Baidu’s Big Internet Phenomena of 2010

Baidu’s Big Internet Phenomena of 2010

Weiguan: Online Looky-louing


Anyone who’s spent time in China has seen crowds of onlookers form spontaneously around any altercation in the street, from an exchange of mild expletives to full-blown fisticuffs. The Chinese refer to this behavior as 围观 (weiguan, literally “circle observation”), and both accept and expect it as a natural, everyday social phenomenon. Drama voyeurism is so deeply ingrained in that it has seeped into online interactions, making it the most popular Internet phenomenon of 2010. The word weiguan is widely used on discussion forums and on Weibo (Sina’s popular Twitter-like service), usually when a user wants to call attention to a person, a group of people or a specific object that he or she feels is worthy of everyone’s attention.

Tuangou (Group Buying) & Miaosha


E-commerce is huge now in China, so it should come as no surprise that group buying (团购, tuángòu) and time-sensitive discounts (秒杀, miǎoshā, literally “seconds kill”) have secured the top second and third spots on the 2010 online phenomena count down. China has had group buying for years and years, but mainly organized online and carried out in real life. In 2010, Groupon-like deal-of-the-day sites appeared by the hundreds. And online retailers learned that nothing motivates buying like a ticking clock and a fast-closing discount window.


Vancl Gang

The popular online retailer Vancl (凡客, Fanke) had launched such a successful marketing campaign in the past year that its ad posters have inspired a huge wave of netizen Photoshop imitations, like the one on the left featuring comedian Zhao Benshan. You recognize them as soon as you spot them: a photo of an individual posing with attitude against a plain white background, with a cluster of strong but random “I” statements appearing on the right to define the individual as a unique individual distinct from China’s mainstream culture. This phenomenon of netizens hopping on the Vancl ad bandwagon (凡客体, fan-ke-ti) stands at number 5 on the countdown list.

Countdown List of the Biggest Internet Phenomena in 2010

1.Circle observation (围观, wéiguān) Online looky-lou
2.Group buying (团购, tuángòu) China basically invented the Groupon model, right?
3.Time-sensitive discounting (秒杀, miǎoshā) Gotta grab the deal-of-the-day before the clock runs out!
4.Navy (水军, shuǐjūn) Astroturfers, or posters getting paid to talk up–or just as often, to hate on–brands on BBS and SNS
5.Vancl Gang (凡客体, fánkètǐ) An ad campaign goes viral, with funny Photoshopped results
6.Check in (签到, qiāndào) Think Foursquare. China’s biggest imitator is Jiepang.com
7.Human flesh search (人肉搜索, rénròu sōusuǒ) Mobilizing the masses online, for offline vigilantism
8.Government online opinion monitoring (网络问政, wǎngluò wènzhèng) Taking the temperature of the netizenry has become commonplace
9.Examination of the ugly (审丑, shěnchǒu) Chinese netizen fascination with the Fame of the Lame
10.Freebies Tribe (抢枪族, qiǎngqiǎngzú) Practitioners of the art of amassing giveaways have proliferated