Chinese state media weighs in on fandom debate crackdown as Beijing’s shake-up of the entertainment industry continues

Name: Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse to renounce Canadian citizenship amid China crackdown on its celebrities
Uploaded: 2021-09-15T01:03:08.000Z
Duration: 1 min 49 s
Description: Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse to renounce Canadian citizenship amid China crackdown on its celebrities

In the latest attack on fan culture, CCTV has lashed out at fan clubs and their behaviour

Beijing is cracking down on the entertainment industry including a boycott of ‘sissy idols’, ‘being overly entertaining’ and ‘vulgar internet celebrities’

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Hugely popular online games and celebrity culture are the latest targets in the ruling Communist Party's campaign to encourage China's public to align their lives with its political and economic goals. Photo: AP

Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen

Published: 9:03am, 15 Sep 2021Updated: 1:36pm, 21 Sep 2021

In a new official report on Tuesday, China’s state broadcaster CCTV bashed fan clubs and “malicious fandom culture” once again, amid an ongoing national crackdown on entertainment circles.

The CCTV report explored the hierarchy and behaviour of fan clubs. Within fandom circles, people have different tasks. A small percentage at the top is called “fan heads”, who give assignments to others to increase their idols’ exposure and encourage consumption.

A fan surnamed Chen told CCTV that the fan heads have contacts with stars’ agencies and have more access to stars’ schedules, so they can meet them at the airport and take their photos.

Therefore, the fan heads need to keep updating the idols’ latest news to attract fans and try to get the stars’ information out to the public and sometimes even sell private information, CCTV said.

“Some fan clubs update their idols’ itinerary every month and fans would pay 5 yuan (78 US cents) or 10 yuan (US$1.56) to buy information on the flights of stars arriving in Shanghai today,” a fan surnamed Gao said.

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Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse to renounce Canadian citizenship amid China crackdown on its celebrities

Furthermore, the fan heads sometimes crowdsource funds to hold birthday celebrations for the celebrities, buy them presents or buy digital albums. Some fan heads have even stolen money.