Hat tip to Virtual China for reminding me of Fu Rong Jie Jie, the number 4 most searched person on Baidu. This made me take a closer look at the Baidu list, and interestingly HALF of the top 10 searches are net stars. If you count Huang Jianxiang, which you could due to the buzz he created with all the videos, ringtones and audio clips he inspired, we would have 6 out of ten. There are even more in the 2nd group of ten, including Dodolook.

Interestingly, 4 net stars beat out Chairman Mao.....

List is below (for July 17, 2006). You can find most updated list here.

Net stars have ** and are in red.

1. **欲望女神 (Yu Wang Nv Shen): The so called “Goddess of desire," being positioned as a new competitor for Er Yue Ya Tou.

2. **二月丫头 (Er Yue Ya Tou): The hot net "calendar" girl from recent months.

3. 黄健翔 (Huang Jianxiang)

4. ** 芙蓉姐姐(Furong Jie Jie): (She just won’t go away)

5. **郭敬明 (Guo Jingming): Famous writer accused of plagiarism with NO.11 blog on Sina.

6. 丛飞 (Cong Fei)

7. **韩寒 (Han Han): Writer with NO.5 Sina blog

8. 高莺莺 Gao Ying Ying

9. 毛泽东 Mao Zedong

10. 张艺谋 Zhang Yimou

What this means is that consumers are taking control of their own entertainment. No more spoon fed, boring shows from traditional media. These are stars chosen by the people for the people. Certainly, net stars are not unique to China (think Star Wars Kid and the star making power of Youtube in the West, i.e. see here). However, I think net stars are much more mainstream in China than the West. Ask the average white collar worker in the US if they know the Star Wars Kid, they probably won't. Ask a Chinese white collar worker if they know Back Dorm Boys or Fu Rong Jie Jie, they most likely will.

Check out a comparable buzz analysis from the US. There are no Western net stars anywhere to be found on Google's monthly Zeitgeist (see here) or its weekly Zeitgeist (see here).

In a related note, XuJingLei, the actress/director who is also the most influential blogger in the world, was recently chosen by AMD as a spokesperson. Part of the deal was to direct a commercial which you can see here (I love the fact that this blogger took a video of their TV to capture this).




What is important to note is that the commercial stars XuJingLei the Blogger, not XuJingLei the Movie Star. Also, the whole premise of the commercial is based on the idea that with the AMD processor, you can post blog comments faster. This is represented by the Chinese social media term of "grabbing the sofa" or "抢沙发" (the term used describe the effort to place the first comment on a blog or BBS post, a point of pride for many). The fact that a mainstream TVC can be targeting and based upon blog culture speaks volumes about the impact of blogging culture on Chinese popular culture. Just one more indication that blogs, BBS and social media overall are moving fast into the mainstream in China.