The Communist Party of China has begun banning users for “wealth-flaunting” behavior on social media as part of a wider effort to clamp down on “ostentatious” displays of wealth.
Wang Hongquanxing, who has been termed “China’s Kim Kardashian,” was suddenly banned across Chinese social media apps on May 28th for excessively bragging about his wealth, clothes, and jewelry.
The young male influencer owns seven properties in the Chinese capital of Beijing, often filming videos of his numerous sports cars and his full staff of maids and service workers in action. He proudly claims that he never leaves the house with less than 10 million yuan ($1.38 million) worth of clothing and accessories on his body, with a special fondness for Hermès handbags.
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But all of his clips disappeared when his Douyin account (the Chinese variant of TikTok, also owned and operated by ByteDance) was locked and rendered unavailable to his more than four million followers. When a user attempts to open his page, the company explains his account was suspended “due to violations of Douyin’s community guidelines.”
Wang has also been banned from Weibo and Xiaohongshu, two popular Chinese social media apps.
Similar influencers such as Bo Gongzi (who goes by “Young Wealthy Lord Bai” or “Mr. Bo”), with 2.9 million followers, and Baoyu Jiajie (Abalone Sister), with 2.3 million followers, were banned as well. The former posted videos of him carrying his dog around in his handbags, and the latter posted video tours of her mansions in the city of Macau near Hong Kong.
In April, the Chinese Cyberspace Administration, which regulates the country’s internet, announced it was launching a nation-wide initiative to crack down on influencers who “create a ‘wealth-flaunting’ [also translated as “ostentatious”] persona, deliberately showcasing a luxurious life built on money, in order to attract followers and traffic.”
“Once materialism starts spreading, it can have a bad influence on teenagers . . . Hence this trend of luxury on the internet needs to be stopped,” the government officials wrote in a statement.
This tracks with previous purges of content conducted by the Communist Party. In 2022, they announced a ban of livestreamers “displaying or hyping a large number of luxury goods, jewelry, cash and other assets.”
“When most people are unhappy with their own lives, they see all this online content that’s so disconnected from reality — seeing all these people who seem so happy and wealthy, it creates a pretty warped psychology,” said Lyla Lai, a former cosmetics influencer who had more than a million Douyin followers. She added that there are “concerns about young people today seeing too much of this stuff and not focusing on their studies anymore, getting caught up in this excessive, greedy materialism,” concerns she herself picked up on prior to leaving the platform due to outcry over her posting strategy, which included ostentatious posts about her luxurious lifestyle.
“In the long run, that’s definitely not good for development, so this cleanup is really necessary,” Lai added, who has relocated to Australia. “But at the root of it, we also need to see the economy being able to develop more, so people can have a greater sense of fulfillment and happiness in their lives, rather than just seeking psychological comfort through the internet.”
“It is likely that many people do see this sort of content as vulgar, particularly during an economic slowdown,” said Chinese internet expert Carwyn Morris, an academic at Leiden University. “So this conduct makes the authority seem more moral and upstanding in their actions.”
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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