A Few Thoughts on Diaosi Culture: The Logic of Counterattack

Spreading meaningless love in an age without a world.

The word diaosi¹ is pretty much outdated by now, but the attitude it implies certainly is not. In many respects, it is not a particularly new attitude, either. You could even call it a variation on Ah Q.² It comes as no surprise that Ah Q and the diaosi have much in common. Ah Q has his method of spiritual victory; he cannot stand the “tall, rich and handsome,” and he covets the “fair-skinned, rich and beautiful.”

Of course, the differences between Ah Q and the diaosi seem more important. Ah Q is an overly “straightforward” diaosi: when he cannot stand a “tall, rich and handsome” man (back from studying abroad), he confronts him outright. This is clearly an attitude most diaosi would avoid. Likewise, Ah Q’s method of spiritual victory is “My ancestors were richer than you,” another claim most diaosi are not keen to make. In fact, many are happy to announce that they come from a long line of diaosi. Both “I don’t dare confront the tall, rich and handsome” and “My ancestors weren’t rich either” reinforce their identity as diaosi.

I want to stress here that this essay is mainly concerned with diaosi who have a cynical attitude. To put it more plainly: diaosi with a “sense of humor.” They like to mock all sorts of things, and often believe—at least judging by the attitude their words and actions convey—that they understand society “inside out.” This is precisely one reason they call themselves “diaosi”: I know perfectly well that, socially speaking, I’m “not much of a success” right now, and I also know perfectly well that I’m powerless to change society, so I maintain an ironic distance from it.

Given that the Li Yi forum on Baidu Tieba, the famous birthplace of diaosi culture, is founded on precisely this kind of cynicism, this essay considers such a definition acceptable. Don’t forget how much the forum’s users like to emphasize their “depth,”³ and how incredibly funny they think they are.

Diaosi culture likes to objectify all sorts of things: “tall, rich and handsome,” “fair-skinned, rich and beautiful,” “black fungus.”⁴ Don’t forget their favorite pastime, “rating”: “This is my girlfriend. What would you give her out of ten?” (Li Yi forum users usually give a very low rating, or hint that they will give one if the woman won’t have sex with them = if she won’t let me fuck her, she gets a zero. This is clearly an important way for them to display their “depth.”)

They haven’t forgotten to “objectify” themselves, either. But they put themselves in a privileged position, which I will discuss in detail below. This is an important point that I believe absolutely cannot be overlooked in any discussion of diaosi culture: being diaosi itself represents a kind of victory.

So how do they objectify themselves? Through gen*tals.⁵ Gen*tals represent their sexual anxiety, as well as their attitude of “giving up on themselves.” Because gen*tals are something society does not (directly) accept. On the other hand, the diaosi also know perfectly well that this society is intimately bound up with gen*tals (sex). One of their basic fantasies is this: the tall, rich and handsome may look polished and upright all day long, but behind the scenes they spend all day having sex with the fair-skinned, rich and beautiful.

From this position, the diaosi turn themselves into objects of observation. They are not really objectifying themselves as gen*tals. What they actually make objective is a distance, a way of looking—the distance from which I can be seen objectively as “gen*tals.” Gen*tals are the truth about this society. From this position, I can objectively observe all its other truths, which is precisely what the tall, rich and handsome cannot do. Don’t forget a line the diaosi love to repeat: “The tall, rich and handsome will never understand the diaosi.” The ambiguity of this statement is very interesting. At first it means that the tall, rich and handsome cannot know the diaosi’s hardships firsthand; but then this inability to share an experience is turned into a general incapacity on their part. They lack an objective way of looking—though, of course, we can already see quite clearly that this supposedly objective way of looking is a cynical, ironic way of looking.

Next we come to an absolutely crucial point in diaosi culture: the tall, rich and handsome cannot imagine what life is like for the diaosi, but the diaosi can always imagine what life is like for the tall, rich and handsome, because they are very good at mental masturbation. Too good, we can’t help saying—so good that what they fantasize about often cannot be found in reality.

It is precisely this objective way of looking that gives the diaosi the illusion that “I can see through society,” and precisely this illusion that leads them to another fundamental fantasy: the diaosi counterattack.⁶

The diaosi counterattack is the truth of diaosi culture, its real secret. The very reason someone willingly calls himself a diaosi is that he always keeps “the possibility of a counterattack” in mind. Here, too, the diaosi puts himself in a privileged position in which he simply cannot lose:

1. I’m a diaosi, so it’s only to be expected that I haven’t pulled off a counterattack.
2. If I do pull off a counterattack, I’ll experience a kind of enjoyment the tall, rich and handsome can never know.

This means becoming a doubled version of the tall, rich and handsome man.

So how do we understand the diaosi against the background of Ah Q? The diaosi is simply Ah Q in reverse: not richer than you in the past, but richer than you in the future. The tall, rich and handsome man can never pull off a counterattack. Because he is already tall, rich and handsome. The word “counterattack” condenses the diaosi’s enjoyment. Conversely, the diaosi has always already pulled off his counterattack: because he is a diaosi, whatever he does and however badly he fails, it is only to be expected. He has an excuse for every failure, and every success is a miracle (= a counterattack).

The diaosi is a time-traveling version of Ah Q: Ah Q draws on the past—what is already there—to prove his superiority, while the diaosi draws on the future—what is not there (not yet there)—to display his superiority.

And to some extent the diaosi are worse than Ah Q. Ah Q’s past makes him very dissatisfied with the present, and he keeps trying to change his circumstances. The diaosi’s future does more than leave them very satisfied with the future; in many cases, this prospect of satisfaction enters the present directly. This satisfaction is doubled. The result is that they no longer try to do anything in the present. In fact, Ah Q does not merely think without ever acting, whereas the diaosi get so much enjoyment out of mental masturbation that they spend most of their lives on it. As a direct result, those fantasies become harder to realize.

So we have to take the statement “The diaosi can never become tall, rich and handsome” literally. The diaosi gets so much enjoyment out of the very term “diaosi (counterattack)” that, even if he becomes tall, rich and handsome (by his own standards), he will never let go of the word “counterattack.” He can keep pulling off counterattacks, because the very possibility of a counterattack is itself a form of enjoyment. The possibility of a counterattack is doubled, so that “being in a position to counterattack” itself becomes a kind of counterattack.

Finally, let’s look again at the word diaosi itself. Don’t forget that the diaosi disgustingly reduce all women to gen*tals. The question, then, is why they don’t reduce the “tall, rich and handsome” to gen*tals. Why not—according to their own fantasies—“tall, rich and well-hung”? Because the real gen*tals are on the diaosi’s side. The diaosi know the secret of organizing enjoyment. The tall, rich and handsome man, by contrast, is a “castrated” diaosi, a poor wretch with no chance to counterattack who could be defeated by a counterattack at any moment.

I’ll finish by briefly considering an extension of diaosi culture. The phenomenon of playing up one’s weakness, which I have discussed before, follows the same logic as diaosi culture. This includes an unexpected, cute version of diaosi culture: “You’re all such pros; I’m the only lil’ bit of trash here.”⁷ Such cute, seemingly self-deprecating talk may, unexpectedly, have something to do with diaosi culture. Fewer people use the word diaosi now; fewer call themselves diaosi. But this way of thinking—“I’m weaker than you now, so I’ll be richer than you in the future”—is still everywhere, a new kind of “air.”