Streaming the Forgotten Land

Kuaishou stands at the intersection of three dimensions: market economy, digital technology and mass culture. They interface with each other and create a vast cyber community that breaks rather than foregrounds the existing boundaries, debunking the conventional dichotomies drawn between labour and leisure, producer and consumer, elite/official culture and mass culture. From small towns to remote countryside, from fishing boat to plateau, there are numerous people using Kuaishou, unleashing their creativities. The rural labourers once left behind in China’s technological rise have finally found a base camp to establish and voice their own culture, to equally benefit from digital media technology and celebrate material prosperity. The opportunities brought by mobile technology enables them to pursue individual interests and to create their diverse communities in the cyberspace at an unprecedented scale.
On a higher level, works created by Kuaishou UGC producers constitute a cross- section of Chinese society, multifaceted and humane, radiating fresh takes on the forgotten lives of ordinary Chinese people. Together they weave a tapestry of the grassroots in China, formulating a diverse but collective image that questions and contradicts official grand narrative. Together they make themselves seen, self-empowered with the capacity to elevate the ordinary into the extraordinary.