Trending: Sympathy for the Handsome, Shame for Rule Breaker
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The fun, the strange, and the what-on-earth-is-this? Trending in Beijing is a wrap-up of top stories in Beijing as told by the trending hashtags, local press, and general power of the internet.
You never know who will become the next idol in the eyes of thirsty netizens. Case in point, a young man known only as Xiao Zhang, who appeared on the human interest news roundup show, 1818 Huangjing, to talk about his arm being injured by shattered glass, only to wind up in a compilation video of handsome boys (watch below).
A number of these irresistibly cute off-the-street boys drew praise from Weibo users, but none so much as Xiao Zhang, whose darling eyes and perfect features sparked the hashtag #小张这么帅怎么可以受伤# (xiǎo zhāng zhème shuài zěnme kěyǐ shòushāng, Xiao Zhang is so handsome, how could he be hurt?).
He may be telling a boring story, but would you look at that face!
Admittedly, Xiao Zhang is, to borrow an expression from Western netizens, cute AF, but based on this hashtag, we expect his popularity may have been inflated due to his injury.
The bigger the cast, the cuter the boy
Last week, a video (watch below) surfaced showing a woman encouraging several children to slip grass through the holes of the fence at a wolf enclosure in the Beijing Zoo. The wolves appear eager to snack on the leaves, though a man behind the camera can be heard saying, "They cannot eat grass! They are carnivores." The children also passed popsicle sticks through the fence.
Animal-loving netizens were naturally enraged. “The problem isn’t what they were feeding them,” commented one user. “It’s that they shouldn’t be feeding them at all. Seriously...”
The children and the woman shoved blades of grass through to the wolves
Luckily, in response, the hashtag #动物园内喂狼吃草女子被列黑名单# (dòngwùyuán nèi wèi láng chī cǎo nǚzǐ bèi liè hēi míngdān, woman who fed grass to wolves at the zoo is blacklisted) began trending on Friday, Sep 25, indicating that justice had been served in the case. Moreover, the zoo added pebbles into the enclosure’s fence to ensure that the wolves could no longer be fed by visitors.
Quipped another user, “She’s banned for life from the zoo, and when her children ask, ‘Mom, why can all the other children go to the zoo?’ She will have to answer, ‘Because you mother has no integrity.’”
Earlier this year, the Luckin coffee delivery app crashed, but it wasn’t due to an increased demand for delivered cuppas during the COVID-19 outbreak. Instead, it was for fear that the brand would soon be defunct in light of the news that it falsified billions of RMB in sales in order to satisfy investors.
Then, earier this week, #瑞幸咖啡不正当竞争行为被罚# (ruìxìng kāfēi bù zhèngdàng jìngzhēng xíngwéi bèi fá, Luckin fined for unfair competitive behavior) began trending. As we all knew would happen sooner or later, the hammer finally came down on the coffee giant – as well as 43 other companies that helped out with the deceptive practices. As a result, Luckin will have to pay a fee of RMB 61 million. That’s a lot of cash, especially considering that the owner’s net worth plummeted about RMB 7 billion in the aftermath of the April revelations.
While most netizens agreed that the fine was justified, many cried out in the hope that the brand would survive. “Please,” read one comment, “Don’t let the coffee of the everyman fall.”
READ: Trending in Beijing: Jackie Chan’s House, Pervert Cat and Mouse, Rainbow Wows
Images: Weibo, Futurama
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