[News Terms] Controversy Over 'Pushinnan' Dividing Chinese Men and Women

Satirizing Ordinary Yet Overconfident Men
Comedian Yang Li at the Center of China’s Gender Conflicts
JD.com Withdraws Ad Featuring Yang Li Following Intel's Lead

With the Chinese version of Black Friday, ‘Shuangshiyi (雙十一·Guanggunjie)’, approaching on the 11th of next month, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (Jingdong, 京東) is facing difficulties due to ‘gender conflict.’ This is because the female comedian Yang Li (?笠, 32), whom JD.com hired as an advertising model for Shuangshiyi, is the originator of the newly coined term ‘Puxinnan (普信男).’

In ‘Puxinnan (普信男),’ ‘Pu (普)’ means ‘ordinary,’ and ‘Xin (信)’ means confidence. It is a neologism in Chinese referring to men who appear ordinary or unattractive on the outside but possess an unfounded overconfidence.

Yangri talking about 'Pusinnan' [Photo by YouTube]

Yang Li, originally from Hebei Province, debuted in 2018. She is known for addressing gender discrimination issues in China through black comedy. In 2020, during a stand-up comedy show, Yang Li compared the contrasting attitudes of male and female students toward exam scores. She said, “Female students who score above 85 feel ashamed for not getting a perfect score, but male students who score 40 are not embarrassed at all.”

She continued, “It’s impossible to guess what’s going on inside a man’s small brain,” and sarcastically asked, “Why does someone who looks ordinary to everyone else appear so confident?” Many female audience members cheered at the scene. Since then, ‘Puxinnan’ gained widespread popularity among women, evolving into an internet meme and quickly spreading through China’s social media platform Weibo.

However, the backlash from this statement was intense. Some men criticized it, saying it “provokes sexual antagonism” and “insults all men.” They also demanded censorship to ban such remarks. Using a distinctive rhetoric that pushed men to the level of ‘extreme disgust,’ Yang Li became the center of attention in the gender conflict debate. Online, heated discussions between male and female netizens about Yang Li and her remarks ensued.

Poster for the Double 11 anniversary event released by Chinese e-commerce company 'Jingdong' on the 14th [Photo source=Weibo]

Then, on the 14th, when JD.com hired Yang Li as the advertising model for the Shuangshiyi commemorative event, men immediately reacted with boycotts, primarily online. Some inquired at customer service about the background of hiring Yang Li as the advertising model, while others posted certification photos showing they had closed accounts linked to JD.com. JD.com is known to have about 60% male consumers, higher than competitors like Taobao or Pinduoduo, which have around 40% male consumers.

Eventually, JD.com backed down. They decided not to use Yang Li as an advertising model. Four days after posting the advertisement, on the 18th, JD.com issued an apology through their official Weibo account, stating on behalf of the promotion marketing team, “We apologize if we caused any unpleasant experiences for our customers.” This incident also sparked mocking reactions online, with some saying that JD.com’s founder Liu Qiangdong (劉强東) was ‘taught a lesson’ by netizens.

This boycott by men is not the first. Three years ago, in March 2021, when Yang Li appeared as an advertising model for Intel laptops, there were strong calls for a boycott. The problematic advertising phrase was, “Intel’s laptop taste is higher than my male taste.” Intel eventually withdrew all advertisements within three days, but the controversy did not subside.

Meanwhile, there are also many voices defending Yang Li. On the 22nd, a Chinese media outlet described her as “a female star who entered the male-dominated stand-up comedy scene” and praised her as “a hero to millions of Chinese women with her sharp humor targeting male arrogance.” The outlet reported that during the Intel advertisement controversy, the hashtag ‘I am a woman, and I support Yang Li’ was posted over 71 million times on Weibo.