Classic Complete Record of Consuming Men Online

2006/2/22 21:09:10

I go online only to rest and incidentally to consume men. My first time playing online was 2002, when I was only on poetry forums. To consume men, the best approach is of course to infiltrate enemy territory. When "find a bad man as a lover" didn't pan out, I created the "Petty Man" ID and ran amok on forums like Bixing and Guoxue. I first took a disliking to some East Sea owl-something and gave him a good thrashing, then some Hall-something — all men who liked to wave flags. I've never liked men who wave flags. This bout of troublemaking lasted a month and turned all the major poetry forums upside down. IDs and IPs got banned; the "Petty Man X" numbering went into double digits.

Back then I mostly cursed people in verse. A few excerpts: "Where in heaven and earth is there no purity? / Confucius the Second deleted poems and falsely claimed sainthood. / From then on heaven and earth had but one color, / a thousand years and ten thousand more to prosper" — this was cursing moderators for deleting posts. "Ascending the western tower alone under cool moonlight, / spring rain in Jinling drips upon red blossoms. / A thousand years of elegant scholars across divine China, / winning rivers and mountains for ten thousand li" — this was mocking the so-called elegant scholars. "My poetry surpasses the Yellow Crane Tower — how could that be my power? / Democracy and freedom are equally contemptible. / Ghosts, monsters, humans, demons — each has their preference. / Which enlightener serves as a beacon?" — this was satirizing the so-called enlightenment preachers. "Your lordship won't cut off what hangs below; / indeed, therein lies the problem. / Coming and going, all returns to dust; / why insist on uniformity?" — this was advising men to become like Sima the Younger. In short, they were all dashed off on-screen in under a minute each and should only be taken as jokes.

Two larger and more interesting works were produced on-screen back then: "Playing a Long Game: 54 Rhymes, Also Answering garychangguo, Xutang, etc." — written in a man's voice, five-character lines, 54 couplets all in a single rhyme, in which every man in heaven and on earth was castrated once. And "'Ballads of the Wronged Wife,' 50 Poems: one story, yet the story is not about the story, the wronged wife is not about the wronged wife — see how many can understand?" — composed of 50 ci poems in the style of boudoir laments, using that genre to speak of current affairs.

Without SARS, there probably would not have been a second time online. At that time, Beijingers were unwelcome everywhere, so the only option was to play online. I deliberately created the "Sneezing Sneezing" ID. The posts I wrote were collected as "Sneezing Sneezing Selected Strong Nation Posts: The Extraordinary Woman of Strong Nation's Classic Works: The Major Opportunity China May Face" and circulated online. Later, finding the men online disagreeable, I picked a fight with some flag-waving leftist called "Math-something" and gave him a working-over. But the biggest commotion at the time was the so-called Japanese Couplet Incident — using the ID "SunSunSunSunSunSunSunSunJapan" I posted the upper line "Japan rises in the East, illuminating Shikoku and Kyushu" just for fun. The result was a massive uproar — Chinese-language internet sites worldwide went crazy. The internet is really too tedious. After a month of playing, I left again.

The third time online was due to the RMB appreciation issue. It wasn't long after the second time. Using a line from an old poem, "Heaven and earth on one sheet of paper / one character, one star" as my ID, I wrote a series of articles on economics. These were collected as the classic long post "Currency War and RMB Strategy" and widely circulated across Chinese-language websites worldwide. Like the "Sneezing Sneezing" ID's posts, I genuinely don't know who the specific collector was. What karma! Thank you! This time didn't last long either. The most famous online ID, "A Girl Who Likes Math," was created during the second time online, mainly for arguing and playing, and has been kept to this day.

After a gap of over a year, the fourth time online began around 2005, on and off, and it's been over a year now. The biggest commotion this time was "Setting Up a Ring to Challenge All Men in the World — If You're a Man, Come In!" Unfortunately, no one has been able to take the challenge to this day. Recently I created a simpler version: "Challenging All Men in the World — If This Woman Loses, She Immediately Quits the Internet." Same result — no takers. Men on the internet are truly becoming less and less interesting to consume. Unlike the previous bouts, both recent commotion attracted print media wanting to get involved — even in the past two days — but all were firmly refused. Virtual is virtual. There's no need to mix it with reality, and that goes for consuming men online too.