat captives.”

:: below is the inside front and back cover of a Red Guard passbook. The inside front cover (left) is a quote from Lin Biao (essentially second in command during the first half of the Cultural Revolution, 1966 – 71) that reads: “Read Chairman Mao’s books. Listen to Chairman Mao’s words. Follow Chairman Mao’s instructions on how to handle affairs. Be Chairman Mao’s Good Soldiers.” The inside back cover reads: “August 20, 1966. Red Guard certificate. Second year of middle school (the handwritten “中二” just above the photo).”

:: below is a public transit pass for this ex-Red Guard / “sent down educated youth” to use when returning home (Shanghai City, Yangpu District) from the countryside; dated May 12th, 1973.

:: taken in Shanghai at the vegetable / meat market (2nd floor) on Wulumuqi Rd. close to the Wuyuan Rd. intersection. The owners of one stand at the market have two small children that spend a lot of time with their parents at work. As a result, the walls of their shop are covered with all sorts of fun, playful ink drawings. I only had time to snap this lone photo, but there are probably hundreds of small characters in dozens of different scenarios dotting the walls. Isn’t it interesting how all the characters in this scenario are looking down to the right?  // AjS

:: I recently featured the work of Neocha.com-user Raindrops (a Chinese illustrator / animator), but what didn’t make it into that slideshow was the below illustration. I ran across it on her profile here. Is this a vagina?

I consulted a female friend. 55: “Is this a vagina or am I perverted?” Female Friend: “Wow, nope, that’s a vag. A new age Georgia O’Keefe if I’ve ever seen one. Ha, I approve, though I’m getting flashbacks of this disturbing Pedro Almodóvar film called Talk to Her where people walked inside a vagina.”

Your thoughts?  // AjS

[full disclosure: 56minus1 is a partner at Neocha.com]

:: taken in Shanghai on Jiangsu Rd. near Dongzhu’anbang Rd. While getting a button fixed at a local tailor shop, I couldn’t help but notice the shelves full of colorful thread.  // AjS

:: despite my near complete inability to manipulate HTML and CSS, I’m attempting to make some cosmetic changes to 56minus1’s theme. As you can probably tell, I have already screwed some things up…sigh. Have no fear, all will be back in place soon (and hopefully improved).  // AjS

:: an excellent animated film titled The Face (面) by Chinese multimedia designers Ray Lei (雪磊) and Chai Mi (柴觅), AKA Ray and Penny. The film was apparently awarded the Best Art Design in Animation at an International Animation Festival (still looking for details / link) and was Ray and Penny’s graduation project for the Academy of Art & Design at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2007. They both have degrees in animation from the prestigious university. The below video is also on Tudou for faster loading in China. I’ve written about Ray’s work before on 56minus1, link here for more. Bravo, well done.  // AjS

:: a slideshow by the creative force behind the Beijing-based independent design brand Odi Et Amo and Neocha.com-user Wang Shaobei (王晓贝). I met Shaobei at this year’s MIDI Music Festival in Zhenjiang and was refreshed by his confidence, he told me then (and reiterated on his Neocha blog): “We will make the #1 independent and original brand in China. If we can think it, we can do it. Nothing is impossible in youth. A lot of people have similar ideas, but the difference is that I am going to make it happen. I believe in us, we have youth, we will do it.”  Check out a video interview with Shao Bei to learn more about Shaobei, his brand, and his world domination plans. See some of his designs below.  // AjS

[full disclosure: 56minus1 is a partner at Neocha.com]

:: a great 2D animation short titled 胡同的梦 (Hutong Dream) by Li Chao (李超), an undergraduate student at China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Li made this video as part of a Digital Media Workshop. Through a series of interrupted dreams, the animation shows a lonely old man’s blurred perception of reality as his monotonous life hurdles toward its end – death. Bravo, well done.  // AjS

:: the lovely and formidable Mrs. Jenny Zhu recently interviewed me about the Chinese creative community, emerging youth culture, and social media in China. Check it out on her blog. Please pardon the pink  // AjS

:: anyone who reads 56minus1 regularly knows I love sneakers and that I’m a Ray Lei (雪磊) fanboy. So, there was no way I wasn’t going to like this collaboration. I’m just surprised it took me so long to find these. See below for two excellent productions by Ray, an extraordinarily talented multimedia designer based in Beijing.

The first one was for Nike’s Innov8 (创意沙龙) campaign and, I think, in support of the brand’s 706 interactive / multimedia exhibit last year in Beijing’s 798 art district. The 706 exhibit showcased – in a way only Nike can shamelessly pull off – 100 of the company’s most innovative accomplishments in footwear and apparel design. Pretty cool actually.

The second one, titled Moon Landing Plan, was shown at the Nike Dunk art exhibition in Shanghai last March. See Ray’s blog for some photos from the event, link here. Ou Ning, who also showed work at the exhibition, did a post on it too, link here.

Both works are great, and further examples of brands successfully engaging China’s creative community. Bravo, well done.  // AjS

:: taken in Shanghai inside Even Penniless, a women’s boutique on Changle Rd., near Ruijin Rd. I quite like this shop, it’s full of minimalist black, white, and grey clothing designed by Shanghai-based fashionisto Gao Xin. There is not a woman on the planet that wouldn’t look great in his stuff. I wish he had a men’s line.  // AjS