2024-09-08
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
151th episode host | yin qinglu
compiled by intern reporter ding xinyu
whether you are a fan of celebrities or a fan of the second dimension, you may have heard of "dream girls". dream girls come from the japanese word "夢女女", which refers to women who fantasize about falling in love with second dimension characters. as this group expands, dream girls of third dimension male stars and idols have also appeared in the past two years. unlike "girlfriend fans", dream girls do not pretend to be the girlfriend of the other party, but create a fictional passerby character to represent themselves and develop a fantasy romantic relationship with the other party.
if you have read the articles written by dream girls on xiaohongshu or weibo, you will find that the more subtle difference between dream girls and girlfriend fans is that the former often emphasize a feeling of humility of being unable to get love and being a moth to a flame. it is precisely because of this humility that their love seems particularly dreamy. the writing is mostly filled with damp and sad images such as "showers, convenience stores, ashtrays, and blue sweaters." there is a dream girl article regarded as a masterpiece on the weibo submission bot "@我都梦女了你让让" that describes the sad story of a friend who was already in love with a korean idol when she was chasing after him. in the past two years, the more mainstream discourse was "don't be in love", but now we seem to have a better understanding of women who are immersed in fantasy love, and there is an interesting psychological state change.
recently, several domestic rappers publicly dissed women in erotic games as "poisoned children" and believed that the partners in mobile phones "are not love", which triggered condemnation from many erotic game players, who accused them of having a stereotyped and thin imagination of women's love.
another interesting phenomenon about dream girls is that same-sex dream girl articles are also very popular. for example, imagine that jiang hailin, a member of the girl group newjeans, is "that gentle high school deskmate" and kong xueer is "the neighbor sister from my hometown". the articles focus on the ordinary stories of the dazzling female idols before they became famous. this also seems to mean that women's emotional projection does not always point to sexual affinity, admiration for the strong and domineering presidents, it can also point to mutual understanding between women.
dong ziqi：i thought of a song called "light chaser", the lyrics of which fit the dream girl's mentality very well: "i can follow behind you/like a shadow chasing the light in sleepwalking/i can wait at this intersection/regardless of whether you will pass by/every time i raise my head for you/even my tears feel free/some love is like heavy rain/but i still believe in rainbows", and it also emphasizesi am small and humble.a relationship like “you are the light and i am the shadow”.
if the dream girl is a new phenomenon, then the corresponding old work is the character bai yuting (played by jiang wenli) in "the mansion gate", who madly pursues the famous opera singer wanxiaobai yuting's love for wan ju has exceeded that of a fan's love for an idol, and she even wants to marry him. bai yuting held a formal wedding, dressed herself up as a bride, married wan's photos, and filled the new house with his records. but when bai yuting really moved him and he wanted to marry her, she refused again.
this is a very interesting mentality, as if if you are too close to your idol, you will be stained by the falling gold dust. i have seen criticisms before that women do not know how to distinguish between truth and falsehood, reading and consumption, and that women are all bovary-style readers. reading a book means eating it up, and chasing an idol means imagining that you possess him and absorbing the romantic feelings in the relationship. on the contrary, i think that dream girls need to keep a distance from the real person and the world outside the halo. photos, records and false relationships isolate her in a more perfect and safe world, and she does not want anyone to break this wall. falling in love with a role rather than a real person, this kind of enthusiasm and devotion comes from the magic of classics. the vitality of the role may be greater than the life of the individual in reality.
yin qinglu: i also found that the psychological state of dream girls is often very anxious. they are anxious that they can't really see the person they love, and the other party will never know their existence, but they are immersed in the painful and wet love.
the novel "dream girl" recently launched a chinese version. the author is a korean-american woman. it describes how the heroine gradually fell from a casual fan of a korean boy band to a toxic fan. the original name of the book is "y/n", which is the abbreviation of your name - in fan fiction, readers can substitute their own names and share experiences with stars who have never met in real life. this is an absurd and somewhat philosophical novel (let's not talk about this for now), but many parts are indeed the voice of the dream girl, with a little despair and sadness. there is a passage that fits the mentality of the dream girl very well:
but they would not walk side by side. on the street, she would always follow him, a few meters away, so that she could always be longing for him. they had reached a consensus that they loved each other, but postponed being together. they met 17 times in total before they began to touch each other.
xu luqing: the difference between dream girls and girlfriend fans is that dream girls need to create a second work. i have very little experience in chasing stars, and most of the girlfriend fans i come into contact with are fan fiction fans. girlfriend fans rarely imagine a completely new fictional self, while dream girls will not directly substitute into the fan fiction text. they need to create a character out of thin air outside the world of the original work, and then use this character to interact with men in love.
a counterexample is "reading romantic novels: women, patriarchy, and popular literature", which also talks about the elements of female fantasy, but summarizes women reading romantic novels as the domestication of patriarchy. women's love complex cannot be satisfied in heterosexual relationships, so they will put themselves into romantic novels and interpret men's cold-bloodedness and abuse of women as prodigals: he is always affectionate and full of tenderness, but his love is only shown to one woman in the end. unlike dream girls, the former is put into the framework of romantic novels and makes reality more palatable by misinterpreting the other party's intentions. dream girls are more subjective. they create their own images and generate the desired feelings with the objects of their desire.
yin qinglu: it feels like a stage of evolution. when we were in elementary and middle school, there was no such term as "dream girl", but the emotion of dream girl was very popular. at that time, the most popular thing was to ship cp (couple), and i was shipping the official male and female couple in the animation "fullmetal alchemist", edward and winry. the part that i can substitute for the dream girl is that i think edward is a person who does not exist but is better than existing - although he does not exist, he is more important and real than many existing people. i am very happy to ship cp, and i don't want to substitute myself at all. but at that time, one way to substitute yourself was to find a language cosplay, find a real person to partner with yourself, play the role separately, and then project emotions onto the partner.but in recent years, the two-dimensional circle has seen the emergence of "same-shoulder"rejectthe word "no" generally means refusing to communicate or contact with fans of the same person. there are also many dream girls who feel devastated when they think that so many people love the same person. i was very surprised by this and lamented the drastic climate change in the fan circle.
pan wenjie：everyone feels small and fragile, especially in such an uncertain world. people have the urge to create gods. the book "a short history of entertainment news: from gossip to the birth of popular culture" divides celebrities into four categories: movie stars, tv stars, reality show stars, and internet celebrities. movie stars have a different logic from other stars, and they occupy a quasi-god position in them. watching a movie is a ritual. you must first read the schedule, choose your seat, make an appointment with your companions, and make time before you are eligible to enter the theater. the audience is summoned by the movie and looks up at the huge screen in the dark. the image on the movie screen hovers in front of the audience. it is not controlled or changed by the audience. it is a distant, inaccessible, and fascinating established existence.
in comparison, the core asset of tv stars is intimacy. watching tv is an everyday behavior that can happen at any time, especially serial dramas or series. you can watch them at a fixed time every day. if you miss this one, there will be another one. tv is waiting for the audience's call. people can choose the size and placement of the tv, and each setting can be controlled by the audience. tv stars are like staying in a tv box. they can appear day after day by just pressing the remote control. but if you want to know about movie stars, you can only do it through extra efforts, such as buying magazines, chasing interviews, and collecting peripherals. so before, movie stars were god-like existences, and tv stars, including later reality show stars and internet celebrities, were closer to ordinary people who seemed very friendly in daily life.
but the book also talks about how the "colonization of internet celebrity logic" is happening due to changes in the media. even movie stars have to become internet celebrities now. they need to post their news and share their lives on weibo, as if they can be contacted by people on a daily basis. most people need this kind of intimate existence, but there is still a part of the need to look up to a god. the humble mentality and distance of the dream girl meet this need. when almost all stars are so close to people and their news is readily available, it is possible to create a god for yourself.
ziqi said that the charm of the role is greater than the charm of the person. i think keeping a distance is a manifestation of a desire for security. in the past, when we watched celebrities on traditional media, we went through a layer of filtering and screening, and we had no way of knowing the real situation of the celebrities, but now the stars may collapse at any time and anywhere. in the recently aired "talk show and his friends" program, yu zhen talked about the law of rapper collapse: "men collapse but not women collapse", in fact, leaving aside the rap circle, this is also true. if the god you like is so easy to collapse, the sense of security will completely disappear. at this time, it would be safer to create a god yourself.
yin qinglu: the contradiction wen jie just mentioned is very interesting. on the one hand, we want to keep a safe distance and treat him as a god, but on the other hand, the colonization of the logic of internet celebrities in reality does not allow us to really treat him as a distant god, because the logic of many idols now is to have intimate interactions.
when i was following newjeans, i found that idols would chat with fans. fans would send a few messages, and the other party would choose to reply from the fans' messages. the chat page was very similar to wechat. this deliberate intimacy gave people the illusion that they were the people around them, but they knew in their hearts that they could not have any real intimate contact with them.
i also saw a lot of posts about "how to adjust the mentality of a dream girl" and "how to cure your dream girl disease". the symptoms are that you want to get in touch with the "dream girl" (often referred to by the abbreviation mjg, which refers to the male character you fall in love with), but you can't get in touch with him, so you will use some different methods, such as spiritualism. some people say that they force themselves to feel the hair of the dream girl, and then they really feel like stroking his hair.
lin ziren: my understanding of dream girl is not limited to an imaginary love relationship. it is ultimately the behavior of women releasing their fantasies in a situation. looking back on my childhood, when i was in elementary school or the first grade of junior high school, i was considered《cardcaptor sakura》i imagined myself as a magical girl, a friend of sakura. later, cardcaptor released a newClear Cin the ard series, there is indeed a similar transfer student character, a girl named akiho.
women need such space to release their fantasies, which can help to form self-awareness, personal identity, or some of their own characteristics to a certain extent. fantasy is not completely separated from reality, it actually exists in reality and becomes part of shaping one's life path.
i want to be happy! cites the book the power of illusion by psychoanalyst ethel s. person.By Force of Fantasy: How We Make Our Lives) in which she mentioned that fantasy, daydreams, reveries, inner dramas and sexual fantasies are not just pastimes when you have nothing to do, they can soothe, awaken and shape us in real life. this is why we need to pay attention to the wild thoughts in our minds, even if it sometimes makes people feel embarrassed or shameful, but it actually affects our real life and sometimes even brings fundamental changes.
the author interviewed many other women who were engaged in fan creation and deeply involved in fan culture, and asked them what they understood fan culture to be. one of the answers was: it is completely opposite to work. participating in fan creation is a kind of selfless giving, a kind of sharing joy, a kind of fun of playing, and there is no need to consider compensation. the woman also said that once we grow up, we will completely give up playing, but the so-called protestant work philosophy is purely used to bluff. therefore, the core of fan culture is to regain the space for playing and allow oneself to maintain beneficial selfishness. participating in fan culture is to allocate time according to one's own preferences, without considering what is most effective or what is most beneficial to others.
from this perspective, becoming a dream girl and allowing oneself to indulge in the fantasy of a dream girl is actually a form of play, and it is an act that focuses entirely on one's own inner needs. in the process of a woman's growth, because of the increase in social identities, responsibilities, and demands from others, such moments will become less and less as she gets older. being a dream girl is like a rebellion against this fact. the subtext is that i need to keep a period of time that belongs only to me, and during this time, i can do whatever i want.
dong ziqi：there are actually two opinions on this.my mother-in-law likes to read romance novels about domineering ceos, and she spends a lot of time reading these novels at night.。she is very busy during the day, doing all kinds of housework, arrangingappropriateeverything. on the one hand, the night time period is completely personal, you can play games and project romantic imagination, but on the other hand, it is a kind of relief, which allows you to return to your daytime life better. but if the release point is completely fixed in a single story that is not particularly scalable, isn’t it a pity? dream girl may also be such a behavior that requires constant return to the scene, continuous pursuit, and high repetition.
a while ago, i listened to fish leong's "love reveals the heart", which has a strong tendency towards sadomasochism and a highly unequal relationship between each other. "your loneliness is a castle/it makes people admire it but prevent epidemics everywhere... i am not a rumor and cannot guess you/crazy games require permission from someone/i don't mind what others say/whether i love you or not, people will know the heart over time", she really wants to devote herself to a slightly political commitment, just like qu yuan's promise to the king of chu in "li sao". there may be a lot of criticism that makes the relationship between each other fragile and untrustworthy, but believe that sincerity will be seen long enough, and this feeling of revealing one's true feelings is worth pondering. later, it also sang "save an inch of time to exchange for a century/pick a piece of hard work to make a drop of honey", although outsiders may think it's a waste now,why do you have to prove yourself by working so hard to make honey?but i feel that the popularity of a song is related to the overall social climate.
xu luqing: some time ago, fish leong cried at a concert and said something like "i haven't found the one i love". at that time, many people on weibo scolded her for not being a heroine enough. they didn't understand why she was so sad about needing to be loved despite her great achievements.now it seemsthis song is about being desperatelike, which was popular before but is now criticized, people’s reaction to fish leong does reflect the subtle shift in social trends.
pan wenjie: scholar gao hanning pointed out that many fan fictions are set in a fantasy world of intimate relationship utopia, and the core feature of the text is the exploration of intimate relationships. pairing characters is actually a thought experiment conducted by women. this thought experiment is large-scale, but it is almost the first time in history that there is no deep participation of a large proportion of men. instead, it is a free exploration of intimate relationships within the female community. it is the self-satisfaction and mutual comfort of female community members for their needs for intimate relationships and sexual needs, which constitutes an offense to patriarchy.in contrast,dream girl does not participate in the pairing process, but completes the pairing process by herself. but the same thing is that neither of the above two types of love requires a real man. the otome who was dissed by the rapper is completely a paper man, which seems to be a abandonment of real men.
chizuko ueno and suzumi suzuki said in a discussion that women learn about intimate relationships through romantic novels, while men learn through av. the two groups of people cannot agree on anything. many online posts also show that women are disillusioned with real men in the process of finding intimate relationships. they can only rely on themselves to conduct thought experiments on intimate relationships, which is a bit pitiful on the one hand, but also understandable on the other. i also feel very uncomfortable when i see the rapper's diss. the two sides are not in dialogue at all. they either avoid dialogue or attack directly. they do not discuss the reasons in depth, but just criticize.
yin qinglu：the rapper's diss against yiyou highlights the impossibility of dialogue between the two sides, which is really a pity. although some people will talk about the opposition between men and women, and the different imaginations of men and women about love, the emotions of being a human being and the certain feelings of despair of living in this era are basically common. i think of the song "cold woman" by the god of henan rap, which talks about his love for a bad woman, the bad woman playing with him in the palm of her hand, and the resentment after abandoning him. in the lyrics, he sings "you are a cold af bitch". this kind of obsession with emotions and the desire for a sense of connection between people are common, but now it is completely misplaced in the context of discussion, which i think is a pity.
the concept of subjectivity itself carries a male-centered color. people need to remain rational to isolate themselves from everything around them, regard themselves as subjects and others as objects, and thus create a relationship of gaze and being gazed. but what tabitha kavan and other female authors want to say is that the happiness we want to recover, which includes imagination, is irrational, and perhaps there is no binary opposition between subject and object.
there is a paragraph in "i want to be happy!" where kavan interviews a female professor of literature who is also a fan fiction author. kavan asked her if she usually tells her colleagues that she is a fan fiction woman. she laughed and said of course not, because the academic world rejects naive and transparent idealism and only advocates skepticism and rational criticism. the female professor believes that this is a male way of thinking. men always cover up their emotional dimensions, and women have to abide by this standard. from this perspective, dream girls are indeed a rebellious behavior.
lin ziren：the author of the micro-history work "edo castle in the edo period" is amy stanley, a professor of history at northwestern university in the united states. she accidentally saw some letters on the internet. the owner of the letters was a rural woman named tsuneno and her family who lived in the echigo region at the end of the japanese shogunate in the 19th century. the author spent about ten years visiting and looking up materials, and finally restored tsuneno's life. tsuneno was born in a monk family. her three marriages ended in divorce. when her eldest brother wanted to arrange a fourth marriage for her, she secretly ran away to edo with someone, set up her own business, and pursued the life of her dreams.
the author writes that in the 19th century, japanese women like her would read many elementary books written specifically for girls during their childhood, such as "onna university" and "onna university treasure box", of which "onna university treasure box" drew different versions of illustrations for some of the most famous chapters of the 11th-century masterpiece "the tale of genji". in general, the illustrations in these women's books tell the stories of different women, including female officials in "the tale of genji" wearing exquisite kimonos, and even beauties from ancient china. stanley suggests in the book that the stories of these women who are very far away from their daily lives may have inspired the girl chang ye to escape from marriage and live a different life in edo, japan's largest city.
yin qinglu: many same-sex dream female writers write about the stories of female stars before they became famous. before they became famous, they were essentially the same people. she went to a more splendid place, which means we may also go there, and the implicit sense of loss lies in the fact that we have not yet reached that place.
not limited to heterosexuality, same-sex dream women's literature has broadened a dimension, and the object of yearning emotions is the better self that "want to be but difficult to be". it is a bit sad and cruel, but there is potential for imagination.
collect and organize the latest news information and make it available for free for everyone to read
