Speaker 1: Alzo Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to bear Offline. I'm your host at Zetron.
Speaker 2: I need a saga. What's the saga? It's glycine, industrial
Speaker 2: food grade glycine and its associated memes. In the last
Speaker 2: few weeks, TikTok and other social networks have being flooded
Speaker 2: with memes like this.
Speaker 3: Then she gave me some glycine and I was like,
Speaker 3: this ain't no Donghua Geelong. If you call this industrial
Speaker 3: strength glycine, then this glycining's gotta hit the gym. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And this Are you tired of being cucked by inferior
Speaker 4: industrial and food grade glycine suppliers who don't adhere to
Speaker 4: FCC six hundred and forty, uspvp EP and JSFA production standards.
Speaker 4: Fear not glycine girlies, edge yourself down to Donguar jin Long.
Speaker 2: All inspired by an innocent promotional video created by doguar Jinlong,
Speaker 2: a manufacturer of food grade glycine used to improve the
Speaker 2: taste of things like soy sauce and juices, introducing Donghuar
Speaker 2: gene Long's food grade glison Unlock Donguar gene Longs food
Speaker 2: grade Glison in twenty twenty four, based on my research
Speaker 2: and talking to people smarter than me, donguar Jin Long
Speaker 2: and the wider Chinese society doesn't really seem to understand
Speaker 2: why this is happening, nor why it's funny, and it
Speaker 2: appears to have taken root in a combination of harmless banter.
Speaker 2: Treating an extremely specific industry and its byproduct is a
Speaker 2: thing we discussed in our regular lives and semi ironic
Speaker 2: support of Chinese industry just as the American government seeks
Speaker 2: to ban TikTok.
Speaker 5: So I got.
Speaker 2: Together with two people that have found themselves just a
Speaker 2: little too deep in this story joining me today to
Speaker 2: talk about this extremely strange phenomenon is the writer of
Speaker 2: you may also like Louise Mattsakis and writes and researcher
Speaker 2: toy On You Fang.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for joining me, both of you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 6: It's great to be here.
Speaker 2: So, Louise, you've been tracking Chinese factories for several years,
Speaker 2: which is a great thing, and I love saying it.
Speaker 2: First of all, why, but also what have you seen
Speaker 2: from these factories on social media?
Speaker 7: So I would say around twenty twenty or twenty twenty one,
Speaker 7: I started noticing that Chinese factories were opening TikTok accounts
Speaker 7: and posting there. I don't think it's unusual that they
Speaker 7: picked TikTok. You know, they were posting on Facebook, they
Speaker 7: had WhatsApp accounts. These are manufacturers that need to court
Speaker 7: overseas customers, and it's perfectly normal for them to have
Speaker 7: social media accounts. But I think what was happening is
Speaker 7: that a lot of them were starting to work with
Speaker 7: marketing agencies who were saying, hey, you know, it's not
Speaker 7: a bad idea to post on this platform that's getting
Speaker 7: really popular.
Speaker 1: You know, we have our version here domes.
Speaker 7: And they started posting these mesmerizing clips.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: One I think about a lot is uh it's gardening
Speaker 7: gloves being made.
Speaker 1: So you see these.
Speaker 7: Like fabric gardening gloves that are being you know, dipped
Speaker 7: in liquefied rubber, so they get that rubber coating on
Speaker 7: the tips of the fingers so you can you know,
Speaker 7: dig in the dirt or whatever in your garden. They
Speaker 7: reminded me, I don't know if you guys have ever
Speaker 7: seen that show. I think it was called like how
Speaker 7: It's Made. Uh, you know, it's a show on cable
Speaker 7: TV probably you know, a decade, a decade and a
Speaker 7: half ago. I think it's just sort of fascinating to
Speaker 7: get a window into, you know, the world of manufacturing
Speaker 7: which Western consumers are are so divorced from. So that's
Speaker 7: kind of like the history of this trend on TikTok.
Speaker 2: And how about doung wadjin lung itself, how did that manifest?
Speaker 7: So what's happened recently is that these factories have seemingly
Speaker 7: started using what I think is probably some sort of
Speaker 7: AI software where they're translating a script and then doing
Speaker 7: some sort of like text to speech.
Speaker 1: So these videos sound really funny.
Speaker 7: And don Quadjin Long is this company that makes high
Speaker 7: quality grade glyscene, which is a type of nutritional additive,
Speaker 7: And I think the name the videos they were posting,
Speaker 7: which were sort of like these like graphic edited videos
Speaker 7: of like drone footage of their factory, was just really
Speaker 7: really funny to a lot of people. You know, it
Speaker 7: was sort of like, you know, high quality grade glyccene
Speaker 7: made sort of nothing to most people in the West,
Speaker 7: So I think it was just it was just sort
Speaker 7: of this funny moment, and I think It also ties
Speaker 7: into this existing trend on TikTok where a lot of
Speaker 7: younger users make fun of the concerns in Washington about
Speaker 7: the app being Chinese owned. You know, I've seen people
Speaker 7: like joke about praying Tashi Jimpang or you know, like
Speaker 7: rubbing statues of Mao and there.
Speaker 1: It's just a joke. But I think that.
Speaker 7: It sort of ties into that as well, like this
Speaker 7: idea of it being this Chinese platform and sort of
Speaker 7: like you know, Western users, you're joking on that and
Speaker 7: joking about sort of the hysteria over it in Washington.
Speaker 2: And Janie, you were talking to me earlier about how
Speaker 2: it was like sixty percent of glycine that comes out
Speaker 2: of China is don't wadging lung. Is that What is
Speaker 2: the scale of this company?
Speaker 5: What is this thing?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sure, so actually I think the real scale is
Speaker 6: smaller in that globally, glycin production is about I think
Speaker 6: eight hundred thousand tons per year and don'hagil makes about
Speaker 6: one hundred and twenty thousand tons, so it's not that much.
Speaker 6: But it specializes in sort of industrial grade, right, so
Speaker 6: it's not the normal like food additives that we see
Speaker 6: in daily life, but sort of the kind of glycine
Speaker 6: now you use in herbicide and other forms of sort
Speaker 6: of more industrial production and less consumer So yeah, the
Speaker 6: skill is pretty big. China now produces about half of
Speaker 6: global glycines in total, and you know, previously that was
Speaker 6: an American and European production in the nineties, but starting
Speaker 6: the early two thousands there was more Asia production. So
Speaker 6: dohajo own is based in Covid Province, which is right
Speaker 6: outside of Beijing. That's where a lot of today's industrial grade,
Speaker 6: high quality glycine comes from.
Speaker 2: So does this mean do you think any of this
Speaker 2: is connected to the Chinese government? I don't mean that
Speaker 2: in a paranoid way. Is any of this deliberate? I
Speaker 2: think is the question for both you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say no in a sense that it
Speaker 6: seems just like privately owned companies. I checked the corporate records.
Speaker 6: I didn't go that deep, but you know, it is
Speaker 6: a private company that came out of the Chinese eighties
Speaker 6: and nineties and seems to have done pretty well. And
Speaker 6: if you look at these videos on TikTok, there's usually
Speaker 6: a version on we Chat or other Chinese platforms that's
Speaker 6: kind of similar. In Chinese as opposed to English. So
Speaker 6: I imagine these videos were originally made for people to share
Speaker 6: on Chinese social media platforms with business partners, so that
Speaker 6: they can advertise their business to to like business people
Speaker 6: in China who are a lot more interested in using
Speaker 6: short video apps than I think they are American counterparts.
Speaker 6: So I think there's a direct translation of that intention
Speaker 6: into the American market, which I don't know if it's
Speaker 6: working as intended.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is it very common for Chinese businesses to actually use
Speaker 2: this method though, even these industrial ones, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 6: I think it's there is a TikTok you equivalent that's
Speaker 6: built inside we Chat as well. And I think because
Speaker 6: we Chat is a multi purpose app where you use
Speaker 6: it both if you're a person who's just very online
Speaker 6: or a person who actually runs your business. So the
Speaker 6: by being on that short video platform that Pinson has
Speaker 6: we Chat, you can very easily share these videos with
Speaker 6: other people for business or entertainment purposes.
Speaker 7: I like, I think what's happening here is you're seeing
Speaker 7: sort of TikTok's algorithm collide with this content that otherwise,
Speaker 7: you know, American members would never see.
Speaker 1: When I looked into it.
Speaker 7: I saw that don Jua Geelong also had a Facebook
Speaker 7: account where they actually had more followers at the time.
Speaker 1: Than they did on TikTok.
Speaker 7: But the thing is, with a platform like Facebook or Instagram,
Speaker 7: these people don't know what glycceine is, let alone, are
Speaker 7: they like searching for a manufacturer in China that specifically
Speaker 7: produces it, right, But with TikTok, the way that the
Speaker 7: platform works is that you sort of get fed this
Speaker 7: content and you decide whether you like it or not
Speaker 7: by you know, paying attention, commenting, liking, sharing, and over time,
Speaker 7: the algorithm will feed you more of it. Right, we
Speaker 7: all know this, and you know, the reality is that
Speaker 7: you don't know that you might think glycine is funny.
Speaker 7: You don't know that it might be interesting to see
Speaker 7: how gardening gloves are made or whatever. So I think
Speaker 7: this is just an instance where the design of the
Speaker 7: platform meant that this sort of strange thing started bubbling up.
Speaker 7: Of course you see this on Twitter, on YouTube, on
Speaker 7: other platforms, but I think in this case it sort of,
Speaker 7: you know, happened to happen on TikTok, And I think
Speaker 7: it would be a mistake to say it's just because
Speaker 7: the platform is Chinese owned, that these Chinese factories are
Speaker 7: doing well there, although I will say I think maybe
Speaker 7: some of these marketing agencies and these bigger factories that
Speaker 7: are doing this themselves maybe have more familiarity with TikTok
Speaker 7: because of Doyene, which is the local version also owned.
Speaker 1: By by Dance.
Speaker 7: But I also think what's happening here is that you're
Speaker 7: seeing Americans, you know, people in Europe connect to this stuff,
Speaker 7: particularly because it portrays sort of like a more camp,
Speaker 7: sort of like sillier side of China. You know, a
Speaker 7: lot of these factories are really old school. They're maybe
Speaker 7: owned by guys who I don't know about this case
Speaker 7: in particular, but when I've talked to these factories, they're
Speaker 7: often owned by like, you know, old school guys who
Speaker 7: are sort of products of the cultural revolution, who you know,
Speaker 7: chain smoke cigarettes and you know, drink tea all day long.
Speaker 1: But that's not really reflective of.
Speaker 7: Social media in China. You know, it's very sophisticated. There's
Speaker 7: just exactly the same kinds of you know, hawk girl influencers,
Speaker 7: you know, people with hot takes on those local platforms.
Speaker 7: But I think it's not a coincidence that what's resonating
Speaker 7: is more of sort of that like old school manufacturing
Speaker 7: maybe like more foreign vibe and like you know, a
Speaker 7: typical you know, Chinese fashion influencer who also has no
Speaker 7: reason to post on a foreign platform, right, whereas like
Speaker 7: these factories are actually looking for customers overseas, and I
Speaker 7: wouldn't be too surprised if maybe there is somebody out
Speaker 7: there who was looking for a glycine manufacturer.
Speaker 1: And you know, now they've found one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tian, you have you found anything of other companies
Speaker 2: trying to do this more deliberately?
Speaker 5: Have you seen anything that suggests that I'm.
Speaker 6: Not sure about on TikTok per se because I don't
Speaker 6: follow that much glycy and content on TikTok, but I
Speaker 6: makes one of the platform. Oh you know, I just
Speaker 6: got started. But I think on Chinese platforms it's a
Speaker 6: lot more common to see the sort of stuff as
Speaker 6: in I do think that when I encountered this video
Speaker 6: in Chinese, I was like, oh, this makes so much
Speaker 6: more sense because people just post. There's I think there's
Speaker 6: a culture of posting a short like two three minute
Speaker 6: ad of their company or their factory to to show
Speaker 6: sort of the working conditions of of of of of workers,
Speaker 6: or or the kind of product products that they produce.
Speaker 6: Just a very popular thing on Chinese social media, even
Speaker 6: though it sort of caters to a particular audience, that is,
Speaker 6: their potential customers. But at the same time, I think
Speaker 6: there is an increased interest interest, as Louise said about
Speaker 6: Chinese factory like videos on Western platforms. The one guy
Speaker 6: I've been recently following is a Tony from Elsie's Sign
Speaker 6: and he is a guy who works at a uh
Speaker 6: I think uh electronic sign company like lights and billboards,
Speaker 6: and he does weird English accents.
Speaker 5: Yeah his I now know who you mean.
Speaker 2: He has a peculiar accent And I said, this is
Speaker 2: someone with a peculiar accent.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he does also different sources of accents, and people
Speaker 6: just loved him, and I imagine it was the same intention,
Speaker 6: but he was doing more successfully, you know, than like
Speaker 6: glycine producers, mostly because I think more people are interested
Speaker 6: in buying billboards and posters and like Sein.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that it's so common in China
Speaker 2: to post like for these videos to exist, Because I
Speaker 2: can't think of an American equivalent of this.
Speaker 5: I guess you get people who like post like tract to.
Speaker 2: Videos and such, and that is that niche thing. But
Speaker 2: almost this industrial pride doesn't seem to exist over here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I do think that's right. I think the difference
Speaker 6: is the completeness of supply chain in China, where your
Speaker 6: target customer is somebody who's above you in your supply
Speaker 6: chain or below you in your supply chain. Uh, And
Speaker 6: you have so many companies, so many factories, and so
Speaker 6: many workshops that you know, are in the business of
Speaker 6: supplying to you know, herbicide like you know, a manufacturing
Speaker 6: So in that sense, you do have a much bigger
Speaker 6: intended audience if you're a manufacturer on one specific part
Speaker 6: of this process. So you know, obviously China has a
Speaker 6: much larger industrial base, much larger manufacturing capacity, and a
Speaker 6: lot more small businesses that are like dohaj loan trying
Speaker 6: to buy products from other dohag loans. So in that
Speaker 6: sense it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 7: I think another thing too, is that there's just sort
Speaker 7: of a culture of documenting all aspects of sort of
Speaker 7: what's going on in the factory via video.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: A good example is, uh, it's very common in China
Speaker 7: for recruiters or for you know, people who work at
Speaker 7: these factories to sort of take videos of like what
Speaker 7: does the dorm look like? You know, what is the cafeteria, like,
Speaker 7: what is daily life like if you work at these factories,
Speaker 7: and those videos are often designed to you know, recruit
Speaker 7: more people to work there.
Speaker 1: But we've seen in the US that if you.
Speaker 7: You record your life at Amazon or your life in
Speaker 7: a factory, you're probably going to get fired. And that's
Speaker 7: not to say that, you know, if you filmed stuff
Speaker 7: that was you know, painted painted your employer in a
Speaker 7: bad light, that you wouldn't be you know, punished for that.
Speaker 1: In China, of course you would be.
Speaker 7: But I think there's a sort of more of a
Speaker 7: culture of documenting all of this. And I think it's
Speaker 7: also a result of people being much closer to manufacturing
Speaker 7: and having a much more deep understanding of how these
Speaker 7: supply chains work. You know, everybody in China knows somebody
Speaker 7: who's involved in manufacturing in some capacity, unless, like I
Speaker 7: don't know, you're the most elite person in Beijing who
Speaker 7: you know only knows other intellectuals or something. You know,
Speaker 7: there's somebody in your family, a relative, a friend who
Speaker 7: was involved in this world, and so it's much more normalized,
Speaker 7: I think, whereas for Americans it's like we had a
Speaker 7: whole TV show fifteen years ago or something about how
Speaker 7: stuff was made because you know, it was interesting to
Speaker 7: people because we didn't know because that was already an
Speaker 7: industry that was being offshore.
Speaker 2: And this is not necessarily saying this kind of culture
Speaker 2: is good. But at the same time, it does feel
Speaker 2: like there's almost more connection to more blue collar labor there,
Speaker 2: and there's not so much in an obsession with Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, please correct me, I'm wrong, but far less
Speaker 2: of an attempt to escape those trappings. I feel like
Speaker 2: America has a degree of shame for factory work while
Speaker 2: also kind of lionizing the working class. And it's it's weird.
Speaker 2: It's weird watching this happen, and it's weird watching Americans
Speaker 2: kind of celebrate the glysiine lords, even ironically, it's been
Speaker 2: peculiar to watch.
Speaker 7: I think, actually what you're seeing in China now is
Speaker 7: exactly what you just described having happened in the US,
Speaker 7: which is that there's way more college graduates now who
Speaker 7: don't want to have sort of the same factory jobs
Speaker 7: as their parents. I think that this work is really difficult.
Speaker 7: It often doesn't pay super well. And now it's a
Speaker 7: terrible book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're seeing.
Speaker 7: For sure, but you're seeing I think, like this manufacturing
Speaker 7: labor pool in China starting to age, right, Like, younger
Speaker 7: workers don't want to do this anymore. And you know,
Speaker 7: China has said like, oh yeah, we're having you know,
Speaker 7: problems sort of recruiting people to go to these factory jobs.
Speaker 1: And I think that's also because.
Speaker 7: You often have to live there, which is a really
Speaker 7: big difference, right, Like you know, no one lives on
Speaker 7: site at Amazon.
Speaker 1: I hope, like please if you know about that, like
Speaker 1: get in touch.
Speaker 7: But it's a different you know, it's an all encompassing
Speaker 7: lifestyle where you're you're living on the campus, you're working
Speaker 7: you know, six days a week, potentially long hours, and understandably,
Speaker 7: you know, college graduates don't really want to do that.
Speaker 7: So I think you're right that historically sort of, you know,
Speaker 7: manufacturing was a huge way that China you know, lifted
Speaker 7: a lot of people out of poverty and sort of
Speaker 7: you know, increase its GDP very rapidly. But at the
Speaker 7: same time you're seeing exactly what you described in the
Speaker 7: US of this is not something that a lot of
Speaker 7: young people are excited about doing, but it's still happening on.
Speaker 1: A much bigger scale there than it is here anymore.
Speaker 6: I do think the long hours that people spend in
Speaker 6: these factories is very important in a sense that it
Speaker 6: sort of resembles this socialist legacy where even though you
Speaker 6: know most of these companies are privately owned these days,
Speaker 6: you know, in these state owned enterprises and state owned factories,
Speaker 6: in the seventies and eighties, you did live with your
Speaker 6: co workers, you had your own houses, you would do
Speaker 6: cafeterias with your co workers. So there was an assumption
Speaker 6: of some sort of social cohesion with your workplace outside
Speaker 6: of work itself. And this is why we're seeing a
Speaker 6: lot of people posting about their you know, lives in factories,
Speaker 6: also in part because they have probably very little life
Speaker 6: outside of the work workplace, which could be a terrible
Speaker 6: thing in many cases because of the long working hours
Speaker 6: these days. So I do think that culture is still
Speaker 6: embedded in some some types of factory work in China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the other thing is as well, is
Speaker 2: that it feels like some of this is being used
Speaker 2: to kind of cover up the grosser side, things like
Speaker 2: that they live there and that the hours are horrifying.
Speaker 2: But it's it's in why is it? Why is it
Speaker 2: you think that they're able to show so much of
Speaker 2: the living conditions without actually coming up against the fact
Speaker 2: that you live at your job. How do like they're
Speaker 2: able to just skirt the bad parts? I guess, And
Speaker 2: it almost feels like this sole dong wodgin lung thing
Speaker 2: is kind of covering up parts of that, romanticizing this
Speaker 2: industry that is quite horrible.
Speaker 7: I do think it is worth sort of emphasizing the
Speaker 7: fact that these are corporate accounts, right, Like these are
Speaker 7: not workers sharing their own experiences. These are you know,
Speaker 7: companies that are are able to jump to the Great
Speaker 7: Firewall and are able to sort of post on foreign
Speaker 7: social media platforms because they are doing it in the
Speaker 7: name of like, you know, getting customers, communicating with their customers,
Speaker 7: advertising their business, whereas it would be riskier, right for
Speaker 7: a you know, individual factory worker to actually post sort
Speaker 7: of you know, authentic content about their job and about
Speaker 7: their everyday experiences.
Speaker 1: You do see some of that, but it's it's.
Speaker 7: Much more rare, and I often find that it's people
Speaker 7: who are in like a sales job and have a
Speaker 7: little bit more cover or you know, a little bit
Speaker 7: more familiarity with foreign platforms, maybe speak better English.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 7: It's like, you know, I do also want to shy
Speaker 7: away though, from the idea that every factory job in
Speaker 7: China is horrible and that it's uniquely different from you know,
Speaker 7: blue collar labor in other parts of the world, because
Speaker 7: I guess I cover you fashion a lot, I cover
Speaker 7: the e commerce industry, and time and time again, I
Speaker 7: hear people say, oh, well, I feel better about this
Speaker 7: sweater or whatever because it was made in America, And
Speaker 7: I'm like, oh cool, So you mean the sweatshops here
Speaker 7: in Los Angeles that are like ten miles away.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how that's any better.
Speaker 5: Right then, that's the next episode of the show.
Speaker 2: Literally, that very subject, because you've got I think that
Speaker 2: some of that as well is she In and Timu
Speaker 2: and these companies that absolutely do and have grown off
Speaker 2: of the international terrorists, but also the kind of labor
Speaker 2: of rights violations, and I know China has tried to
Speaker 2: clean up its act here it's just tried, and I
Speaker 2: mean tried is something that's mitigated through some degree of
Speaker 2: propagandas we know, but it's I think your point is
Speaker 2: salient where it's not so much that China's doing perfect work,
Speaker 2: but that America absolutely isn't and the conditions for blue
Speaker 2: collar workers everywhere are pretty goddamn awful.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I think what I always try and say
Speaker 7: in these conversations is to like center it more on
Speaker 7: the agency of these workers, because I think oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 7: people say, oh, I feel so bad about like, you know,
Speaker 7: the stuff I bought on she and like, you know,
Speaker 7: those poor people who are being treated horribly. But that
Speaker 7: kind of becomes an abstraction and it's like, Okay, those
Speaker 7: people are just like an object of my guilt, right
Speaker 7: instead of like actual people with complicated lives, you know,
Speaker 7: some of whom chose these jobs, you know, perhaps because
Speaker 7: they needed the money.
Speaker 2: But but I also push back a little bit on
Speaker 2: that or didn't have a choice, yeah, or didn't have
Speaker 2: a choice.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, But I think, like, you know, for example, if
Speaker 7: you want to talk about like you know, complicated embroidery
Speaker 7: or like certain types of like intricate garment work, right, Like,
Speaker 7: that's a skill, and that's a skill that like you know,
Speaker 7: companies can't just like get away with by like hiring
Speaker 7: nine year olds to do right. Like, those are people
Speaker 7: who you know, have dignity in their work, and I
Speaker 7: think like it's important, I guess, just to like center
Speaker 7: their humanity and stead of just being like all.
Speaker 1: Those people who are treated horribly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're not just mindless drugs.
Speaker 6: I think there's I mean, the state of the working
Speaker 6: conditions depends on extremely highly on the industry, depends on
Speaker 6: the specific employer. I think a lot of things are changing,
Speaker 6: and I think platforms like TikTok actually allows us to
Speaker 6: see more people posting from their own lives and not
Speaker 6: you know, these lists corporate portrayals of what the working
Speaker 6: conditions actually are.
Speaker 2: Are we seeing more of that out of China? Is
Speaker 2: there a growth of that or is the has the
Speaker 2: government moved against that because you see a decent amount
Speaker 2: of it in America but over there, I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's the case.
Speaker 6: I think on the Chinese platforms this is probably true.
Speaker 6: So you know, like we know, like go in, which
Speaker 6: is the TikTok the local version of TikTok. They're although
Speaker 6: us other platforms like quite show, which target is much
Speaker 6: more working class audiences, And on these platforms you basically
Speaker 6: see people posting about their daily lives and the more
Speaker 6: sort of oh this is what I uh, this is
Speaker 6: what I did today. Right, It's completely innocuous. It's it's people. Uh,
Speaker 6: there's no particular intention behind what they're doing. They're just like, oh,
Speaker 6: this is this is what I ate, and this is
Speaker 6: this is uh, this is where I went after work today.
Speaker 6: So I think there is more insight into people's daily
Speaker 6: lives from this new culture of like posting and sharing
Speaker 6: on the internet that is increasingly taking the form.
Speaker 5: Of like video.
Speaker 6: You know, there there there is a reckoning I think
Speaker 6: in the urban middle class that's looking at the sort
Speaker 6: of content and saying, oh, okay, this is where this
Speaker 6: is how people in factories live and this is how
Speaker 6: they work.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: Even within China, I think that recognition is increasingly relevant.
Speaker 5: Is there as agressive?
Speaker 2: So living in America growing up in England not really
Speaker 2: had much exposure to China at all personally, is I
Speaker 2: hear a lot of people saying, oh, the censorship there
Speaker 2: is quite aggressive, and the government will move against you
Speaker 2: for posting the wrong thing.
Speaker 5: How much truth lies in.
Speaker 6: That, that's a tough one.
Speaker 1: I think there there, of course is a lot of
Speaker 1: truth in it.
Speaker 7: I think it's completely fair to say that it's a
Speaker 7: you know, much more censored internet ecosystem than perhaps anywhere
Speaker 7: else in the world. But I think that people assume
Speaker 7: that if you go on a Chinese social media app,
Speaker 7: it's just everybody praising chijin paying and then like maybe
Speaker 7: some like you know, benign fashion influencers. But I think
Speaker 7: it's important to emphasize that it's a very colorful, unwieldy internet,
Speaker 7: you know, of you know, one point four billion people,
Speaker 7: just like anywhere else. And while the government is able
Speaker 7: to sort of crack down much more quickly, and of course,
Speaker 7: you know, a lot more content is censored, there's still
Speaker 7: plenty of CD corners. There's still plenty of you know,
Speaker 7: shocking or strange or weird uh stuff all over the
Speaker 7: Chinese internet, and and a lot of these uh you know,
Speaker 7: as Tanya was saying, these sort of like factory videos
Speaker 7: are really common, or these videos of like sort of
Speaker 7: everyday workers talking about their life. There's actually been a
Speaker 7: trend of like farm workers, and uh, it's funny because
Speaker 7: some of them have gotten in trouble for basically like
Speaker 7: not actually being in farmers and just sort of doing
Speaker 7: this like glamorization of like the simple life. And they're
Speaker 7: often selling like fruits and vegetables. So it's like, oh,
Speaker 7: look at my beautiful you know, Lee Chee farm or whatever,
Speaker 7: and I live this idyllic life here, and it's like,
Speaker 7: that's not where the leeches are actually coming from, Like
Speaker 7: that beautiful girl and that sun dress is not actually
Speaker 7: the person producing essentially, So you know, and I think
Speaker 7: we've seen that in the US too, right, with sort
Speaker 7: of like people sort of glamorizing a simpler way of
Speaker 7: being or or a sort of lifestyle that maybe is
Speaker 7: appealing in some ways to.
Speaker 1: The middle class. Yeah, cottage core, right exactly.
Speaker 7: That's it's it's sort of the Chinese equivalent of the
Speaker 7: cottage core trend in a lot of ways. But I
Speaker 7: do think, you know, going back to your question about
Speaker 7: is it easier to know more now about how your
Speaker 7: stuff is manufactured?
Speaker 1: Probably not.
Speaker 7: I think you can sort of get a glimpse of
Speaker 7: it through something like this glycine trend or whatever. But
Speaker 7: it's definitely harder to get on the ground in China.
Speaker 7: It's harder for companies to sort of do due diligence
Speaker 7: than it was a few years ago. It's more difficult
Speaker 7: to sort of audit your supply chain, figure out exactly
Speaker 7: you know, who is the person or the company at
Speaker 7: every step, you know, before you get that T shirt
Speaker 7: from Timu. But I think what this trend shows is
Speaker 7: that people want to know, right like, people want this information,
Speaker 7: They want to have a better understanding. I don't think people. Yeah,
Speaker 7: of course, there's there's tons of people who just don't care.
Speaker 7: But I think that more can consumers and companies expect
Speaker 7: do want a better sense of where the stuff they
Speaker 7: buy comes from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you, I think a good point to start
Speaker 2: wrapping up on as well. Was you a pit to
Speaker 2: have found an account for a dildo factory?
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for asking. I I did.
Speaker 7: It's it's beautiful. Uh, yeah, it's it's one of these accounts.
Speaker 7: It's similar to sort of the glycine trend. A reader
Speaker 7: my newsletter pointed it out to me on Twitter x
Speaker 7: whatever you want to call it. And they make a
Speaker 7: number of stuff they seem to make Basically these machines
Speaker 7: that like extrude the like rubbery silicon that sex dolls
Speaker 7: and dildos are made out of. So it's like this
Speaker 7: giant long machine which you know, edit this out if
Speaker 7: I can't say this, but they call it a pussy
Speaker 7: ass production machine.
Speaker 1: And so it's like this all they uh, you know, seeing.
Speaker 7: The silicon and then you put it in these you know,
Speaker 7: it comes out hot, and then you put it in
Speaker 7: these giant molds and so it's amazing this factory sort
Speaker 7: of like pans over to this you know, giant warehouse
Speaker 7: of of these button molds essentially where the silicone is setting.
Speaker 7: And uh, they do not seem to understand how funny this.
Speaker 5: Is communicating with people about it. What is the scuttle
Speaker 5: butt there? Like, what is the communication like.
Speaker 7: It's just like it's again it's sort of this like
Speaker 7: speech to text or text to speech software where it's
Speaker 7: like clearly like a robot saying pussy ass production machine.
Speaker 7: And they're sort of up the supply chain, right, so
Speaker 7: they're not even Yeah, it would be like a little
Speaker 7: bit more sort of not as funny or not as
Speaker 7: interesting if they were actually selling the sex all. But
Speaker 7: they're selling like these seven thousand dollars extruders that so
Speaker 7: you can make your own at.
Speaker 1: Home as well.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Also the minimum order is too, so you know, you
Speaker 7: really have to want to commit to this, but that's
Speaker 7: what they're selling. Yeah, and I think it's a you know,
Speaker 7: perfect encapsulation of sort of like how bizarre and silly
Speaker 7: this whole factory trend is.
Speaker 2: And I think to wrap us up here, Louise, have
Speaker 2: you seen don wagin Long or indeed the posios machine
Speaker 2: vendor communicate with anyone?
Speaker 5: Are they actually involved in this at all?
Speaker 7: So it was interesting because they started going super viral
Speaker 7: during the tomb sweeping holiday in China, which is I
Speaker 7: think tian you can correct me. I think it's like
Speaker 7: a three or four day long holiday where you probably
Speaker 7: explained Tianya what that is.
Speaker 6: It's a it's a traditional holiday for you to basically
Speaker 6: like go commemorate their debt relatives. But you know it's
Speaker 6: also a several day long holiday that people would just
Speaker 6: go travel and do stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think it's like Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend
Speaker 7: kind of holiday. So yeah, you know, it's the equivalent
Speaker 7: of sort of like going super viral, like around a
Speaker 7: holiday that everyone was supposed to log off, and probably
Speaker 7: I would say that these people like are not actually
Speaker 7: looking at TikTok that often, right, because this is not
Speaker 7: where they're getting like their updates from their family and
Speaker 7: friends usually. But they did seem to come back online,
Speaker 7: and they commented on a few videos, one from this
Speaker 7: user who made a number of viral videos called microplastic Cat.
Speaker 7: So I know they commented on one of microplastic cats
Speaker 7: meme videos, and I think they just said something sort
Speaker 7: of generic. I get the sense that they're perhaps excited,
Speaker 7: and probably whoever is doing this is like maybe I
Speaker 7: can get a raise out of this. But I don't
Speaker 7: get the sense that they fully understand why this is happening,
Speaker 7: or you know, what the meaning is, or who all
Speaker 7: these people are posting like funny songs and like joking
Speaker 7: about like licene outfits or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't get the sense that they get it.
Speaker 7: And I think there's still sort of like you know,
Speaker 7: a language and cultural barrier here.
Speaker 1: But I think they like it. I think they're probably happy.
Speaker 7: I think the social media manager is uh, you know,
Speaker 7: probably going to do well, and their boss is happy
Speaker 7: with them.
Speaker 2: I think the funniest outcome from this might be that
Speaker 2: they suddenly try and do they try and like join
Speaker 2: the trend and stop trying to do irony. That would
Speaker 2: make me very happy to see them try and probably fail.
Speaker 2: But what what's actually worrying me as well is that
Speaker 2: you're going to see American companies try and copy this,
Speaker 2: and it's going to be very cringey.
Speaker 6: I think it'll be significantly less funny because they're doing
Speaker 6: it ironically, whereas the chie companies are doing it with.
Speaker 7: I don't think American companies will do it because like
Speaker 7: the number one thing American companies like do not want
Speaker 7: right now is to be at all associated with China
Speaker 7: in any way.
Speaker 1: That's true, So I don't think that they will do it.
Speaker 7: And I think that this level of like abstract ironic
Speaker 7: meme is probably going to like you know, escape the
Speaker 7: Chinese factories themselves.
Speaker 1: But that would be really funny.
Speaker 7: I would like to see you know, a single one
Speaker 7: of them just like ask their teenage kids or whatever,
Speaker 7: like what's going on here, because I do think you
Speaker 7: know a lot of Chinese teenagers would be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 7: this is like a stupid meme you know, and be
Speaker 7: able to sort of help them navigate what's going on.
Speaker 7: But for some reason that just like hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 6: It's also it's also you see these reports of dohago
Speaker 6: and being mentioned in Chinese news, and people are like,
Speaker 6: why is this funny? I don't get it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, actually that's the news covenant. Like I was like,
Speaker 5: how is the reaction from the news of it?
Speaker 6: Just like I've seen some stories about oh, dohago, this
Speaker 6: should drawn like seem product a producer is now famous
Speaker 6: on TikTok in the US, and and like nobody seems
Speaker 6: to understand why it's funny. Ah, and like something is
Speaker 6: lost in translation.
Speaker 8: Yeah, in my mind, the dogwar gin lung chemical meme
Speaker 8: is harmless in anyone feeling sinophobic, indigestion, or fears around
Speaker 8: Chinese propaganda needs to either touch grass or reconsider their biases. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I kind of worry about stuff like this being baselessly
Speaker 2: used as some kind of proof that China is brainwashing
Speaker 2: young people into celebrating their industrial culture, despite the fact
Speaker 2: that this is far more an example of great comedy
Speaker 2: being formed in real time, something that's created as a
Speaker 2: result of cultural exploration. And curiosity. We should celebrate this
Speaker 2: kind of thing. It's fun that people are seeing different
Speaker 2: things and making jokes. As a result, comedy on the
Speaker 2: Internet has become rather flat, boring and frankly falsified. If
Speaker 2: you've seen the Reddit beans boulders Gate meme going around
Speaker 2: at the moment. It's fun to watch people having fun.
Speaker 2: It's fun to watch them do something at a time
Speaker 2: when every discussion of China is extremely serious and upsetting
Speaker 2: and frankly based on a level of xenophobia that's deeply worrying. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: I've really enjoyed talking about this, and I'd like to
Speaker 2: thank Louise and Tian you for joining me today and
Speaker 2: credit for the videos plays that at the beginning goes
Speaker 2: to Cities by Diana and Real Dan Yang, who are
Speaker 2: both on Instagram on both hilarious.
Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 2: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 2: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 2: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, m A. T.
Speaker 2: Tso w Ski dot com. You can email me at
Speaker 2: easy at Better offline dot com, or check out Better
Speaker 2: Offline dot.
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