Why Cai Xukun and Yang Mi are still China's top celebrities
Boy band member Cai – in a row with a video company – and actress Yang – star of new variety show – are hottest topics of discussion on mainland social media platforms
This article was originally written by Yiling Pan for Jing Daily
Chinese boy band member Cai Xukun continues to be the most talked-about star on social media owing to his ongoing legal disputes with a video company.
He is ranked top of April’s R3 Celebrity Index – a monthly ranking of China’s most influential celebrities on the nation’s most important social media platforms, from Weibo and WeChat to Toutiao and Baidu.
The index, presented by the online publication, Jing Daily, and the global consultancy, R3, was launched in March.
On April 12, Cai sued Chinese video-streaming website, Bilibili, a platform that embraces user-generated video content, for the violation of his personal rights.
Last year, Cai filmed an official video playing basketball, when he was named as the brand ambassador of the NBA League in China.
His basketball skills, however, were strongly criticised by Chinese people, which led many online users to re-edit the NBA video to make jokes about him.
The lawsuit helped amass public interest. By surrounding himself with a lot of negative sentiment, Cai is a typical example of a Chinese celebrity whose name is well-known, but for all the wrong reasons.
Luxury brands need to be extremely cautious about working with him by fully assessing the benefits and drawbacks of the collaboration before pushing the “go” button.