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Explainer | From hero to zero: How Weibo’s star-making ‘super hashtags’ became target of censorship
- Called Chaohuas, these online groups launch celebrities into new stratospheres of stardom
- But they are a target for government regulations and low-hanging fruit for recent censorship
Reading Time:4 minutes
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Chinese celebrities are under the microscope unlike any time in recent memory as China’s central government tries to regulate the industry on two fronts: censoring celebrities who behave poorly, and muffling fan bases that often cross lines into unacceptable behaviour.
This summer, high-profile celebrities have been censored so thoroughly that Chinese netizens likened it to a black hole created by the gravitational collapse of a star.
Caught in the middle of this fandom clampdown is a Weibo tool called a Chaohua. Often described as a “super hashtag” or “super topic”, it creates an easy-to-find online home for celebrity-obsessed fans in China.
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Chin Yik Chan, an associate professor at Beijing Normal University and an expert in Chinese media, said a Chaohua is “like a WeChat or WhatsApp group with ‘super topics’”.
“They are dedicated to one topic or one celebrity and many fans of celebrities create these kinds of pages,” Chin said.
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These types of pages, or “fan groups” are called fan quans (fan circles), a term used to describe the phenomenon on platforms beyond Weibo. Chaohuas refer to the pages only on Weibo.
China’s push for celebrity-culture reforms has brought more attention to Chaohuas, so let’s break down this influential tool and see how can it be used to support and censor celebrities.
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