Thread by @SabinaKnight1

🧵1/ #躺平 lying flat [thread in progress]

In #China Gen Y-Z are tired of the rat race

新不合作运动
"New Non-Cooperation Movement"

#Memes and Music

🧵2/ #躺人 "lying flat" – #censorship

"Lying Flat" was quickly censored on both Douban and Weibo.

Within 24 hours, four 'Lying Flat’-themed Douban groups were suspended.

For background: see @SixthTone

@SixthTone 🧵3/ #躺人 lying flat

#LyingFlat is becoming a social movement of young people rejecting the #CCP's "Chinese Dream" 中国梦.

Xi Jinping announced this ideal in late 2012 to lead China's “great rejuvenation.”
nytimes.com/2013/06/05/opi…

🧵4/ #躺人 lying flat movement - context:

"#XiJinping's Reform Agenda,"
video by Jessica Teets of @Middlebury:

&
"The #Chinese Dream: Still Dreaming?"
by Jessica Teets in @Diplomat_APAC:
thediplomat.com/2013/09/the-ch…

@Middlebury @Diplomat_APAC 🧵5/ #躺人 即是正义
#LyingFlat is Righteous.

The term "lying flat" dates from at least 2011.

On Apr 17, 2021 "Kind-Hearted Traveler" (Luo Huazhong) used it in a post on a major online forum, Baidu Tieba 百度贴吧.

His defense of his low-desire lifestyle sparked heated debate.

🧵6/ #LyingFlat is Righteous

既然这片土地从没真实存在高举人主体性的思潮，那我可以自己制造给自己，躺平就是我的智者 #运动."

"As our land has never had a real trend of thought exalting human agency, I can create one. Lying flat is my sage-like #movement."

– Kind-Hearted Traveler

🧵7/ #躺人 lying flat

“中国梦”之 #躺平主义
The #LyingFlat-ism of the "#Chinese Dream"

This manifesto presents direct opposition to the #CCP's National Dream (中共国梦).

via @Gnews202064 (in Chinese):
gnews.org/zh-hans/126156…

@Gnews202064 🧵8/ lying flat means:

Don't buy an apartment.
Don't buy a car.
Don't get married.
Don't have children.
Don't be a consumer.
Maintain the lowest possible standard of living.

Don't become a machine for others to make money or a slave to be exploited.
rfi.my/7Rm0.T

@Gnews202064 🧵9/ lying flat #躺平 (tǎngpíng)

有也行，没有也行
To have or not; it's all good.

一切随缘 . . .
Go with the karmic flow

不争不抢
Don't fight or grab [at things]

不求输赢
Don't seek to win or lose.*

人生苦短 . . .
Life's too short
___
*i.e., outcomes
s.weibo.com/weibo?q=%E4%B9…

🧵10/ #躺平
Banned in China:

《#躺平是王道》躺平即正义
词曲：张不三

"#LyingFlat is the Way*":
Lying Flat is Righteous
lyrics & music: Zhang Busan

2:51 min @YouTube:

____
*see 11/ below

🧵11/ Best intro to lying flat 躺平 is @YouTube:

《#躺平是王道》
"#LyingFlat is the Way [of the Benevolent Ruler]*"

- full Chinese lyrics
- rich comments with full English translation & notes pinned at top.

__
*as opposed to 霸道, the Way of the Hegemon

@YouTube 🧵12/In her comments on Zhang's song @aliagoehr gives A+ notes, e.g:

"Competition's inward spiral" (nèijuǎn 内卷):

"#involution" has come to denote areas of extreme toxic social or professional #competition, such as #China's college entrance exams or office workers' overtime...

🧵13/ Lying flat is a considered response to "#involution."

內卷 (nèijuǎn, "inside rolling," a curling inward) now denotes entrapment in competition.

"#Sisyphus spinning the wheels of a perpetual-motion @peloton." @yilingliu95
newyorker.com/culture/cultur…

🧵14/ #躺平哲学
Lying flat #philosophy

《子曰躺平》孔子让我躺平的
"The Master says: Lie Flat"
Confucius has me lie flat

Lyrics: *The Analects* 论语
Music: Zhang Bosan 张不三

🧵15/ Confucius said:
贤哉，回也！
So virtuous was Hui!
一箪食
A single basket of food,
一瓢饮
a single ladle of drink
在陋巷
in a lowly lane.
人不堪其忧
Others couldn't have endured his distress.
回也不改其乐
Yet his joy was not affected.
贤哉，回也 …
Virtuous was Hui indeed!

🧵16/ #躺平 #marketing & #censorship

T-shirts, sweaters and other products drew buyers* who identify with the "lying flat" philosophy.

Then the products were recalled, or at least disappeared from shelves and online.
__
* ironic given that the movement is anti-materialistic

🧵17/ Some "#LyingFlat Youth" #躺平青年 both (a) reject materialism & (b) buy products with #躺平 slogans with which they identify.

The movement presents a telling case of both (a) resistance to conformity & mimetic desire and (b) mimetic desire at work.

🧵18/ Precursor trends have been leading up to the "lying flat" #躺平 movement for yrs.

The 1993 sitcom "I love my home" later inspired a #meme of its protagonist, played by actor Ge You 葛优.

By 2016 the slang term "Ge You slouch" #葛优躺 * was trending.

*Ge You #lying around

🧵19/ *Sang* culture #丧文化 is also a precursor to the "lying flat" #躺平 mindset.

"A coping mechanism similar to #stoicism," *sang* 丧 (lit. mourning) bespeaks a sense of disenfranchisement.

See Zeng Yuli @SixthTone (2017): sixthtone.com/news/1000407/t…

🧵20/ Lying flat #躺平 trends also draw on Buddhist chill culture (佛系文化).

#Buddhist #chill (佛系): a neologism for "chill about everything," used by & about youth who don't buy into the Chinese Dream.*

* See 🧵3-4.
____
Buddhist chill youth (佛系青年)
Feel the tranquility!

🧵21/ For more on "#Buddhist #chill," see thread below.

This Lying flat thread continues in 🧵22/.

🧵22/ @emilie_chrx skillfully puts #tangping 躺平 in the context of #economic precarity.

(She shows images of tweets 17-18 from this thread.)
__
"In #China more and more youth are 'lying flat' to write another national narrative" (in French) @USBEKetRICA
usbeketrica.com/fr/article/com…

🧵23/ Some "lying flat" youth see themselves as "#chives" (韭菜) to be harvested by exploitative employers and the state.

“If we chives lie flat, then it’s hard for them to cut or chop us.”
___________
🎨 Capitalists can no longer chop us down!
Lying flat chives

🧵24/ Some "lying flat" youth call themselves "#chives" (韭菜) or "loosers" (屌丝) because they don't identify with the privileged group known as the "rear wave" (后浪).

The "rear wave" refers to the new generation that excels beyond its forebears.
___
"Rush on, rear waves!"

🧵25/ To motivate #China's youth, video platform Bililbili posted a lecture for Youth Day, May 2020.

“A nation’s most beautiful scenery is its youth. Kind, brave, selfless, fearless .... Surge ahead, rear waves!”

Actor He Bing 何冰, “Rear Waves”《后浪》