A Short History of Blogging in China
From China Digital Times
In this stifling atmosphere, it was hard to see how the nascent blogosphere could possibly grow and develop. But over the next few months, the concept of blogging received a boost from an unexpected source.
A magazine writer in Guangzhou in southern China, who wrote under the name Mu Zimei, began keeping a sex diary on blogcn.com. “I have a job that keeps me busy, and in my spare time I have a very humanistic hobby – making love,” she wrote. “The partner I take in my hobby is one I choose and always changes. I rely on a large supply pool. I do not need to take any responsibility for them; neither should I give them love. They will not cause me problems. They are like CDs, which will not make a sound unless I play them.”
With explicit details and sometimes even publishing real names, Mu Zimei’s sex diary was a hit. By mid-November 2003, more than 160,000 people had logged on to her site and the number was growing by 6000 a day. While her explicit writing and lifestyle challenged traditional morals, causing heated debate in the Chinese media, Mu Zimei also made bo ke a familiar word for hundreds of millions of people.
As the Mu Zimei debates raged, the number of users on blogcn.com leapt from 20,000 to 160,000. Other blog sites saw similar increases.
Episode II is here from
2 Sexy Blogger. In year 2003 Blogchina didn’t have much influence and there are very few people who were bloggers. It was sexy bloggers, who post her almost naked photos and described the details of their sexual life, that made the name “blog” widely known to mass population of netizens. MuZiMei, a pioneer in this field, published her dairies about her sexual activities and gained her fame overnight , which instantly became hot discussion on both online and offline communities. Blogchina made use of the opportunity, copying those diaries on its own websites. It attracted ten of million visitors daily. And this year another similar phenomenon happened when FuRong JieJie(Sister Lotus) triggered off public interest. Just before authorities put a stop to it, Blogchina had been the major power promoting her.
So some Chinese bloggers were unsatisfied with the behaviors made by Blogchina thinking that it used those sexy bloggers for its own propaganda and attracted visits. Ironically Blogchina has initiated an anti-pornography movement before, aiming at the pornographic photo and information on Chinese internet.
