The Bilibili video interpreting "Youth" has gone viral

Mr. Ma watched it a few days ago. Some classmates asked me why it's gone viral; let me tell you:

1.
It's definitely not because life at the bottom has become more difficult—the lives of those at the bottom have always been hard, never good. The people at the bottom, or what we call the foundation of this country, have an astonishing tolerance for hardship.

2.
Bilibili is not a website used by people at the bottom. Whether delivering food, parcels, driving for Didi, working as security, cleaners, or nannies, those who earn by trading their time for money simply don’t have the time to watch a 40-minute video with such subtle language. So, the video’s popularity on Bilibili has captured the hearts of the middle class that has already fallen or is about to slip into the lower class.

3.
Where did China’s middle class come from? That’s a very interesting question. Because in the movie "Youth," this class doesn't exist. Liu Feng and He Xiaoping represent the working people, while Lin Dingding and Chen Can are the privileged. In that era, there was a terrifying aspect: there was no middle class.

4.
So at the end of "Youth," after the debate over which path to take was settled, we rapidly began urbanization, and for the first time, a true middle class was born in China. The concept of the middle class was originally a false one; the middle class is essentially the newly enriched proletariat, which echoes Deng Xiaoping’s idea: allow some people to get rich first.
Everything has two sides. Lin Dingding and Chen Can may have become extremely wealthy. But without the policies of reform and opening up, without the two decades of development under Jiang and Hu, hundreds of millions would not have escaped poverty.

5.
The reason for revisiting the debate over which path to take is that a huge number of middle-class people are now facing the risk of sliding down again. Pay cuts, layoffs, unemployment, unfinished buildings, mortgage defaults, judicial auctions, refusing marriage and childbirth—these words bearing down on the middle class are not the result of reform and opening up. Wen Jiabao once said, if the political system doesn’t reform, even those in power are at risk. So how to reform? Through redistribution.
Without reform and opening up, just take a left out the door and you’ll end up like North Korea. There, Lin Dingding and Chen Can still exist, but you can only be Liu Feng or He Xiaoping, not living in Pyongyang, struggling desperately for a spot in an art troupe to get into the city.

6.
The ambiguous official tone regarding the Cultural Revolution after reform and opening up was a deliberate choice. On one hand, that period of history was not glorious; if you don’t believe it, just rephrase "armed struggle" as "internal chaos"—it undermines the legitimacy of governance. On the other hand, class narrative was no longer the main contradiction. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong were all focused on one thing: developing productivity.

Part of the reason for the viral popularity of "Youth" interpretations is curiosity about that period of history. By the time the post-95 generation was born, it was already an era of rapid development; most post-00s grew up in the era of the 2008 Olympics, with Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman singing: "You and me, from one world, we are family." That was the peak of China embracing the world. If you’re interested, look up the countries invited as guests—almost the entire Western world was at our table. In these decades focused on economic development, we have indeed downplayed the history of the Cultural Revolution.

Another reason is the protest from those born before 1995 and post-80s. They know that period of history better and understand that only through struggle can there be victory. These people have aging parents and young children, are burdened with huge mortgages, or are facing shrinking assets. They have witnessed both rapid development and the era of ration coupons. The dreaded slide of the middle class is now just around the corner. Now that moderate redistribution is entirely ineffective, returning to class narratives and debates over direction—a double loss is better than a single win.

7.
Many people, from many angles, in many regions, with many emotions, have come together to type "Long live the people." Seeing the screen full of "Long live the people," I actually feel a sense of sadness inside.
The people have always just been a symbol. It's like in "The Deer and the Cauldron," when Chen Jinnan told Wei Xiaobao that "Oppose the Qing, restore the Ming" was just a slogan—it could just as easily be replaced by "Amitabha." The meaning behind "Long live the people" has already accumulated countless words and emotions. Its meaning is simply too complex to explain.
We have spent 30 years with class struggle as the guiding principle, and 40 years with economic development at the center. Let’s wait and see.

@bilibili_en #芳华 # Huang Xuan