Days of street clashes between groups of young men and young female fans outside a talent agency in the Chinese city of Chongqing have ended with police busing the men away, and the feud has continued online.
Danish broadcaster DR reports that the trouble started 11 days ago outside the offices of the talent agency Shidai Fengjun. Groups of young men arrived with livestreaming equipment and began harassing the agency’s young male trainees.
According to DR, the men chanted an insult that translates roughly as poser or pretty boy at the boys heading in to training. Young women who regularly gather at the site to spot their idols answered back, and the men filmed the exchanges, edited them and posted them online.
The clips spread, and in the following days more people turned up on both sides. Videos from the past weeks show water being thrown, kicking, objects being hurled and verbal abuse going back and forth.
In one clip from August 17, a woman throws an object at a man, who responds by throwing a water bottle back. Police led the man away, which angered the group of men, who claimed officers were favoring the women. From there, DR reports, the conflict ran along three lines: the trainees, the women and the police.
Some of the men then produced AI-generated revenge pornography using images taken of the women at the scene. One woman who had confronted them directly was singled out, and cards presenting her as a prostitute were distributed around the agency’s headquarters. A fan wall carrying photos of the trainees was torn down and set on fire.
Agency suspends training
On August 18, Shidai Fengjun announced it was closing the office for now. In a press release the company said there had been disturbances outside the building, and a notice posted outside stated that it was not known when training would resume. Instead of calming down, the situation grew, with women reporting they were outnumbered.
The Taiwanese outlet Storm.mg reported on August 20 that the men had begun gathering from around August 15 to 17, jeering underage trainees and livestreaming the harassment to draw online traffic. Sing Tao Daily’s US edition reported on August 21 that verbal confrontations escalated into physical clashes involving chasing and kicking. ETtoday reported on August 19 that at least one female fan was injured, with some accounts claiming knife wounds.
A Weibo hashtag describing men gathering to abuse and fight young boys and female fans was censored by the platform, per DR. A police notice published on August 20 called the episode a verbal dispute that turned into conflict involving water throwing. It did not mention the men’s conduct, but urged young people to follow their idols in a rational and civilized way.
DR notes that Chinese authorities have run a years-long campaign against what they call disorderly and excessive fan culture, aimed largely at young women. Fan accounts have been deleted, idol programs closed and competitions canceled. In Chongqing, civilians rather than the authorities acted.
