Wǎnghóng(網紅) Valley

How we discover many new places to visit nowadays is often through the digital, e.g. “I also want to go to the real-life locations of this game like this YouTuber!” or “This ‘Disneyland of Chinese Cuisine’ is really popular on Xiaohongshu, we have to visit it!”. These kind of posts on online platforms are often bottom-up, which are made, discovered and popularized by other online users. A lot of these places can become extremely popular among netizens, which can result in a boom in the economy and tourism of said place (and even the surrounding places). This phenomenon shows the interlinked relationship between the digital and physical space, which is also known in contemporary Mandarin discourse as ‘wanghong’.

What is Wanghong?

The Chinese term wanghong (wǎnghóng: 網紅) originated from wangluo hongren (wǎngluò hóngrén: 網路紅人), which refers to someone being famous (hóngrén, 紅人) on the internet (wǎngluò, 網路), however wanghong can also refer to any kind of entity being famous on the (Chinese) internet (Sandel & Wang, 2022). When a city, style, meal, person or even an object is wanghong, that means that it is famous on the internet. Due to this bottom-up gain of online fame, many netizens will want to interact with this, that in turn amplifies their popularity even further.

While entities becoming famous and popular among many people is definitely not something new, the introduction of the digital world as a new medium and our increasingly engagement with it, has created new methods to do so. It is through the digital that becoming wanghong can be a little bit more easily and faster obtained by the mundane. Something/someone often becomes wanghong unintentionally after netizens share it online and it/they gains attention, but this has also made way for intentional wanghong creations as a marketing strategy.

While anything can become wanghong and/or use marketing strategies in order to achieve it, I will only discuss ‘wanghong urbanism’. This entails how and why physical places are changed and/or even built as a result of becoming and/or wanting to be wanghong.

“ (… )it confirms that this neighborhood is not so much a ‘family affair’ and more of a like ‘house-party wild’ kind of party town.”

– Katya Zamolodchikova1

Wanghong Urbanism

Wanghong urbanism proposes the concept of “a cyclical interaction between digital social media and the urban built environment, and the production of hybrid urban-digital spectacles through such interaction”, which is also known as the ‘urban-digital spectacle cycle’ (Zhang, Roast & Morris, 2022). When (an element of) a physical place gains a lot of attention and interaction in the digital world,  it becomes wanghong, after which many netizens will try to frequent it, that leads to an increase in in attention and interaction in the physical world.

The physical places itself and the reason why they become wanghong can differ a lot, but they have similar outcomes of a rise in attention and interaction, which benefits and changes the local economy. This improvement often leads to changes in the physical world in order to maintain the wanghong place, to cater to frequenting netizens, and/or to profit from a booming economy. This is often the case with places becoming unintentionally wanghong and shifting their focus (slightly) towards a wanghong economy.

The urban-digital spectacle cycle2

This phenomenon has also made way for intentional wanghong urbanism, which is the production of physical places with the intention of it being and/or becoming wanghong. I think the primary reason for this is financial gain, due to the emergence of a thriving economy in wanghong places. While some intentional wanghong urbanism may look beneficial for a few parties, it can stimulate the local economy a lot, albeit with a focus on wanghong economy. Another form of wanghong urbanism is the reproduction of a wanghong place somewhere else, with the intention of having the same effect of the first wanghong place.

Conclusion

Mundane places in the physical world can thus become thriving economic and/or cultural hubs as a result of becoming wanghong. The introduction of the digital world (as a new medium) and our increasing engagement with it, has created new methods for bottom-up gain of online fame, which can result in a rise of frequenting netizens, whom establish, maintain and contribute to a new booming wanghong economy. Physical wanghong (and their surrounding) places also change to maintain the wanghong place and to cater to the frequenting netizens.

This interlinked relationship between the digital and physical space is explained through the ‘urban-digital spectacle cycle’. This has also made way for intentional wanghong urbanism, which is the production of physical places with the intention of it being and/or becoming wanghong. While I do think that a shift towards a wanghong economy is not really sustainable, it does allow a mundane place to (slightly easier) develop fame, a booming economy, and themselves in the digital and physical world.

  1. Trixie & Katya, 2023. 40:47 – 40:56. ↩︎
  2. Zhang, Roast, and Morris, 2022. ↩︎

Bibliography

October 7, 2024 by Digital Dynamos 2

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2 Responses

  1. Youri says:
    October 7, 2024 at 11:35 am

    Interesting blog post! I think online videos also shape my perception of certain places. YouTube videos of foreigners living in China made me want to live there too, and I did for a short while. Perhaps a disadvantage is the hidden promotions by local governments or companies, possibly eliminating the authenticity of the vlogger’s experience.

  2. liaoerxun says:
    November 5, 2024 at 5:23 pm

    I have to leave a comment on this because it mentioned my hometown!! (the subway that goes through a building)

    I can totally relate to the phenomena mentioned in this blog post as ‘wanghong’ has become a tag for tourist attractions. All those restaurants or just plain sights change their name prefix into ‘wanghong’ and the decoration into a specific way, then they absorb the tourists.

    What I wanna say is that, instead of mindlessly following this trend, which I think is quite booming, people should really dig in into the rich culture behind the tourist attractions.

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