Unmasking a Gendered Materialism

This chapter analyses some of the cultural methods behind the seemingly comedic madness of “cigarette masks.” Rather than casting them aside as senseless, the chapter looks into the “cigarette mask memes” as a scholarly portal, seeing them as imagistic gateways for understanding air filtration in contemporary China. For one thing, the memes gesture to an uncanny backstory hitherto untold regarding China's current market for home air purifiers. This is a backstory heavily tied to the development of an air filtration product—the cigarette—manufactured across China in far greater numbers today than home purification units. The chapter also discusses a variety of materially tangible filters, ones that are manufactured currently for daily use across China and are ostensibly providing people immediate access to cleaner air. The smallest of the filters mentioned are no bigger than a pinky finger and typically come twenty to a pack. The largest ones—free-standing air purifiers—come encased in plastic and metal, as small as a toaster or as large as a multi-drawer file cabinet.