Yang Li is no stranger to online uproars. Four years ago the stand-up comedian (pictured) riled many Chinese men with a mildly worded ribbing on a streamed show. Her line, “Why does he look so ordinary, but can still be so confident?” remains infamous among touchy male netizens. On October 18th one of China’s biggest e-commerce firms,
JD.com
, dropped Ms Yang as a promoter of its services after an outcry from still-offended men. Yet women are fighting back.
JD.com
did not name Ms Yang, but the context of its announcement made it clear that she would no longer be helping to boost the company’s sales during the annual “Singles’ Day” shopping festival, which reaches a climax on November 11th. On Weibo, a frequently censored social-media platform, access has been blocked to many of the comments that poured out in response. One can get a sense of the mood, though. Some men accused
JD.com
of failing to apologise enough for what the firm called the “unpleasant experience” caused by signing up Ms Yang. “How is this any different from Japan’s understanding of the second world war?” asked a user in Beijing. Outraged women saw things a little differently. “Just how ordinary and insecure are they?” said one, commenting on the male reaction.The company should not have been surprised. Ms Yang’s associations with other firms, such as Intel and Mercedes-Benz in 2021, had also triggered fury among men. But the 32-year-old comic remains a celebrity in China’s stand-up business, which only began to take off in 2009 with the opening of the country’s first clubs dedicated to the art. She has nearly 2.5m followers on Weibo; online videos of her routines have drawn millions of views.Thin-skinned men have not been the industry’s only problem. It has had to navigate the sensitivities of a government that takes offence easily. In May last year a comedian, Li Haoshi, cracked a seemingly innocuous joke at an offline venue about his two dogs chasing a squirrel. “Exemplary in conduct! Capable of winning battles!” he said of their behaviour, using a slogan promoted by China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, to encourage Chinese troops. Furious netizens, backed by state media, accused him of insulting the army. Mr Li’s company, Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media, was fined $2m and ordered to suspend performances. He was dismissed. The authorities began investigating whether his quip had broken the law.Stand-up comedy suffered the fallout for months. Officials inspected venues across the country to warn managers and performers to keep in line with “core socialist values”. Some performances were cancelled. But in August stand-up comedy returned to streaming channels with two hugely popular talent shows. Ms Yang was the screenwriter of one of them. “If you’re going to take offence, go and watch something else,” she joked with the audience.Stand-up comedy in China is still a male-dominated business. Both shows have declared their winners in the past few days. Both were won by men. Only about one-third of the contestants were female. But they caused a stir with jokes about menstruation, gender bias and pressures on women to get married and have children. An online Chinese newspaper called them “even more outspoken than Yang, with many taking bold stances on a string of hot-button gender issues in their sets”.Some men quivered, but officials were probably content. Participants avoided politics or anything bawdy. They clearly knew the bounds.
