Lin Min

    linmin67@hotmail.com

    WHILE authorities were investigating a video clip of a young couple having sex in a clothing store fitting room, the video — which went viral last week — seems to have bathed Chinese cyberspace in a euphoria that saw numerous pranks and marketing gimmicks flood social media.

    Many people suspected that the one-minute video was just a publicity stunt by Uniqlo’s Sanlitun store in Beijing, which the company immediately denied. There was also speculation that the man in the video lost the cellphone that was used to shoot the clip, and the video was posted online by a malicious third party who found the phone. Whatever the case, the couple could be innocent victims — unless they deliberately leaked the video, an unlikely act by sane people.

    Although the couple should be faulted for their behavior in an inappropriate place, they didn’t deserve the cruel viewing of their private moments by millions of people. Sharing and making jokes about the clip could be rubbing salt in the couple’s wounds.

    But possible pain the couple could be feeling doesn’t seem to be on the minds of the countless people who see the video as a golden opportunity to make jokes or as a marketing gimmick of their own.

    Shortly after the video went viral, scores of photos of people taking selfies outside the Sanlitun store appeared on social media. The subjects appeared to be jubilant, posing in front of the store’s giant logo as if they were there to celebrate a big moment in their lives. Are these people really proud of what the young couple did and ready to do the same? Probably not. Taking selfies in front of Uniqlo soon after the Internet sensation appears to be just for fun.

    Some have even gone so far as to mimic the poses seen in the Uniqlo footage. A photo of two men apparently being intimate in a purported Heilan Home outlet also went viral.

    “Fitting room” also became an instant catchphrase. The phase has now been used by plenty of cheeky marketing companies, with one advertisement for compact cars saying their autos can also be ideal “fitting rooms,” hinting that they are spacious enough for passionate sex.

    The viral video even caught the attention of overseas media. The Guardian columnist Jemimah Steinfeld sees the incident as a sign that the Internet is driving China’s sexual revolution. The Chinese population “is moving in one direction, and that’s towards greater sexual freedom and fun,” she wrote.

    Taking every opportunity to have fun seems to be the tendency of China’s netizens. Even when many of them lost a fortune in the recent stock market meltdown, they still managed to crack black-humor jokes.

    Neil Postman’s 1985 book entitled “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” may offer some thoughts on this phenomenon. In the book, Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which totalitarian governments deprive individual rights, from that offered by Aldous Huxley in “Brave New World,” where people medicate themselves into bliss with a drug called soma, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights. Drawing an analogy with the latter scenario, Postman sees television’s entertainment value as a modern-day soma, by means of which citizens’ rights are exchanged for entertainment. It can be safely presumed that the Internet now offers greater amusement than television did.

    While avoiding sensitive issues, netizens tend to explore every opportunity to amuse themselves. Censors may be deeply worried that the Uniqlo sex video could damage Chinese morality. However, another issue may be more troubling: with every effort to amuse ourselves with foolish or indecent pranks and jokes, we are ignoring serious issues that really matter.

    (The author is head of the Shenzhen Daily News Desk.)