Binary Dreams An Ethnography of the Digital Economy in China Binaire Dromen - Een Etnografie van de Digitale Economie in China (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 5 februari 2018 des middags te 2.30 uur door Samuel Lengen geboren op 1 augustus 1983 te Zürich, Zwitserland Promotor: Prof. dr. P.T. van der Veer © 2017 Samuel Lengen Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract vii Korte Samenvatting viii Introduction 2 Chinese Dreams 3 Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation 11 Trodden Footpaths and Popular Online Media 18 Inno Way and Capture 27 Diors Man, Wonder Lady, and Captivation 35 Methodology 42 Chapter One: Inno Way 50 Chinese Technology Entrepreneurship 2.0 53 The Dream Accelerator 56 From Internet Thinking to Internet Plus 60 Promising Ecologies 64 Digital Technologies of Capture 67 Popular Creativity 70 Chapter Two: Diors Man 76 Male Laughter and the Joys of Failure 80 Generic Failure 83 Subversive Performativity and the Reproduction of Gendered Difference 86 An Online Comedy Show 90 Transform ations 93 Heroic Failure 95 Chapter Three: The Age of the Internet 100 Recursive optimism 105 In Search of an Angel 109 The Dark Horse Club 112 The Dark Horse Competition 114 Negotiating Failure 118 Chapter Four: Wonder Lady 124 i Aspirational Binaries 125 Material Dreams 130 Getting Caught Up 134 Female Comedy and the Trap 138 Marketing Affinity 142 Chapter Five: An Exemplary Entrepreneurship Ecology 148 Double Ambition 151 The Binggo Café 155 Startup Weekend 158 Entrepreneurship Service and Its Discontents 160 Startup Culture and Online Media 164 Conclusion: The Digital Mediation of Aspiration 170 Capture and Captivation 173 Oppression, Resistance, and Capture 175 Bibliography 180 ii Acknowledgements Over the past years, many wonderful people have contributed to this research. Fieldwork is necessarily a collaborative project, and I want to extend my sincere gratitude to my interlocutors for supporting my research with their expertise and insights. Throughout my fieldwork, my they have generously invited me into their lives, introduced me to their work, and shared their dreams with me. I am moved by their kindness and thank them for all the stories and moments they shared with me. The professionals working at Inno Way and the Da Peng Studio deserve special mention. I am deeply indebted to them for generously taking time out of their busy work schedules and inviting me to explore the workings of startup services and media production in Beijing’s digital economy. The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen has been my intellectual home during my Ph.D., and I thank my supervisor Peter van der Veer for giving me the opportunity to debate, think, and write, in such an excellent scholarly environment. His continuous support and intellectual guidance have been invaluable: while he has provided me with astute and crucial guidance, he has also generously encouraged me to develop my ideas. I am grateful for his attentiveness and help in bringing this thesis to fruition. My time at the MPI was possible thanks to generous funding from the Max Planck Society. While based in Göttingen, I was a Ph.D. candidate at Utrecht University, and I am grateful for having been awarded the honor to pursue my degree at this wonderful institution. My fellow Ph.D. students at the MPI have been great friends and a fantastic support network. I am thankful for Shaheed Tayob’s willingness to join me in extensive and discussions. I also am indebted to He Xiao’s theoretical and ethnographic insights. I will always remember the conversations we had while strolling through Göttingen. The three of us held a weekly writing group that proved to be a continuous source of helpful feedback. I owe thanks to Sajide Tuxun for her support and, in particular, for helping me with occasional lessons in Mandarin Chinese. Sana Ghazi has been a wonderful friend and fellow student, and I thank her for the valuable feedback she has given me on numerous occasions. The period during which Yu Jingyang shared an office with me was both too short and a great pleasure. Her friendship and support have made my life easier on many occasions. Among my fellow Ph.D. students, I would also like to thank Noman Baig, Naomi Hellmann, Mai Thi Thanh Nga, and Sarover Zaidi for their help and friendship. Many researchers at Department of Religious Diversity have supported me with their insight, time, and encouragement. Special thanks are due to Nate Roberts for taking the time spent in our reading group. Angie Heo has been a great friend, and her scholarly advice has iii helped me on more than one occasion. I am particularly grateful to Kang Jie, Tang Ming, and their daughter Theresa for welcoming me to their home when visiting Göttingen this past year. They have been wonderful friends. Many others at the MPI have helped make my stay at the MPI fruitful. I thank Lisa Bjorkman, Anderson Blanton, Uday Chandra, Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, Zhu Jili, Ajay Gandhi, Mark Anthony Geraghty, Radhika Gupta, Huang Ke-hsien, Huang Weishan, Huang Yuqin, Jin-Heon Jung, Patrice Ladwig, Lau Sin Wen, Bob van der Linden, Liu Jifeng, Luo Rumin, Neena Mahadev, Mireille Mazard, Shireen Mirza, Sanal Mohan, Samuel Nelson, Arpita Roy, Roschanack Shaery, Paul Sorrentino, Raphael Susewind, Sahana Udupa, Leila Vevaina, Wang Xiaoxuan, Dan Smyer Yu, Zhang Weidong, and Ma Zhen. Also, I want to express my gratitude to the Institute’s administrative staff for their hard work and for allowing me to focus on my research. During my M.A. studies at the University of Zurich, several people helped shape the trajectory of my research project. Mareile Flitsch, who supervised my first ethnographic fieldwork and my resulting M.A. thesis, was a source of endless support during my studies, providing me with academic guidance and a chance to work at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich. Carlo Caduff was an excellent teacher and mentor, and I deeply appreciate his generous support and encouragement. I am grateful to my fellow students Salome Schaerer and Nikola Bagic for discovering theoretical and disciplinary debates with me. Furthermore, I would like to thank Shalini Randeria for supporting my Ph.D. aspirations. Many friends and colleagues have been essential to this research. Kenneth Dean has been a crucial source of support, and I thank him for his advice and kindness. I thank Wu Da for graciously hosting me at the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing during my Fieldwork. I had a chance to get to know Jarrett Zigon when he presented a paper at the MPI, and want to thank him for the generous support he has given me since then. I thank Angela Zito for organizing the NYU conference Religion in the Digital Age 2: Meditating “the Human” and for her generosity in financially supporting my participation. I am thankful to all the participants for their insightful comments. I am grateful to Stefania Travagnin, who not only invited me to publish in her edited volume but also made possible wonderful discussions on and around the panel “Religion and the Media in China” at the International Society for the Media, Religion, and Culture (ISMRC) conference Media, Religion and Culture in a Networked World. The IKSA Graduate Forum in 2017 facilitated brilliant discussions and provided me with insightful feedback. I am grateful to the organizers and participants for their hard work. iv A number of inspiring encounters marked my stay in Cambridge during the last year of my Ph.D. I especially thank Joel Robbins for welcoming me so openly at the Division of Social Anthropology. Special thanks are also due to Matei Candea, Taras Fedirko, and the members of the research group "Situating Free Speech: European Parrhesia in Comparative Perspective" for inviting me to present part of this thesis. Their feedback was exceptionally helpful. Many thanks are also due to Matthew Drage for his generous feedback and support. Karen Jent has been my partner on this journey. We started our Ph.D. studies in different countries, and I am truly grateful that we had a place to call our home during the last year. She has spent countless hours reading my drafts and given me invaluable feedback. Her love and support have enriched my life, and I thank her for all the care she has given me. My family has always supported me in my pursuits and they have continued to do so during my Ph.D. I dedicate this thesis to my parents, Agnes and Hansruedi, and my sister, Regula. For as long as I can remember, they have embraced the world with curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of silliness. They are my inspiration. v vi Abstract As Chinese economic growth slowed and production numbers fell following the world financial crisis of 2008, the digital economy in China became a site of renewed hope both for the modernizing ambitions of the Chinese government and the entrepreneurial aspirations of its citizens. However, just as the Internet in China appeared to affirm economic opportunities, it also provided a platform to young Chinese to express anxieties about their futures. When a national debate about the lack of socioeconomic mobility took over social media in 2012, it became evident that the success of China’s digital economy paradoxically depends on an online market populated by increasingly disillusioned Internet users.