Nearly a year ago, a young man in China called “Fat Cat” took his own life by jumping over a bridge in Chongqing, triggering a perfect storm on Chinese social media. Just as people got ready to move on from the tragic death and all its implications, the event went viral again.
In the small hours of 11 April 2024, a 20-year-old man named Liu Jie, better known by his gaming handle “Fat Cat” (胖猫, Pang Mao), died by his own hand. He played video games for others as a living and his death was believed to be linked to his girlfriend breaking up with him. They had some financial dealings and Liu transferred all of his savings to her before jumping.
The police were involved, as many assumed she was running a confidence scam on him. A nationwide cyberbullying campaign ensued at the same time as a cyber “national mourning” period. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people all over China bought takeaway meals and drinks to send to the bridge as a tribute to “Fat Cat”, the perfect everyman, while dark corners of the web continued their effort to dox the girlfriend. In May, the police released their investigation findings, saying their relationship was genuine and the financial transactions did not constitute fraud. This, for a time, put a lid on the situation until this month.
For the 15 March World Consumer Rights Day, state media such as CCTV and People’s Daily published op-eds panning the mourning of “Fat Cat” as wasteful behaviour and claimed, before later deleting the statement, that 94.6 tonnes of food was wasted on the bridge. On Weibo, the topic “Fat Cat incident caused over 90 tonnes of food being wasted” quickly topped the Hot Search list with 460 million views.
This triggered a huge backlash on the internet who still believe that Liu’s girlfriend, even if not a scammer, manipulated and exploited him. Accusations of “extreme feminism” trying to skew the narrative quickly grew. Meanwhile, many others pointed out that this is another case of online misogyny that women face every day. Others accused publications of deliberately trying to cause division by digging up old news and finding a minor angle like food wastage.
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