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author | cucumber soda

being an idol of any kind is risky.

even sports heroes in the national sense may face the moment of being completely attacked.

gu ailing may have a deep understanding of this.

in just two years, she went from being a rising star to the most controversial public figure today.

gu ailing, who was once known as a genius girl, is now called the "contemporary lu bu" who "works c in the morning and a in the evening". there is even a popular school of thought about her - "gu studies".

on august 21, gu ailing posted a douyin video, making this day the most important day in gu's academic history.

in the video, gu ailing dances and launches an all-out war against the "black fans".

she listed her medal achievements over the years one by one: winning 39 medals for china, introducing 3 head coaches to the national team, donating freestyle skis to the national team, and speaking out for china and women in the world.

in bold red font below is a kennedy-style question: what have the black people done for the country?

the sentence "what have the black fans done for the country" caused a huge uproar and became the fuse for the campaign against gu ailing.

gu ailing overlooked a simple logical loophole, that is, dislike gu ailing = haters. therefore, even if many onlookers are not the "haters" mentioned by gu ailing, they were also angered by this "pointing at the nose and scolding" question: don't the people have the right to dislike gu ailing?

after this indiscriminate stone was thrown into the crowd, it hurt almost all chinese netizens, whether they liked her or disliked her.

it's very simple.heizi pays taxes for the country.the chinese market that gu ailing's commercial endorsements are aimed at is also made up of the wallets of "black fans".

the taxes paid by every "black fan" who works hard to survive and works overtime 996 together constitute gu ailing's generous income over the years.

everyone knows that the two gold medals of the winter olympics were "exchanged" to a certain extent. originally, everything was fine, but the trading party jumped on their head and opened fire. as the chinese old saying goes, you should not hit a smiling person, but in the end, the face was swollen.

interestingly,gu ailing’s main public opinion platform, xiaohongshu, was the first to fall.

two years ago, anyone who dared to write a negative review of gu ailing on xiaohongshu would be attacked by a group of users. the strange logic of "disliking gu ailing = disrespecting women" prevailed here. now, gu xue has become a hot topic on xiaohongshu, and negative comments about gu ailing are "wildfires cannot be extinguished, spring breeze blows and they grow again."

those netizens who once defended her were forced to admit that this mixed-race athlete aka asian-american internet celebrity is no longer "your good friend" as she once was.

there is one good thing about chinese people: they like to insult others in a roundabout way.

netizens imitated gu ailing's video template and responded to gu ailing's question:

“i participated in 41 pinduoduo events on my own behalf in the past five years”

"as an 88vip in the past 5 years, i have participated in 44 discounts"

“i bought 39 bags of cat food online for my cats.”

“bought 39 electrical appliances for the home”

"helped 3 friends to cash out on pinduoduo"

“donate saplings to ant forest”

every generation has its own slave named lu bu.

the spoofs and ridicules are becoming more abstract and humorous. someone imitated gu ailing's template and filmed a video of lv fengxian as well.

over the past five years, he participated in 41 battles on behalf of the han dynasty, recovered 39 cities for the han dynasty, eliminated the treacherous minister dong zhuo for the han dynasty, trained more than a thousand cavalry for the han dynasty, and donated horses to the han dynasty.

what did heizi do for dahan?

gu ailing’s overseas social media accounts also collapsed one after another.

the most representative one is gu ailing's instagram account. on the surface, life seems peaceful, but when you click on the comment section of the first few posts, it is almost covered with dense chinese comments.

talented people emerge in every generation, and chinese netizens never need to use dirty words when scolding others. therefore, gu ailing has gained a lot of her own nationality jokes.

"gu ailing looks at changjin lake: tears flow from her left and right eyes, one flowing to the yellow river, the other flowing to the mississippi river."

"early c and late a, 8 hours of chinese. cordyceps sinensis, i will be a chinese in the next winter olympics."

"why can gu ailing walk the red carpet in cannes? because she successfully played a chinese in the 2022 winter olympics."

"your excellence is not because you are so capable, but because the spring breeze of reform and opening up first blew to your mother."

"the people of china should give ailing their entire annual gdp, otherwise ailing is equivalent to doing voluntary labor."

no matter from which angle you look at it, gu ailing has indeed failed miserably.

her public favorability has almost been reduced to zero, and she herself shows no signs of renewing her favorability with the chinese people.

if we examine gu ailing's history of "falling", we will find that people who like gu ailing, perhaps out of admiration for the strong, have an indelible filter of national hero for the olympic champion; but those who hate her, although for different reasons, are unprecedentedly united at the moment.

some people questioned her character.

gu ailing frequently made her presence felt at this year's paris olympics, dominating the hot searches like a qin emperor sweeping the world. her every move took up traffic that should have belonged to other athletes. compared to a ski athlete, gu ailing's identity is closer to a sports celebrity, kardashian.

to put it in one sentence, "qiuya is getting married, and you are here singing and dancing."

for the chinese, who regard humility as a virtue, when they are in someone else's home ground, they should help the other person to succeed, rather than standing in front of the protagonist and stealing the limelight.

the photos of gu ailing with quan hongchan, zhang yufei and pan zhanle were all questioned by netizens as "riding on the popularity".

it was clearly the highlight moment for the national diving and swimming teams, but gu ailing stood in the center position at an inappropriate time, and it even had a flavor of "a star meeting fans". in contrast, after zheng qinwen, who had the biggest impact on her commercial status, won the women's tennis final, gu ailing, the queen of interpersonal relationships, did not take a photo with him or send him congratulations, but left immediately after watching the game.

during the olympics, after a video of her intimate conversation with french swimmer marchand in a nightclub was leaked, gu ailing's reputation fell again.

since ignoring coach wang shun's handshake invitation, marchand has almost taken over the quota of insulting china in the entire olympics. gu ailing seemed to have unfollowed marchand on instagram to protect herself, but then she was in a nightclub with him.

in addition, gu ailing's like for the american swimming team (because all the members of the american swimming team had "purple potato" faces, netizens questioned the possibility of taking banned drugs), triggered the alarm of insulting china, and the public was alarmed. no matter how smooth gu ailing was, she could not cope with this wave of surging national sentiment.

in addition, netizens also dug out a picture she posted on instagram.

the picture shows a ranking chart of the freestyle skiing world cup in calgary. gu ailing ranked first in the u-shaped field skills competition, but she used a black caption to block out another chinese player zhang kexin who ranked second.

as a freestyle skier, if you search for "zhang kexin", you will find that she is far less popular than gu ailing, and almost no one knows this athlete.

many more expressed dissatisfaction with her nationality.

"patriotism is your lie." beijing girls and leek boxes are just fashion items. the truth is "make money in china and pay taxes in the united states."

the winter olympics had just ended, and gu ailing's "thank you china" and a private plane made the enthusiastic hands that the general public had just extended to her stand in the air.

while the public was still immersed in the rise of skiing in china, gu ailing had already returned to stanford and started her real life as a white female elite.

netizens who had just woken up from their dream came to their senses: it turns out that in china it is work, and in the united states it is life.

the "leek box" who was the talk of the town at that time is now being questioned for imitating others' posed photos and putting on a show.

in the women's snowboard u-shaped field qualifying competition before gu ailing won the championship, a maltese athlete quickly stood out with a bean paste bun in her hand while waiting for the scores to be announced.

perhaps inspired by her peers, the keen-nosed gu ailing also contributed a famous scene of grabbing a leek pie with her hands.

a video clip from a third-party perspective shows that before facing the camera, gu ailing turned around and urged the staff to pass her some buns. the staff said there were no more buns, and her mouth shape seemed to be cursing "fuck". then she quickly took the leek box handed to her by the staff. her expression instantly changed to that of a sunny and cheerful girl, and she ate the cooled leek box in front of the camera.

this video immediately ignited the "anger of chinese netizens after their national sentiments were exploited", and people suddenly realized: it turns out that eating leek dumplings in the snow was just a way to make a movie.

finally, gu ailing’s political stance is also shaky.

in the comments section of her tiktok, one netizen wrote in english, "you betrayed the country that raised you."

gu ailing’s answer is a classic that will be passed down forever, and the word “which one” fully demonstrates her privileged style.

although there is no factual error in this statement, it still angered chinese netizens: this is a typical case of "eating in the east and staying in the west", wanting to eat from both sides.

netizens used gu ailing’s classic quote “chinese in china, american in america” to ask gu ailing: if that’s the case, then what nationality are you in france?

some people even imitated the questioning zhou shouzi received at the us hearing and also took it to gu ailing's comment area to flood the screen:

which country are you a citizen of?

do you have chinese nationality?

do you hold citizenship of any other country?

are you a u.s. citizen?

which country's passport should i hold when entering french customs?

gu ailing didn't answer anyone.

she continued to post beautiful photos of herself endorsing luxury goods and showing off her introductory quantum physics course at stanford.

dual citizenship has different regulations in different countries and regions.

according to u.s. law, the united states allows the existence of dual or multiple citizenship, and has corresponding laws and regulations to restrict such citizens.

however, according to article 9 of my country's nationality law, chinese citizens who have settled in foreign countries and voluntarily join or obtain foreign nationality will automatically lose their chinese nationality. this provision clarifies that chinese citizens who have settled in foreign countries and voluntarily join or obtain foreign nationality will no longer retain their chinese nationality, reflecting the clear provisions and implementation of the nationality law on nationality changes.

simply put, us law recognizes dual citizenship or multiple citizenship, while chinese law does not recognize dual citizenship. if you have foreign citizenship, your chinese citizenship will automatically be lost.

faced with controversy, gu ailing never directly answered the question of two passports. instead, she cleverly positioned herself as a "world citizen" and skillfully avoided huge political risks.

trying to jump back and forth between the two superpowers is an extremely difficult task in itself. with one foot in two countries, one will face the possibility of pleasing neither side.

rachel bachman, senior sports reporter for the wall street journal, summarized gu ailing's skill in profiting from the two superpowers as "strenuously apolitical". only by maintaining neutrality can political risks be avoided to the greatest extent. this safe rhetoric of "a bridge between chinese and american cultures" can guarantee her huge commercial value.

all of this is based on the premise that gu ailing "does not say the wrong thing" and is highly dependent on a stable and mature business operation team.

once gu ailing changes from a team operator back to an individual "person", the risks that were once suppressed under the surface will emerge one after another and cannot be suppressed.

from the outside, the chinese public’s backlash against gu ailing’s reputation is a mindless venting of national sentiment, but in fact it is not.

as early as 2022, the controversy over dual nationality has never stopped. but as long as gu ailing wins face for the chinese in the gold medal, while keeping close to the ground and blending in with the crowd, most of the gentle and honest chinese will still open their arms.

the charm of mature business operations lies in the fact that what the chinese public likes is "being rich and kind". when a powerful mixed-race person talks to you in fluent beijing dialect about whether the leek dumplings are delicious, many hidden contradictions and problems are "beautified" under this seemingly "equal" appearance.

but if one marketed a positive and patriotic persona in china and identified with chinese culture, while on the other hand acting as a spiritual white woman in america's upper-class social circles, one of them would eventually become unable to tolerate this double-faced behavior for too long.

columnist mark dreyer has previously raised the possibility of such a reversal: "once discovered by people in both countries, anyone who says one thing to the west and another to china will irritate people in both countries at the same time."

gu ailing's current behavior and remarks have broken the balance that the public took for granted in the early years.

how to annoy the kindest people in the world - the easiest way is to look down on them.

gu ailing once liked a comment on tiktok, which read: those chinese netizens who bully you are all unemployed people who live a miserable life and can only bark like dogs.

this sentence has now become the evidence that "gu ailing looks down on the lower class people in china."

gu ailing’s biggest problem is the arrogance of elitism and the lack of awareness of her own success as a sophisticated egoist.

"what have the black fans done for the country" is a perfect example of replacing logic.

when a person's achievements, accomplishments, and capital are not as good as another person's, that person is not qualified to comment on those who are more successful than him. in other words, the chinese people who have never won an olympic gold medal are not qualified to comment on gu ailing.

this is a typical meritocracy trap, that is, since you are not as good as me, you are not qualified to criticize or evaluate me.

most of gu ailing's supporters will use "you don't have an olympic gold medal so you are not qualified to comment on gu ailing" as a weapon. but in fact, as a sports star who has clearly commercialized her personal ip, everyone is qualified to comment on her, and seeing the gold medal, the knees don't have to be so weak.

when facing controversy in 2022, gu ailing also publicly stated that those who attacked her were not well educated people, she would not waste time appeasing these people, and those who did not like her would never become olympic champions.

this is a very classic american white mean girl attack.

olympic champions are like plus-sized versions of cheerleader captains, sorority presidents, and top student representatives, while the so-called "haters" are just a bunch of losers who "weren't invited to the party."

"i'm not going to waste my time trying to appease uneducated people who haven't experienced the gratitude and love that i feel every day. if someone doesn't believe in me or doesn't like me, then it's their own loss. they're not going to be an olympic champion."

“I’m not going to waste my time trying to placate people who are uneducated, and don’t experience the gratitude and love I have on a daily basis.” Then a twist of the knife. “If they don’t believe me, and if people don’t like me, that is their loss: they are never going to win the Olympics.”

the most important thing is that gu ailing has earned money that she would not have earned otherwise. this real traffic was indeed given by china.

if she stayed in the united states, she would not have stood out from the skiing sport and gained huge publicity and commercial opportunities. the prize money for skiing events is much less profitable than sports such as tennis.

in china, the appearance of gu ailing perfectly meets the psychological expectations of the people: curiosity and liking for mixed-race people, worship of western blood, and the sense of satisfaction of naturalized foreigners.

according to the list of the world's highest-paid female athletes in 2023 released by forbes, gu ailing, as the only skier, ranked second among all tennis players, second only to tennis player swiatek.

an interesting statistic is that gu ailing's on-court income (tournament prize money) is only 100,000 us dollars, while her off-court income (advertising endorsements) is as high as 22 million us dollars (about 150 million rmb).

according to incomplete statistics from the media, the advertisers signed by gu ailing in recent years include but are not limited to porsche, louis vuitton, cadillac, estee lauder, victoria's secret, luckin coffee, yuanqi forest, anta, mengniu, by-health, shuguoyuan and more than 30 other brands.

from high-end fashion to daily personal care, advertising has made her a lot of money. this is enough to prove the success of the operation of gu ailing's ip.

there are so many hard-working athletes in china, but only a few of them can earn hundreds of millions of yuan.

what’s funny is that those who once deified gu ailing have now turned to zheng qinwen, gu ailing’s biggest competitor in commercial value.

gu ailing's former club, img, is the world's largest marketing and economic management company with the broadest business scope and specializes in sports and entertainment. zheng qinwen is also an athlete under img, and the two can be considered as former colleagues of some kind.

ever since zheng qinwen won the women's tennis olympic championship, many people have called her the queen wen who replaced gu ailing.

in particular, zheng qinwen has no confusing nationality issues, and her star-chasing is also very legitimate. netizens call her a pure-blooded chinese woman who has been a c-star from morning till night, a true people's soldier.

"guzi, the water of patriotic rice is too deep, you can't grasp it."

looking back at the entire incident, we can only say that gu ailing’s current public relations team does not understand the chinese people. they even lack the basic common sense that “water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it.”

the weight of the sentence "what did the haters do?" is as strong as li jiaqi's sentence "how is a 79-yuan eyebrow pencil expensive?"

there is a sentence in george orwell's animal farm: "all animals are equal, some are more equal than others."

this is how the world works, it just depends on who can expose this truth.

in today's society with a widening gap between the rich and the poor and class anxiety, gu ailing's superior remarks are like pouring a spoonful of hot oil on the heads of ordinary people.

if you still remember the sentence from his early years, "having said this, my privilege has been fully demonstrated", then you must feel uncomfortable with the subtle elitism in gu ailing.

in the eyes of many netizens who are dissatisfied with gu ailing, she made the most basic mistake, which is that after enjoying all kinds of preferential treatments, she did not know the principle of "quit while she is ahead".

gu ailing naively attributed her achievements to her own efforts and talent, and kept silent about the support of her own resources. this kind of unconscious superiority and arrogance ignited the most primitive class anger——

who is the post-00s generation who truly represents china?

is it gu ailing, who enjoys both haidian education and american resources but repeatedly emphasizes her own efforts, or those ordinary children who get up at five o'clock to attend morning self-study?

the children of the four provinces don’t go to stanford university and don’t earn hundreds of millions in endorsement fees. is it because they don’t work hard enough?

in addition to domestic voices, many netizens whose ip locations are shown to be overseas are also the main force in the crusade against gu ailing.

due to the nationality dispute, overseas chinese cannot enjoy the same preferential treatment as gu ailing, who can come and go freely.

ultimately, she ignited the two most simple words in the hearts of all chinese people: fairness, fairness, and fairness.

when fairness is subverted, for ordinary people, the person with the highest exposure rate is most likely to become the target of public sentiment.

gu ailing’s failure is not just an after-sales issue after the cooperation between the two parties.

over the course of two years, everyone gradually discovered that her mother and team had accurately grasped the chinese people's hunger for gold medals, and used their mixed-race, elite, academically elite, and patriotic identities to take advantage of the information gap and make money.

but in truth, she may be no different from any other opportunistic white elite.

gu ailing’s previous persona was a beijing girl who loved to eat leek dumplings, but now everyone realizes that she is essentially still a mean girl white girl from the bay area of ​​california, a kardashian who is seriously trying to climb the social ladder in the upper class.

mean girl is not just a derogatory term, but a group of people. most of them go to expensive private high schools in the united states, like to show off, are good at sports, and date the captain of the football team. their most distinctive feature is that they look down on the poor.

gu ailing once posted a photo on her instagram account, showing her running on a treadmill while looking at a computer full of study materials. just like she has emphasized countless times that she is an "olympic champion" and a "full-time student at stanford", the image of a top student is the best harvester of the psychology of admiring the strong.

maybe the comment she wanted to hear was "people who are better than you work harder than you", but whose life is easy? the rebellious audience can no longer swallow this overly greasy chicken soup.

this famous "running learning picture" has also become a topic of ridicule for many netizens.

after the first domino falls, we cannot predict the subsequent chain reactions.

her makeup, her hair color, a sentence she once said in an interview, a post she made, and a photo of her with us democratic candidate harris all serve as tools for the public to criticize her.

she once replied to netizens in the comment section that her hair was not black and she had to dye it black twice a year. but in the documentary about her, she did have standard black hair as a teenager and looked close to asian.

so when netizens saw her now iconic blonde hair, they were furious. even for pure-blooded anglos, the probability of being born with blonde hair is very small. i didn't expect that gu ailing, as an asian, also shares the blonde anxiety of white people.

one netizen commented that it actually has nothing to do with the hair color itself, but that gu ailing keeps emphasizing that 50% of her genes belong to white people, and those who admire her also tacitly accept this value, as if the most valuable part of her is the half of her genes that do not belong to the chinese nation.

the most important thing for gu ailing right now is not to angrily criticize the haters, but to silently recite the famous quote at the beginning of "the great gatsby" several times:whenever you want to criticize someone, remember that not everyone in this world has their own advantages.

she was so eager to show off that her achievements were based on her genius that she ignored the fact that she enjoyed resources and privileges that many people could never imagine in their lifetime.

if you enjoy these, don't keep shouting and selling the word "hard work". but for gu ailing, perhaps she really believes that all this is based on her personal efforts.

her strong meritocracy makes her lack basic empathy for the vast majority of the people. this is a common problem among the upper elites, but some people disguise themselves very covertly, while others never learn to disguise themselves.

the irony of meritocracy is that individuals despise everyone below their own circle. they ignore the external conditions for their own success, and these prerequisites are resources that most people will never be able to reach in their lifetime.

the more we see ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the less likely we are to care about the fate of those less fortunate than ourselves. if my success is my own doing, then their failure must be their own fault. this logic shows how meritocracy erodes our sense of commonality. the idea that we are personally responsible for our own fate is so strong that it makes it difficult for us to empathize.

the arrogance of the elite reflects the tendency of successful people to become overly intoxicated with their success and not remember the timing and good fortune that contributed to their success. those who reach the top smugly believe that their success is their due, while those at the bottom have it to blame. this attitude is the moral accompaniment of technocratic governance. (michael sandel, the arrogance of the elite)

from her controversial interview with reuters, we can see that she really came here to popularize "chinese skiing" and become a sports idol for more young people. she has never concealed her wish.

but this aspiration is still too elitist.

for the vast majority of grassroots chinese families, skiing is a sport with high per capita costs. rather than popularizing skiing, what they are more likely to need is the construction of more public sports venues and facilities to lower the cost and threshold of national sports and give children in every family the opportunity to get in touch with sports.

"growing up in the u.s., there are so many great idols to look up to, but in china, there are fewer. my influence in china is much greater than in the u.s., which is why i made this decision (to represent china)."

this is ultimately a misplaced expectation.

the traces of china that were once promoted vigorously quickly disappeared with the end of the winter olympics. gu ailing, who remained on instagram, is an internet celebrity who wanders between fashion blockbusters and top white people. she walks red carpets all over the world, shows off her figure at the met gala, takes photos with harris and musk, and constantly proves her mother gu yan's shrewd business layout with her elite status.

every time she showed disdain for the lower class people, it constituted every spit that flew towards her today.

when you finish your hard 996 job and return to your shared apartment, you see gu ailing holding a box of laundry detergent beads from a certain brand on the dim advertising screen in the elevator, with a classic american smile still on her face.

her olympic gold medal did not change the lives of ordinary people.

in the current era of deglobalization, as a two-sided idol, gu ailing finally experienced her first storm.