The New Yorker:

Standup flourished during the pandemic. Now performers fear the state—and audience members.

By Chang Che

On a Saturday evening last May, China’s leading standup-comedy studio, Xiaoguo Culture Media, hosted a show in Beijing. Among the performers was Li Haoshi, a thirty-one-year-old nicknamed House, who had risen to acclaim two years earlier, on Xiaoguo’s standup-competition series “Rock & Roast.” In one bit that evening, House shared a story of how he had adopted two stray dogs. The dogs, he said, chased squirrels “like cannon fire.” Most dogs he’d seen were of the cute, heart-melting variety, but his dogs called to mind a military slogan: “First-rate in conduct, victorious in battle.” The crowd erupted with laughter.

Most Chinese were familiar with House’s reference. It has been a propaganda tagline since 2013, when Xi Jinping began to frame China’s military as flag-bearers on the country’s march to superpower status. After the show, an anonymous user leaked House’s joke on Weibo, a popular social-media site, where nationalists verbally thrashed the comic, imploring officials to bring him and Xiaoguo to justice. “These second-rate traitors can’t be punished enough,” one commenter wrote. By week’s end, hashtags related to House’s bit had surpassed a billion hits.

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