ΙDIS China Program is pleased to invite you to a lecture titled: Internet Famous China: The Logics of Wanghong (Internet Fame) and Global Chinese Social Media, by Dr. Carwyn Morris, Senior Lecturer of Digital Society and Geography in the Department of Media Studies at SOAS University of London.
About the lecture:
This talk examines how social media and wanghong (网红, internet fame) shape China’s global expansion, arguing that wanghong is central not only to how China is perceived abroad but to how China itself engages with and expands into the world. Fame as celebrity was once produced and consumed primarily through television, cinema, radio, and print, and thus controlled by the institutions that controlled these media. The rise of social platforms and the smartphone has unsettled this order: algorithms now shape who is seen, visual media has become the primary mode of consumption, and content increasingly circulates as images and short video, produced on and consumed through the smartphone. These shifts have been especially consequential in China, where digital fame has become entangled with the country’s broader global ambitions.
The paper first conceptualises wanghong as a form of fame deeply tied to audience desire. Building on this framework, it turns to contemporary wanghong trends across Europe, China, and beyond — including the Chinamaxxing trend, place-based expressions of longing such as “我在XX很想你,” European tourist-fame hubs like Düsseldorf and Paris, and the aesthetics of wanghong bodies — to trace how internet fame operates across these sites. Taken together, these cases show that wanghong does more than shape outside perceptions of China: it actively drives how China engages with, and expands into, the wider world.
About the speaker:
Dr Carwyn Morris is Senior Lecturer of Digital Society and Geography in the Department of Media Studies, SOAS University of London. He is a human geographer who has explored the relationship between digital technology and China within and outside of the PRC. His work has explored themes such as digital territory, digital governance, activism, migration, investment and wanghong (internet fame). He is currently the PI of CHINA.EU, an ERC Starting Grant project exploring the impact of Chinese capital, technology and media in Paris, Düsseldorf and Athens, with a focus on the relationship between culture and business.
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