0:02

Alzo Media.

0:05

Hello and welcome to bear Offline. I'm

0:07

your host at Zetron. I

0:20

need a saga. What's the saga?

0:23

It's glycine, industrial food

0:25

grade glycine and its associated

0:27

memes. In the last

0:30

few weeks, TikTok and other social networks

0:32

have being flooded with memes like this.

0:34

Then she gave me some glycine and I was

0:36

like, this ain't no Donghua

0:38

Geelong. If you

0:40

call this industrial strength glycine,

0:43

then this glycining's gotta hit the gym.

0:46

You know what I'm saying.

0:47

And this Are you tired of being cucked

0:50

by inferior industrial and food grade glycine

0:52

suppliers who don't adhere to FCC six

0:55

hundred and forty, uspvp EP and JSFA

0:57

production standards. Fear not glycine girlies,

0:59

edge yourself down to Donguar jin Long.

1:02

All inspired by an innocent promotional

1:04

video created by doguar Jinlong, a

1:07

manufacturer of food grade glycine

1:09

used to improve the taste of things like soy sauce

1:11

and juices, introducing Donghuar

1:13

gene Long's food grade glison Unlock

1:16

Donguar gene Longs food grade Glison in

1:18

twenty twenty four, based

1:20

on my research and talking to people

1:22

smarter than me, donguar Jin Long and the

1:24

wider Chinese society doesn't

1:26

really seem to understand why this is happening,

1:29

nor why it's funny, and it

1:31

appears to have taken root in a combination

1:33

of harmless banter. Treating an extremely

1:35

specific industry and its byproduct is a thing

1:37

we discussed in our regular lives and

1:40

semi ironic support of Chinese industry

1:43

just as the American government seeks to ban TikTok.

1:46

So I got.

1:46

Together with two people that have found themselves

1:49

just a little too deep in this story

1:55

joining me today to talk about this extremely

1:58

strange phenomenon is the writer of you

2:00

may also like Louise Mattsakis and

2:02

writes and researcher toy On You Fang.

2:04

Thank you so much for joining me, both of you.

2:07

Thanks for having us.

2:08

It's great to be here.

2:10

So, Louise, you've been tracking Chinese

2:12

factories for several years, which is a great

2:14

thing, and I love saying it. First

2:16

of all, why, but also what

2:19

have you seen from these factories on social

2:21

media?

2:22

So I would say around twenty twenty

2:25

or twenty twenty one, I started noticing

2:27

that Chinese factories were opening

2:30

TikTok accounts and posting there.

2:33

I don't think it's unusual that they picked

2:35

TikTok. You know, they were posting on Facebook,

2:37

they had WhatsApp accounts. These are

2:39

manufacturers that need to court

2:42

overseas customers, and it's perfectly

2:45

normal for them to have social media accounts. But

2:48

I think what was happening is that a

2:50

lot of them were starting to work with marketing agencies

2:52

who were saying, hey, you know, it's not

2:54

a bad idea to post on this platform

2:57

that's getting really popular.

2:58

You know, we have our version here domes.

3:01

And they started posting these

3:04

mesmerizing clips.

3:05

Uh.

3:06

One I think about a lot is uh

3:08

it's gardening gloves being made.

3:10

So you see these.

3:11

Like fabric gardening gloves that are being

3:14

you know, dipped in liquefied rubber,

3:17

so they get that rubber coating on the tips

3:19

of the fingers so you can you

3:21

know, dig in the dirt or whatever in your garden.

3:24

They reminded me, I don't know if you guys have ever

3:27

seen that show. I think it was called like how It's

3:29

Made. Uh, you know, it's a show

3:31

on cable TV probably you know, a decade,

3:33

a decade and a half ago. I think it's just sort

3:35

of fascinating to get a window

3:38

into, you know, the world of

3:40

manufacturing which Western consumers

3:42

are are so divorced from. So

3:44

that's kind of like the history of this

3:47

trend on TikTok.

3:48

And how about doung wadjin lung

3:50

itself, how did that manifest?

3:54

So what's happened recently is

3:57

that these factories have seemingly

3:59

started using what I think is probably

4:01

some sort of AI software where

4:03

they're translating a script and

4:06

then doing some sort of like text

4:08

to speech.

4:10

So these videos sound really funny.

4:12

And don Quadjin Long is this company

4:15

that makes high quality grade

4:17

glyscene, which is a type of nutritional

4:19

additive, And I think the

4:22

name the videos they were posting, which

4:24

were sort of like these like graphic edited

4:27

videos of like drone footage of their

4:29

factory, was

4:31

just really really funny to a

4:33

lot of people. You know, it was sort of like, you

4:35

know, high quality grade glyccene made sort

4:37

of nothing to most people in the West, So

4:40

I think it was just it was just sort of this funny moment,

4:42

and I think It also ties into

4:45

this existing trend on TikTok where

4:48

a lot of younger users make

4:50

fun of the concerns in

4:52

Washington about the app being Chinese owned.

4:55

You know, I've seen people like joke about

4:57

praying Tashi Jimpang or you

4:59

know, like rubbing statues of Mao and

5:02

there.

5:03

It's just a joke. But I think that.

5:06

It sort of ties into that as well, like this idea

5:08

of it being this Chinese platform and sort

5:11

of like you know, Western users, you're joking

5:13

on that and joking about sort of the hysteria over

5:15

it in Washington.

5:17

And Janie, you were talking to me earlier

5:19

about how it was like sixty

5:21

percent of glycine that comes out of China

5:24

is don't wadging lung. Is

5:26

that What is the scale of this

5:28

company?

5:29

What is this thing?

5:31

Yeah? Sure, so actually I think the real

5:33

scale is smaller in that globally,

5:36

glycin production is about I

5:39

think eight hundred thousand tons

5:42

per year and don'hagil

5:44

makes about one hundred and twenty thousand

5:46

tons, so it's not that much. But

5:48

it specializes in sort of industrial grade,

5:51

right, so it's not the normal

5:53

like food additives that we see

5:55

in daily life, but sort of the kind

5:57

of glycine now you use in herbicide

6:00

and other forms of sort

6:02

of more industrial production and less

6:04

consumer So yeah, the skill is

6:07

pretty big. China now

6:09

produces about half of global glycines

6:12

in total, and you know, previously that

6:14

was an American and European production

6:17

in the nineties, but starting the early two

6:19

thousands there was more Asia production. So

6:21

dohajo own is based in Covid

6:23

Province, which is right outside of Beijing. That's

6:26

where a lot of today's industrial grade,

6:28

high quality glycine comes from.

6:31

So does this mean

6:33

do you think any of this is connected

6:36

to the Chinese government? I don't mean that in a paranoid

6:38

way. Is any of this deliberate? I think is the

6:41

question for both you.

6:43

Yeah, I would say no in

6:45

a sense that it seems just like

6:47

privately owned companies. I

6:50

checked the corporate records. I didn't go that deep, but

6:53

you know, it is a private company that came

6:55

out of the Chinese eighties and nineties and

6:58

seems to have done pretty well. And if you look at

7:00

these videos on TikTok, there's

7:02

usually a version on we Chat

7:05

or other Chinese platforms that's kind

7:07

of similar. In Chinese as opposed to English.

7:09

So I imagine these videos were originally

7:12

made for people to share

7:15

on Chinese social media platforms with business

7:17

partners, so that they can advertise

7:19

their business to to like

7:22

business people in China who are

7:24

a lot more interested in using short video apps

7:27

than I think they are American counterparts. So

7:29

I think there's a direct translation of that

7:32

intention into the American market, which

7:34

I don't know if it's working as

7:36

intended.

7:37

Yeah.

7:38

Is it very common for Chinese businesses

7:40

to actually use this method though, even

7:42

these industrial ones, Yeah,

7:45

I think so.

7:45

I think it's there is a TikTok

7:47

you equivalent that's built inside we Chat

7:50

as well. And I think because we Chat

7:52

is a multi purpose app where

7:54

you use it both if you're a

7:57

person who's just very online or a person

7:59

who actually runs your business. So

8:02

the by being on that short

8:04

video platform that Pinson has we

8:07

Chat, you can very easily

8:09

share these videos with other people for

8:11

business or entertainment purposes.

8:13

I like, I think

8:15

what's happening here is you're

8:18

seeing sort of TikTok's algorithm

8:21

collide with this content that

8:23

otherwise, you know, American

8:27

members would never see.

8:29

When I looked into it.

8:30

I saw that don Jua Geelong also had

8:33

a Facebook account where they actually had more followers

8:36

at the time.

8:37

Than they did on TikTok.

8:39

But the thing is, with a platform like

8:41

Facebook or Instagram, these

8:44

people don't know what glycceine is,

8:46

let alone, are they like searching for a

8:48

manufacturer in China that

8:50

specifically produces it, right, But with

8:53

TikTok, the way that the platform

8:55

works is that you sort of get fed this content

8:58

and you decide whether you like it or not

9:00

by you know, paying attention, commenting,

9:02

liking, sharing, and over time,

9:05

the algorithm will feed you more of it. Right, we all

9:07

know this, and you know, the reality is

9:09

that you don't know that you might think glycine

9:11

is funny. You don't know that it might be interesting

9:13

to see how gardening gloves are made

9:16

or whatever. So I think this is just an instance

9:18

where the design of the platform

9:20

meant that this sort of strange thing started

9:23

bubbling up. Of course you see this on

9:25

Twitter, on YouTube, on other

9:27

platforms, but I think in this case it

9:31

sort of, you know, happened to happen on

9:33

TikTok, And I think it would be a mistake to say

9:35

it's just because the platform is

9:38

Chinese owned, that these Chinese factories are doing

9:40

well there, although I will say

9:42

I think maybe some of these marketing

9:44

agencies and these bigger factories that are doing

9:47

this themselves maybe have more

9:49

familiarity with TikTok because of

9:51

Doyene, which is the local version also

9:53

owned.

9:53

By by Dance.

9:55

But I also think what's happening

9:57

here is that you're seeing Americans,

10:00

you know, people in Europe connect

10:02

to this stuff, particularly because

10:05

it portrays sort of like a

10:08

more camp, sort of like sillier

10:10

side of China. You know,

10:12

a lot of these factories are really old school.

10:15

They're maybe owned by guys who

10:17

I don't know about this case in particular, but when

10:19

I've talked to these factories, they're

10:22

often owned by like, you know, old school guys who are

10:24

sort of products of the cultural revolution, who

10:26

you know, chain smoke cigarettes and you know, drink

10:29

tea all day long.

10:30

But that's not really reflective

10:33

of.

10:33

Social media in China. You

10:35

know, it's very sophisticated. There's

10:38

just exactly the same kinds of

10:40

you know, hawk girl influencers, you

10:43

know, people with hot takes on

10:46

those local platforms. But I think

10:48

it's not a coincidence

10:51

that what's resonating is more of sort of

10:53

that like old school manufacturing

10:55

maybe like more

10:57

foreign vibe and

11:00

like you know, a typical you know, Chinese

11:02

fashion influencer who also has no reason

11:04

to post on a foreign platform, right, whereas

11:07

like these factories are actually

11:09

looking for customers overseas, and I

11:11

wouldn't be too surprised if

11:13

maybe there is somebody out there who was looking

11:15

for a glycine manufacturer.

11:17

And you know, now they've found one.

11:27

Yeah, Tian, you have you found

11:30

anything of other companies trying to

11:32

do this more deliberately?

11:33

Have you seen anything that suggests that

11:36

I'm.

11:37

Not sure about on TikTok per se because

11:39

I don't follow that much glycy and content on TikTok,

11:43

but I makes one of the platform. Oh

11:45

you know, I just got started. But

11:48

I think on Chinese platforms it's a lot more

11:50

common to see the sort of stuff as in I

11:53

do think that when I encountered this

11:56

video in Chinese, I was like, oh, this makes so much

11:58

more sense because people

12:01

just post. There's I think there's a culture

12:03

of posting a short like two

12:06

three minute ad of their company or

12:08

their factory to to show sort

12:11

of the working conditions of of

12:13

of of of workers, or

12:15

or the kind of product products that they produce.

12:18

Just a very popular thing on Chinese social

12:20

media, even though it sort of caters

12:22

to a particular audience, that is,

12:24

their potential customers. But at the same

12:26

time, I think there is an increased interest

12:29

interest, as Louise said about

12:31

Chinese factory like videos

12:34

on Western platforms. The one

12:36

guy I've been recently following is a Tony

12:38

from Elsie's Sign and he is a guy

12:41

who works at a uh

12:43

I think uh electronic

12:45

sign company like lights

12:47

and billboards, and he

12:49

does weird English accents.

12:52

Yeah his I now know who

12:54

you mean.

12:54

He has a peculiar accent And I said,

12:56

this is someone with a peculiar accent.

12:58

Yeah, he does also different sources of

13:00

accents, and people just loved him, and

13:03

I imagine it was the same intention, but he was

13:05

doing more successfully, you know, than

13:07

like glycine producers,

13:10

mostly because I think more people are interested in buying

13:12

billboards and posters and like Sein.

13:14

Why do you think that it's so common in

13:17

China to post like for these videos

13:19

to exist, Because I can't think

13:22

of an American equivalent of this.

13:24

I guess you get people who like post

13:26

like tract to.

13:27

Videos and such, and that is that niche

13:29

thing. But almost this industrial

13:31

pride doesn't seem to exist over here.

13:34

Yeah, I do think that's right. I think the difference is

13:37

the completeness of supply

13:39

chain in China, where your

13:42

target customer is somebody

13:44

who's above you in your supply chain or below you

13:46

in your supply chain. Uh, And

13:48

you have so many companies, so many factories, and

13:50

so many workshops that you know, are

13:53

in the business of supplying to

13:57

you know, herbicide like you know, a

13:59

manufacturing So in

14:01

that sense, you do have a much bigger intended

14:03

audience if you're a

14:07

manufacturer on one specific

14:09

part of this process. So you

14:12

know, obviously China has a much larger industrial base,

14:14

much larger manufacturing capacity, and

14:18

a lot more small businesses that are like dohaj

14:21

loan trying to buy products from other dohag

14:23

loans. So in that sense it makes

14:25

a lot of sense.

14:27

I think another thing too, is that there's

14:29

just sort of a culture of documenting

14:32

all aspects of sort of what's going

14:34

on in the factory via video.

14:37

You know.

14:37

A good example is, uh, it's

14:40

very common in China for recruiters

14:43

or for you know, people who work at these factories

14:45

to sort of take videos of like what does the

14:47

dorm look like? You know, what is the cafeteria,

14:49

like, what is daily life like if

14:51

you work at these factories, and those videos are

14:54

often designed to you know, recruit more people

14:56

to work there.

14:57

But we've seen in the US that if

14:59

you.

15:00

You record your life at

15:02

Amazon or your life in a

15:04

factory, you're probably going to get fired. And

15:07

that's not to say that, you know, if you filmed stuff

15:09

that was you know, painted

15:11

painted your employer in a bad light, that you wouldn't

15:13

be you know, punished for that.

15:15

In China, of course you would be.

15:17

But I think there's a sort of more of a culture

15:19

of documenting all of this. And I think it's also

15:21

a result of people

15:23

being much closer to manufacturing

15:25

and having a much more deep

15:28

understanding of how these supply chains work.

15:30

You know, everybody in China knows somebody

15:32

who's involved in manufacturing in some capacity,

15:35

unless, like I don't know, you're the most

15:37

elite person in Beijing who

15:39

you know only knows other intellectuals or something.

15:41

You know, there's somebody in your family, a relative,

15:44

a friend who was involved in this

15:46

world, and so it's much more normalized, I think,

15:48

whereas for Americans

15:50

it's like we had a whole TV show fifteen years

15:53

ago or something about how stuff was

15:55

made because you know, it was interesting

15:57

to people because we didn't know because that was

15:59

already an industry that was

16:01

being offshore.

16:03

And this is not necessarily saying this kind

16:05

of culture is good. But at

16:07

the same time, it does feel like there's almost

16:10

more connection to more blue collar labor

16:12

there, and there's not so much in an obsession

16:15

with Maybe I'm wrong, please correct me, I'm

16:17

wrong, but far less of an attempt

16:19

to escape those trappings. I

16:21

feel like America has a degree of shame for

16:24

factory work while also kind of lionizing

16:27

the working class. And

16:29

it's it's weird. It's weird watching

16:31

this happen, and it's weird

16:33

watching Americans kind of celebrate

16:36

the glysiine lords, even ironically, it's

16:39

been peculiar to watch.

16:41

I think, actually what you're seeing in China

16:44

now is exactly what you just described

16:46

having happened in the US, which

16:48

is that there's way more college

16:51

graduates now who don't

16:53

want to have sort of the same factory jobs

16:55

as their parents. I think that this work is

16:58

really difficult. It often doesn't pay super

17:00

well. And now it's

17:02

a terrible book.

17:04

Yeah, but you're seeing.

17:07

For sure, but you're seeing I think, like

17:09

this manufacturing labor

17:12

pool in China starting to age,

17:14

right, Like, younger workers don't want to do this

17:16

anymore. And you know, China

17:18

has said like, oh yeah, we're having you know, problems

17:20

sort of recruiting people to go to

17:22

these factory jobs.

17:23

And I think that's also because.

17:26

You often have to live there, which is a really big difference,

17:28

right, Like you know, no one lives on site at Amazon.

17:30

I hope, like please if you know about that, like get

17:33

in touch.

17:33

But it's a different you know, it's

17:35

an all encompassing lifestyle where you're you're

17:37

living on the campus, you're working you

17:39

know, six days a week, potentially long hours,

17:43

and understandably, you know, college graduates

17:45

don't really want to do that. So I think you're right that

17:47

historically sort of, you know, manufacturing was

17:50

a huge way that China you know,

17:52

lifted a lot of people out of poverty and sort of you know, increase

17:54

its GDP very rapidly. But

17:57

at the same time you're seeing exactly what you described

17:59

in the US of this is not something

18:01

that a lot of young people are excited about doing,

18:04

but it's still happening on.

18:06

A much bigger scale there than it is here anymore.

18:09

I do think the long hours that people spend

18:11

in these factories is very important in a sense

18:13

that it sort of resembles this socialist

18:16

legacy where even though you know most

18:18

of these companies are privately owned these days,

18:21

you know, in these state owned enterprises and state owned

18:23

factories, in the seventies

18:25

and eighties, you did live

18:28

with your co workers, you had your own houses,

18:30

you would do cafeterias with your co workers. So

18:32

there was an assumption of some sort of social

18:35

cohesion with your workplace

18:38

outside of work itself. And

18:40

this is why we're seeing a lot of people posting

18:43

about their you know, lives

18:46

in factories, also in part because

18:48

they have probably very little

18:50

life outside of the work workplace,

18:52

which could be a terrible thing in many cases

18:55

because of the long working hours these days. So

18:58

I do think that culture is

19:00

still embedded in some

19:02

some types of factory work in China.

19:05

Yeah, And it's the other

19:07

thing is as well, is that it feels like

19:09

some of this is being used

19:12

to kind of cover up the grosser side, things

19:14

like that they live there and

19:17

that the hours are horrifying. But

19:20

it's it's in why is it? Why

19:23

is it you think that they're able to show so

19:25

much of the living conditions

19:27

without actually coming up

19:29

against the fact that you live at your job.

19:32

How do like they're able to just skirt the bad

19:35

parts? I guess, And it

19:37

almost feels like this sole dong wodgin lung thing

19:39

is kind of covering up parts of

19:41

that, romanticizing this industry that

19:44

is quite horrible.

19:46

I do think it is worth sort of emphasizing

19:49

the fact that these are corporate accounts, right, Like

19:51

these are not workers sharing

19:53

their own experiences. These

19:56

are you know, companies that

19:59

are are able to jump

20:01

to the Great Firewall and are able to sort of post

20:04

on foreign social media platforms

20:07

because they are doing it

20:09

in the name of like, you know, getting customers,

20:11

communicating with their customers, advertising

20:13

their business, whereas it would

20:15

be riskier, right for a you

20:17

know, individual factory worker

20:20

to actually post sort of you know,

20:22

authentic content

20:24

about their job and about their everyday experiences.

20:27

You do see some of that, but it's it's.

20:29

Much more rare, and I often find

20:31

that it's people who are

20:33

in like a sales job and have a little

20:35

bit more cover or you know, a little bit more

20:38

familiarity with foreign

20:40

platforms, maybe speak better English.

20:42

So yeah, I think that's a good point.

20:44

It's like, you know, I do also

20:47

want to shy away though, from the idea that

20:49

every factory job in China is horrible

20:53

and that it's uniquely different

20:56

from you know, blue collar labor

20:58

in other parts of the world, because I

21:00

guess I cover you fashion a lot,

21:02

I cover the e commerce industry, and time

21:05

and time again, I hear people say, oh, well,

21:07

I feel better about this sweater or

21:09

whatever because it was made in America,

21:11

And I'm like, oh cool, So you mean the sweatshops

21:14

here in Los Angeles that are like ten miles away.

21:16

I'm not sure how that's any better.

21:19

Right then, that's the next episode of the

21:21

show.

21:21

Literally, that very subject, because

21:24

you've got I think that some of that as well is she

21:26

In and Timu and these companies

21:28

that absolutely do and have grown

21:30

off of the international terrorists, but also the

21:33

kind of labor of rights violations, and

21:35

I know China has tried to clean up its

21:37

act here it's just tried,

21:40

and I mean tried is something that's mitigated

21:42

through some degree

21:44

of propagandas we know, but it's I

21:47

think your point is salient where it's not so

21:49

much that China's doing perfect

21:51

work, but that America absolutely isn't

21:54

and the conditions for blue collar workers everywhere

21:57

are pretty goddamn awful.

21:59

Yeah, And I think what I always try

22:01

and say in these conversations is

22:03

to like center it more on the agency

22:05

of these workers, because I think oftentimes,

22:08

you know, people say, oh, I feel so bad about like, you

22:11

know, the stuff I bought on she and like, you know, those poor

22:13

people who are being treated horribly. But

22:15

that kind of becomes an abstraction and

22:17

it's like, Okay, those people

22:19

are just like an object of

22:21

my guilt, right instead of like actual

22:24

people with complicated lives, you

22:26

know, some of whom chose these jobs, you

22:28

know, perhaps because they needed the money.

22:30

But but I also push back a little bit on that

22:33

or didn't have a choice, yeah,

22:35

or didn't have a choice.

22:36

Yeah.

22:37

Yeah, But I think, like, you know, for

22:39

example, if you want to talk about like you know, complicated

22:42

embroidery or like certain types of like

22:44

intricate garment work, right, Like, that's

22:46

a skill, and that's a skill that like you

22:49

know, companies can't just like get away

22:51

with by like hiring nine year olds to do right.

22:53

Like, those are people who you know, have dignity

22:55

in their work, and I think like it's important, I

22:57

guess, just to like center their humanity and

23:00

stead of just being like all.

23:01

Those people who are treated horribly.

23:02

Yeah, and they're not just mindless drugs.

23:12

I think there's I

23:14

mean, the state of the

23:16

working conditions depends on extremely

23:18

highly on the industry, depends

23:21

on the specific employer. I think a

23:23

lot of things are changing, and I

23:25

think platforms like TikTok actually allows

23:27

us to see more people

23:30

posting from their own lives and not

23:32

you know, these lists corporate

23:34

portrayals of what the working conditions actually

23:36

are.

23:38

Are we seeing more of that out of China?

23:40

Is there a growth of that or is the has

23:43

the government moved against that because

23:45

you see a decent amount of it in America but

23:48

over there, I don't know if that's the case.

23:50

I think on the Chinese platforms this is

23:53

probably true. So you know, like

23:55

we know, like go in, which is the TikTok the

23:57

local version of TikTok. They're although

23:59

us other platforms like quite show, which target

24:02

is much more working class audiences,

24:05

And on these platforms you basically see people

24:07

posting about their daily lives and the more sort

24:09

of oh this is what I uh,

24:12

this is what I did today. Right, It's completely innocuous.

24:15

It's it's people. Uh, there's

24:17

no particular intention behind what they're doing.

24:19

They're just like, oh, this is this is what I ate, and this

24:21

is this is uh, this is where I

24:24

went after work today. So I think there

24:26

is more insight into people's daily lives

24:28

from this new culture of like posting

24:31

and sharing on the internet that is

24:33

increasingly taking the form.

24:35

Of like video.

24:36

You know, there there there is a reckoning

24:38

I think in the urban middle class

24:41

that's looking at the sort

24:43

of content and saying, oh, okay, this is

24:45

where this is how people in factories

24:48

live and this is how they work.

24:50

Uh.

24:50

Even within China, I think that recognition

24:53

is increasingly relevant.

24:56

Is there as agressive?

24:58

So living in America growing up in

25:00

England not really had

25:03

much exposure to China at all personally,

25:06

is I hear a lot of people saying, oh, the

25:08

censorship there is quite aggressive, and the government will

25:10

move against you for posting the wrong thing.

25:12

How much truth lies in.

25:13

That, that's a tough one.

25:16

I think there there, of course

25:18

is a lot of truth in it.

25:19

I think it's completely fair to say that it's

25:21

a you know, much more censored

25:23

internet ecosystem than perhaps anywhere

25:26

else in the world. But I think

25:28

that people assume that

25:30

if you go on a Chinese social media app,

25:33

it's just everybody praising chijin

25:35

paying and then like maybe some like you

25:37

know, benign fashion influencers. But

25:39

I think it's important to emphasize that it's

25:42

a very colorful, unwieldy

25:44

internet, you know, of you know, one point

25:47

four billion people, just like anywhere

25:49

else. And while the government is

25:52

able to sort of crack down much more

25:54

quickly, and of course, you know, a lot more

25:56

content is censored, there's still plenty

25:58

of CD corners. There's still plenty of

26:01

you know, shocking or strange or

26:03

weird uh stuff all

26:06

over the Chinese internet, and and

26:08

a lot of these uh you know, as Tanya was

26:10

saying, these sort of like factory videos

26:13

are really common, or these videos of like sort

26:15

of everyday workers talking about their life. There's

26:17

actually been a trend of like farm

26:19

workers, and uh, it's funny

26:21

because some of them have gotten in trouble for basically

26:24

like not actually being in farmers and just sort

26:26

of doing this like glamorization of

26:28

like the simple life. And they're often selling

26:31

like fruits and vegetables. So it's like, oh, look at

26:33

my beautiful you know, Lee Chee farm or

26:35

whatever, and I live this idyllic life here, and

26:37

it's like, that's not where the leeches are actually coming from,

26:40

Like that beautiful girl and that sun dress

26:42

is not actually the person producing

26:47

essentially, So you

26:50

know, and I think we've seen that in the US too, right, with sort

26:52

of like people sort of glamorizing

26:55

a simpler way of being or or a sort

26:58

of lifestyle that maybe is appealing in

27:00

some ways to.

27:01

The middle class. Yeah,

27:03

cottage core, right exactly.

27:05

That's it's it's sort of the Chinese equivalent

27:07

of the cottage core trend in a lot of

27:09

ways. But I do think, you know, going

27:11

back to your question about is it easier

27:13

to know more now about

27:15

how your stuff is manufactured?

27:18

Probably not.

27:19

I think you can sort of get a glimpse

27:21

of it through something like this glycine

27:23

trend or whatever. But it's

27:26

definitely harder to get on the ground

27:28

in China. It's harder for companies to sort

27:30

of do due diligence than it was a few years

27:33

ago. It's more difficult

27:35

to sort of audit your supply chain, figure

27:38

out exactly you know, who is

27:40

the person or the company at

27:42

every step, you know, before you get

27:44

that T shirt from Timu. But

27:46

I think what this trend shows is that people

27:49

want to know, right like, people want this information,

27:51

They want to have a better understanding. I

27:53

don't think people. Yeah,

27:56

of course, there's there's tons of people who just don't care.

27:58

But I think that more can consumers

28:00

and companies expect do

28:03

want a better sense of where the stuff

28:05

they buy comes from.

28:07

Yeah, and you, I think

28:09

a good point to start wrapping up on as

28:11

well. Was you a pit to have found an account

28:13

for a dildo factory?

28:16

Yes, thank you for asking. I

28:19

I did.

28:21

It's it's beautiful. Uh, yeah,

28:24

it's it's one of these accounts.

28:26

It's similar to sort of the glycine trend. A

28:28

reader my newsletter pointed it

28:31

out to me on Twitter x whatever you

28:33

want to call it. And they

28:35

make a number of stuff

28:38

they seem to make Basically these

28:40

machines that like extrude

28:43

the like rubbery silicon that

28:45

sex dolls and dildos are made

28:47

out of. So it's like this giant

28:50

long machine which you

28:52

know, edit this out if I can't say this, but they

28:55

call it a pussy ass production machine.

28:58

And so it's like this all they

29:02

uh, you know, seeing.

29:07

The silicon and then you put

29:09

it in these you know, it comes out hot, and

29:11

then you put it in these giant molds

29:14

and so it's amazing this factory sort of

29:16

like pans over to this

29:18

you know, giant warehouse of of

29:21

these button molds essentially where the silicone

29:23

is setting. And

29:26

uh, they do not seem to understand

29:28

how funny this.

29:30

Is communicating with people

29:32

about it. What is the scuttle

29:34

butt there? Like, what is the communication like.

29:38

It's just like it's again it's sort of this like

29:40

speech to text or text to speech software

29:43

where it's like clearly like a robot saying

29:45

pussy ass production machine. And

29:49

they're sort of up the supply chain, right, so they're

29:51

not even Yeah, it

29:53

would be like a little bit more sort of not

29:56

as funny or not as interesting if they were actually

29:58

selling the sex all. But they're

30:01

selling like these seven thousand dollars

30:03

extruders that so

30:05

you can make your own at.

30:06

Home as well.

30:08

I mean, I don't

30:10

think you.

30:11

Yeah.

30:11

Also the minimum order is too, so

30:14

you know, you really have to want

30:17

to commit to this, but that's what

30:19

they're selling. Yeah, and I think it's a you know,

30:21

perfect encapsulation of sort of like how

30:24

bizarre and silly this whole

30:26

factory trend is.

30:28

And I think to wrap us up here,

30:30

Louise, have you seen don

30:33

wagin Long or indeed the posios

30:35

machine vendor communicate

30:37

with anyone?

30:38

Are they actually involved in this at all?

30:42

So it was interesting because they started

30:44

going super viral during the tomb

30:47

sweeping holiday in China, which is I think tian

30:49

you can correct me. I think it's like a three or four day long

30:51

holiday where you probably explained

30:53

Tianya what that is.

30:56

It's a it's a traditional holiday for you to

30:59

basically like go

31:01

commemorate their debt

31:04

relatives. But you know it's also a

31:06

several day long holiday that people would just

31:08

go travel and do stuff. Yeah.

31:11

I think it's like Memorial Day weekend, Labor

31:13

Day weekend kind of holiday. So

31:17

yeah, you know, it's the equivalent of sort of like going

31:19

super viral, like around a

31:21

holiday that everyone was supposed to log off,

31:23

and probably I would say that these people like are

31:26

not actually looking at TikTok that

31:28

often, right, because this is not where they're getting like

31:31

their updates from their family and friends

31:33

usually. But they did seem

31:35

to come back online, and they commented

31:38

on a few videos, one

31:41

from this user who made a number of viral

31:43

videos called microplastic Cat. So

31:46

I know they commented on one of microplastic

31:48

cats meme videos, and I

31:50

think they just said something sort of generic.

31:52

I get the sense that they're perhaps

31:54

excited, and probably whoever is doing this

31:57

is like maybe I can get a raise out of this. But

31:59

I don't get the sense that they fully understand

32:03

why this is happening, or you

32:06

know, what the meaning is, or who all these

32:08

people are posting like funny

32:10

songs and like joking about

32:12

like licene outfits or whatever.

32:15

I don't get the sense that they get it.

32:16

And I think there's still sort of like you know, a language

32:19

and cultural barrier here.

32:20

But I think they like it. I think they're probably happy.

32:22

I think the social media manager is uh,

32:25

you know, probably going to do well, and their boss

32:28

is happy with them.

32:29

I think the funniest outcome from this might

32:31

be that they suddenly try and do

32:34

they try and like join the trend and

32:36

stop trying to do irony. That

32:38

would make me very happy to see them try and

32:40

probably fail. But what what's actually

32:42

worrying me as well is that you're going to see American companies

32:45

try and copy this, and it's going to be

32:47

very cringey.

32:49

I think it'll be significantly less funny because

32:51

they're doing it ironically, whereas the chie

32:53

companies are doing it with.

32:57

I don't think American companies will do

32:59

it because like the number one thing American

33:01

companies like do not want right now is

33:03

to be at all associated with China in

33:05

any way.

33:07

That's true, So I don't think

33:09

that they will do it.

33:10

And I think that this level of

33:13

like abstract ironic

33:15

meme is probably going to like you

33:17

know, escape the Chinese factories

33:20

themselves.

33:20

But that would be really funny.

33:21

I would like to see you know, a single one of them just like

33:24

ask their teenage kids or whatever,

33:26

like what's going on here, because I do think you

33:29

know a lot of Chinese teenagers would be like, oh

33:31

yeah, this is like a stupid meme you

33:33

know, and be able to sort of help them navigate what's

33:35

going on. But for some reason that just

33:37

like hasn't happened yet.

33:40

It's also it's also you see these reports of dohago

33:43

and being mentioned in Chinese news, and people

33:45

are like, why is this funny? I don't

33:47

get it.

33:48

Yeah, actually that's the news covenant. Like

33:51

I was like, how is the reaction

33:54

from the news of it?

33:54

Just like I've seen some stories about

33:57

oh, dohago, this should

33:59

drawn like seem product a producer

34:01

is now famous on TikTok in the US, and

34:04

and like nobody seems to understand why it's funny.

34:07

Ah, and like something

34:13

is lost in translation.

34:14

Yeah,

34:21

in my mind, the dogwar gin lung chemical

34:23

meme is harmless in anyone feeling sinophobic,

34:25

indigestion, or fears around Chinese

34:27

propaganda needs to either touch grass

34:30

or reconsider their biases. Yeah.

34:33

I kind of worry about stuff like this being

34:35

baselessly used as some kind of proof

34:38

that China is brainwashing young people

34:40

into celebrating their industrial culture, despite

34:43

the fact that this is far more

34:46

an example of great comedy

34:48

being formed in real time, something that's created

34:51

as a result of cultural exploration. And curiosity.

34:54

We should celebrate this kind of thing. It's

34:57

fun that people are seeing different things

34:59

and making jokes. As a result, comedy

35:02

on the Internet has become rather flat, boring

35:05

and frankly falsified. If you've seen

35:07

the Reddit beans boulders Gate meme

35:09

going around at the moment. It's fun

35:11

to watch people having fun. It's fun

35:13

to watch them do something at a time when every

35:15

discussion of China is extremely

35:18

serious and upsetting and frankly

35:20

based on a level of xenophobia that's deeply

35:22

worrying. Nevertheless,

35:25

I've really enjoyed talking about this, and

35:27

I'd like to thank Louise and Tian you for joining

35:29

me today and credit for the videos

35:31

plays that at the beginning goes to Cities by Diana

35:34

and Real Dan Yang, who are both on Instagram

35:36

on both hilarious.

35:47

Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

35:49

The editor and composer of the Better Offline

35:51

theme song is Matasowski. You can

35:53

check out more of his music and audio projects

35:56

at Matasowski dot com, m

35:58

A. T. Tso w

36:00

Ski dot com. You

36:02

can email me at easy at Better offline dot

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com, or check out Better Offline dot.

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Com to find my newsletter and more links to this

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