Life on the margins pt II: Li Ziqi and the phenomenon of the rural influencer
b'
In the last episode, I discussed Chinese rural lives with Professor Scott Rozelle. One point he made which particularly stuck with me was the dying out of farming as an occuption \\u2013 he\'d said that most rural people under the age of 35 have never farmed a day in their lives.
\\n
\\nSo that got me thinking, what do they do instead? In this episode I\\u2019ll be looking at one, very high profile, alternative \\u2013 vlogging. I\\u2019ve noticed through my hours of scrolling through Chinese social media that there is a huge genre of rural, pastoral content.\\xa0
\\n
\\nThis is an interesting phenomenon both for what it says about the rural population today, as well as what it reveals about the \\u2013 often \\u2013 urban viewers on the other end. So today I\\u2019m joined by Yi-Ling Liu, a writer on Chinese society who has had bylines in the New Yorker, Harper\\u2019s Magazine and WIRED. She\\u2019s looked in detail at the phenomenon of the rural influencer.
\\n
\\nOn the episode, we talk about a few of our favourite rural influencers. You can watch Li Ziqi\'s videos on YouTube here and \\u738b\\u5927\\u59d0\\u6765\\u4e86 (the middle aged rappers I mention) here.
'
\\n
\\nSo that got me thinking, what do they do instead? In this episode I\\u2019ll be looking at one, very high profile, alternative \\u2013 vlogging. I\\u2019ve noticed through my hours of scrolling through Chinese social media that there is a huge genre of rural, pastoral content.\\xa0
\\n
\\nThis is an interesting phenomenon both for what it says about the rural population today, as well as what it reveals about the \\u2013 often \\u2013 urban viewers on the other end. So today I\\u2019m joined by Yi-Ling Liu, a writer on Chinese society who has had bylines in the New Yorker, Harper\\u2019s Magazine and WIRED. She\\u2019s looked in detail at the phenomenon of the rural influencer.
\\n
\\nOn the episode, we talk about a few of our favourite rural influencers. You can watch Li Ziqi\'s videos on YouTube here and \\u738b\\u5927\\u59d0\\u6765\\u4e86 (the middle aged rappers I mention) here.