Chinese Teen Beating & Humiliation Videos: Viral or Virus?

2008 coined the Chinese internet meme: 很黄，很暴力 (”very yellow, very violent”). Despite roundly being used in the most humorous of situations, few things truly exemplify the dark side of this meme more than two videos that have spread across the Chinese-language internet this year.

The first video hit critical mass in early July, appearing on various forums and blogs. In the video, a naked and withdrawn teenage girl is commanded to do ludicrous things such as marching in place while enduring beatings by other youths, some classmates, seven girls and four boys in total. It is also suggested that the girl was raped before the video begins.

• Tianya BBS: 女生遭轮奸后又被同学凌辱 并被拍视频放上网 (Chinese)
• ChinaRen BBS: 女生被轮 奸遭凌辱视频引网友热议 (Chinese)
• chinaSMACK: Naked Chinese Girl Attacked By Cantonese Teens [NSFW] (English)
• Sankaku Complex:Girls Preside Over Classmate’s Gang Violation (English)

The second video hit critical mass this past week, again appearing on various forums and blogs. The accompanying story suggests that this girl was being punished by classmates seeking retribution for her stealing from them at least three times. Within the video, the girl offers to appease her enemies by taking off her clothes for the camera rather than being beaten up.

• Mop BBS: 广东女中学生偷东西被威胁脱衣凌辱拍视频 (Chinese)
• chinaSMACK: Naked Schoolgirl Video, Punishment For Stealing [NSFW] (English)

Reactions to both videos can best be described as “expected,” with the overwhelming majority of people all outraged by teenagers ganging up on an girl, beating, exploiting, and humiliating her…all on film. Also expected are the implicit and explicit multitudes of people, both men and women, further spreading or seeking these videos, and the people who lecture them for doing so.

Yet, within the public discourse surrounding these videos, there seems to be two major camps of apoplectic rage:

• Those more outraged by the content of the video, who tend to spread the video to draw more outrage to the video.
• Those more outraged by the video being spread, who insist that the spread of the video is categorically contemptible.

We bare witness to a profound social phenomenon…and conundrum.

1. Are these videos “viral?” Or are these videos a “virus?”
2. Is the rapid spread of these videos natural, illustrating some human social mechanism at work? Or is it unhealthy, revealing something deeply wrong with society? Something else?
3. Should these videos be suppressed, whether to protect the identity or dignity of the participants or to prevent a portion of the population from deriving a socially unacceptable voyeuristic pleasure from it?
4. In the internet age, can these videos realistically be suppressed at all? What ramifications for the “victims”, the “aggressors”, and society at large are there for suppressing or not suppressing? What is “better” or “right” for society?
5. If these videos cannot entirely be suppressed, then how should society react? How should society respond both to the spread of the video and to incident evidenced by the video? Again, what is “better” or “right” for society?
6. What do our responses say about our own worldview, about where we draw the lines separating the individual and society, the private and the public?
7. Is there a difference between the reactions of the average Chinese netizen and the average “Western” netizen? Would your answers above change based upon what society you are in, whether “Chinese” or “Western?”