The Research on the Popularity of Ding Zhen, a Young Chinese Ethnic Minority Man, and Reasons and Effects of His Negative Online Memes Fascination

Abstract

In 2020, Ding Zhen, a Tibetan youth in China, became popular on the Internet for a short video, and after he became popular and received strong support from the official media, his popularity declined due to the exposure of his earlier smoking video, and there were even many memes made based on his shortcomings that contained flirtatious and ironic meanings. This paper adopts the method of questionnaire survey and study of past literature to come up with the reasons for the popularity of Ding Zhen and its memes appearing and being spread and the influence of these memes being spread. Reasons are: First, the rebellion against the mainstream narrative to create a perfect public image for Ding Zhen; Second, the role of the pan-entertainment deconstruction and the Internet carnival phenomenon. In terms of impact, the paper argues that these online obsessions can intensify gender antagonism in cyberspace, contribute to the trend of pan-entertainment on social platforms, and adversely affect the outreach of China's minority policies.