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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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A snow storm out of nowhere

Part Two: March

In this post we continue to go through XZ’s situation, to better understand why he is where he is now. The ask that originated everything is here, with an index.

Disclaimer: I try to keep the content objective, but I am biased, by the kind of content I’m usually exposed to and by my own perception of their situation. I may be wrong, and language barriers and cultural differences have to be taken into account. If anyone wants to discuss this, please make sure you have enough information to do so.

I think that even with all the “darkness” this post has, it express also quite nicely why I think XZ won’t be defeated by this. We will see him again, let’s be patient.

So, taking from Part One, the next day public thought that XZ’s Studio and his team were trying to hush all the commotion. People were very very furious, looking for a way to vent their anger. Some said that the only way they’d let this go was that XZ retired from the entertainment industry.

Attacking his endorsements

That night, Olay was to air a live video with a product that XZ was going to endorse, and antis realized that they had a new way to express their anger. The comments and their interventions during the event made it impossible to progress adequately, and the announcement of XZ endorsing the product had to be put off.

Antis and haters realized the power they had, and started to announce that didn’t just reject the products endorsed by XZ, they also rejected the brands that worked with him. In the face of such controversy and boycott, many brands chose another spoke person temporarily for their commercials and banners, removing XZ’s from their websites.

From March, the antis centered themselves around the topic “Not buying products XZ endorses”, making his value go downwards. The brands he worked with decided to stay low for the time being and removed his image from their websites. Some even decided to terminate their contracts with him, in fear of being boycotted.

Douban

By the 3rd day ao3 was down, reality sank in and people turned to douban, were C/QL, The Joy of Life, Jade Dynasty were in the top 3, all of them series were XZ is lead actor or secondary actor. The antis placed bad reviews, to the point of bringing down the score of C/QL from 8’5 to 7’9 in a single day (we’re talking here of 1′5 million reviews as of today) and affecting every project he has worked on since the beginning of his career as an actor.

Public scorn

XZ as well as XZ fans became the objective of public scorn. From the 1st of March, some of the accusers apologized for “the problems caused”, and the one that had led the report posted a public apology and deleted every post related to the reporting. However, to the rest of the users it looked like they were apologizing against their will, and that they still thought they weren’t wrong, but were doing so in an effort to preserve XZ’s public image, as well as their own image as XZ’s fans.

The conflict ceased between XZ’s fans and the cp fans, now uniting in an effort to lesser the damage. They agreed to bring down the tone of the discussion, and once things cooled down a bit, XZ Studio posted a public apology, asking people to support their idol rationally, to speak and act carefully, as well as saying that XZ was currently quarantined at home.

Antis brought up more complaints about XZ’s fans. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that some of his fans had taken sometimes unreasonable measures to give him the spotlight, such as:

Making him the center of attention in a tv drama in which another actor was the male lead. They took over the community in w/ibo and started to delete all of the other actor’s fans from the group.

Some fans attacked WYB, so XZ wouldn’t have to “divide” his success from C/QL with him. They reported WYB for not having a “host degree” (whatever that is). This was shot down by a statement from Hunan TV, by the way.

Attacking whoever says that they don’t have any interest in XZ’s works (a professor was asked to have a look at his works, and he refused, so XZ’s stans started to attack him).

(Again, bear in mind that antis and hater and these kind of very obssesive fans are a minority, and they are greatly outnumbered by the rest of the people that like and support XZ in a much more rational way... but they make more noise, so to say).

Antis and people resenting XZ for the 2/27 incident wanted a scapegoat. So I think the resentful party wants the fans to know “so you take away this, I want your idol to pay for it” and antis… they have their own agenda, and that’s for another post.

XZ Studio’s apology didn’t do much and the drama continued to unfold. Maybe XZ’s Studio wanted to wait for the storm to pass, and since acknowledging the issue would give it importance, they waited until they couldn’t put it off anymore. I don’t know if this was actually right or wrong, but people weren’t satisfied with this apology. XZ’s fans would try to argue with the antis, and thus keeping the image of obsessive fans, even if many of them were actually right.

People were disappointed by the actions taken by his team and waiting for him to say something, but, to their disappointment, XZ didn’t express his opinion.

Other authors

Fanfiction writers, mostly from the BJYX fandom, would receive insults and attacks from antis and XZ’s stans still pursuing their original stance, so a lot of content has disappeared.

(To this point: I don’t like RPS. I don’t read RPS fanfics. I didn’t like seeing them and adjusted the filters in ao3 so I could only see fanfics from CQL. But attacking the authors this way is also terribly wrong).

Responsibility and consequences

XZ had previously signed up with many companies, with WJJW being the main stockholder. Since he was under so many companies, none of them wanted to take responsibility of the matter and try to solve it, so it was left to XZ’s Studio to try and fix it.

Investors, directors, brands’ representatives... they all thought that it’d take at least half a year for XZ to recover from this blow, and it also depends greatly on how his next work is received by the general public. He still has the support from his fans, but that alone wasn’t enough in the face of such boycott.

While later people who supported him appeared, there were voices at first too that asked him to take responsibility.

(These are influential people, and, while I’m not surprised that their stance was to support public opinion, as a public figure, you may find yourself in the future in the same position as XZ. To add oil to flames doesn’t seem very kind to me, but again, this is a competitive industry.)

Support

At the same time people criticized him and his studio for his management of the issue, prominent people stepped forward and talked in his behalf, like critics, directors, and even lawyers, talking about the legal aspect of the fanfiction, saying that, by Chinese laws, it was indeed violating the law.

(However, there was another article I agreed more with: not liking a content doesn’t give you the right to manage it. That’s the duty and right of the platform, in this case ao3. You may report the author and the work if you find it unsuitable for the platform, but to call the authorities on them is quite excessive).

It was also positive that in spite of everything, the sales of the products he endorsed remained high and in the lead in March, and the trend continued all the way to July. He’s still considered one of the most influential celebrities, taking usually the top 1. This is why his companies, agencies and his team hasn’t given up on him. As sad as it may sound, if he’s a profitable asset, they won’t give up on him, because he can still earn money for them.

Since the antis were spreading hate, rumours and false news, trying to damage XZ’s image, the fans also tried for the contrary. They posted about XZ’s kindness and polite gestures, to try to counter the antis’ attacks.

However, no matter how much his fans support him, the greatest help came from fellow acquaintances, coworkers and friends from the entertainment industry. It’s a reality that no matter how much a fan likes their idol, the average fan doesn’t know him personally. But that can’t be said of people who have worked with him.

People he had worked with (fellow actresses, critics, directors, screenwriters) supported him by posting comments defending and praising him, expressing their dismay about the antis or by praising him in livestream. For well-known people to step up and speak for him, when they could have stayed silent in fear of retaliation, it’s a true give away of XZ’s character and what these people think of his future, especially if we consider that they are facing a group of unreasonable antis.

(In fact, many of the people who supported him received hateful comments and were attacked for supporting him, but none of them took away their support, that I know of).

Happy Camp’s support

It was also a good sign that while brands still avoided his image, tv programs didn’t shy away from his image. Happy Camp emitted a video in which XZ appeared, so fans interpreted this as a sign of silent support from the program and the tv channel.

This was also very important. There have been cases before, when an actor was being seriously boycotted because he had been having an affair, that the tv stations refused to work with him. It got to the point that, when a episode had already been filmed, they used photoshop to erase his image and simply cut out all of his interventions and interactions with other participants .

See that space there, between the girl in blue and the guy with a suit? Such are the miracles of photoshop.

So if an actor has really committed a mistake, the entertainment industry will not hesitate to take away their support. It’s also a way to say that they disapprove of what that person did.

(To those who are curious, this man had been a very successful actor for many years. He was “happily” married and had a 20 years old son. But when people discovered that he had been keeping a mistress for almost two decades... he fell out of favor. Quick.)

XZ’s very brief appearance in Happy Camp was an auspicious sign for his future, meaning that tv stations are still willing to work with him and that his dramas will likely be aired in spite of everything.

(I’ve never been happier to wrong, since I thought this would take longer to pass at first. But when I thought about this carefully, I realized that anyone could see that XZ in himself isn’t at fault for what happened, so why would they reject him once the storm passes?).

The start of the public welfare project

So, in the midst of this situation, which was very serious at the time, XZ’s fans Public Welfare Group was founded, with the support of XZ’s Studio.

(This is actually quite common in China. A group of fans create a welfare group, and they do volunteering projects and others in the name of their idol. Many celebrities’ fans create a group like this when the fandom is big enough.)

I think it served to remind that idols can use their influence and unite a large group of people to serve purposes that are beneficial to the society (at least in Asia). It came in a “good” moment, because if nothing else, XZ can’t afford that the first that comes to mind to the general public when they see him or his fans is this small group of people, who are the representation of the worst part of his fans.

(Since this project has the support of his studio, he must know of it and must have given his approval. But he is not the one to actually initiate the project, that was a collective effort from his fans: to do welfare projects in his name. He collaborates with welfare projects, he had done it before, and did it again in June. This a reflection of a more positive part of fan quan culture, which will be explained in the next post).

However, because he was in the middle of great controversy and criticism, this move was also considered “hypocritical” and “insincere” by the antis. Nonetheless, the influence such a large group of people have is undeniable (in promoting local commerce in this case), and the local representatives thanked them for their support. They kept on with their projects these months, usually promoting agricultural products from impoverished provinces. They were also praised by the media for the results they achieved.

For those who are inclined to doubt whether this was a move to improve his image, here it’s a compilation of charity and public welfare projects that XZ’s fans pushed forward in 2019, collecting for numerous projects an amount of almost 450.000¥ and 620.000¥ as epidemic relief effort during the coronavirus period, that started in December 2019.

The welfare project was also a source of controversy later... but again, people always seem to find fault with everything you do.

#gg's situation #part 2 of 7 #my post

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