This study explores how the governing logic of China’s zero-COVID policy persisted after its formal revocation through the emergence of the “little sheep (wo)man” (小羊人 in Chinese) identity on Chinese social media. In December 2022, the revocation of the zero-COVID policy in China witnessed the emergence of the identity “little sheep (wo)man.” The term drew from cartoons back in the 2010s as a cutified identity for the infected people. This cutified identity, and the cutification of COVID-positive symptoms constitute what this study conceptualises as Chinese cute, shedding light on the affective power of cute aesthetics in politics. In this sense, this study explores how this Chinese cute aesthetic functioned simultaneously as a strategy for resisting exclusion resulting from zero-COVID governance and as a continuation of the zero-COVID policy, which reproduces its governing logic after the formal revocation. By investigating this duality, this study further asks how the “power of powerless” of cute can be understood within China's centralised political system, and how social media users may challenge and reinforce structures of governance through this cute aesthetic. Apart from the Japanese kawaii and neoliberal cute consumptions, this “Chinese cute” marked a new approach to studying cute aesthetics within the Chinese political context, providing a rare example of cute being analysed as a lived social and political practice rather than merely a symbol or commercial style. It served as an overlooked form of expression, negotiation and resistance on social media while Chinese individuals navigate, struggle and internalise power relations under the centralised pandemic governance during this public health crisis.
Posts relating to the “little sheep (wo)man” identity were approached and analysed by online ethnography. Being observed during a reasonable timeframe, posts are categorised based on substantive topics and identifiable recurring clusters. Dynamics embedded in both posted content and comment sections are then analysed in terms of the manifest of cutification (e.g. the adoption of childhood cartoons, the self-expression of being “powerless” after being infected by COVID-19), and the reaction towards it (e.g. emotional empathy, mutual support, disliking this cutified identity), to unlock the discursive power possessed by this online identity. Besides, considering the imposed media censorship and other constraints, semi-structured interviews will be conducted alongside ethnographic observation to further understand the mechanism and empowerment of this Chinese cute aesthetic against the backdrop of the highly-centralised political system.
Through online ethnography, this study appears to be the very first attempt to understand the power of Chinese cute aesthetics in politics, and also one of the earliest studies that closely examines cute aesthetics from an online communicational perspective. The affective power this Chinese cute aesthetic possesses, and the political atmosphere in which it was nurtured, have enabled this study to bring nuanced understandings toward the internalisation and performance of decentralised power relationships through bodies and emotions on digital platforms, and thus to rethink the paradox of the authenticity of contemporary popular culture and political governance based on this significant online cultural phenomenon of “little sheep (wo)man”.
