Uncovering Chinese Internet Culture

Do you scan new acquaintances’ WeChat codes, or offer your phone to be scanned? Ever wondered what Nicki Minaj’s Chinese nickname is on Weibo?

For the past two years, Chinese-American ethnographer Christina Xu has been delving into these neglected, human stories of contemporary Chinese culture for online project Multi Entry, an online collection of essays and media about the lives of young creatives in China.

During a talk at NYU Shanghai, Xu explained her motivation for studying lowbrow vernacular culture was to help change perceptions of the country abroad.

“Growing up in the U.S., our view of China is either of the country’s political leaders, factories belching smog or a market we can do business with, but it’s never about the people and we never get to hear about interesting pop culture. I wanted to change that,” she said.

Christina's past work includes co-founding ROFLCon, the US's first internet culture conference/convention. She is also the global coordinator for the Awesome Foundation, a grassroots guerilla philanthropy movement.

Here she speaks with Arts professor Clay Shirky about the challenges of interpreting digital culture, the unique perspective of doing fieldwork as a part-time haigui (a Chinese person who has returned to the mainland after studying abroad), and stories from the field.