Inside China’s traffic-driven self-media commentary industry that turns clicks into yuan

But these self-styled current affairs commentators do not target Singapore alone.

Many adopt a scattergun approach, hopping from one country to another in search of the next attention-grabbing topic. They could be gloating over the declining fortunes of Japanese carmakers one day; then highlighting the hardships caused by a heatwave in India the next.

When they turn their attention to China, the tone is often markedly different. Their videos are filled with chest-thumping praise of the country’s achievements, from economic and technological advances to the unveiling of new military hardware.

Assistant Professor Wang Hai, who researches on Chinese media and soft power at the Nanyang Technological University, told ST that topics related to geopolitical competition, national pride, resentment towards foreign countries or perceived external threats are potent drivers of online traffic.

“Emotionally charged content tends to travel especially well, and political topics often generate strong reactions. What drives engagement is often less about the information itself, but the emotional response it generates,” he said.

India and Indians have long been a reliable trigger for strong reactions online, noted Qi Fei, an independent media observer.

She said India is a popular target to disparage because it lags behind China in development, yet is one of the few countries large enough to serve as a meaningful benchmark against which China’s progress can be measured, making unfavourable comparisons especially gratifying for Chinese audiences.

CUHK’s Fang said the political risks of producing such content are relatively low because commentary on foreign countries faces less stringent censorship than content focused on domestic issues.

“Authorities tend not to block content about foreign countries because it does not question or challenge the Chinese government,” he said.

Avoiding censorship is critical because content that is removed cannot attract audiences or generate revenue, making the effort spent producing it futile.

Experts say the sudden flurry of similar narratives across many online commentaries may look, to the untrained eye, like a coordinated campaign or evidence of widespread public consensus. Often, however, the explanation is far more mundane: commercial incentives reward creators for repeating narratives that have already proved successful.

Under pressure to produce a constant stream of content, creators often take the path of least resistance, repackaging other creators’ arguments that have already gained traction online, rather than developing their own.

Those signed to multi-channel networks (MCNs) – companies that promote creators across multiple platforms – also rely on ready-made scripts supplied by the firms, said a former employee of Bilibili, a popular Chinese video-sharing platform. She cannot be named as she is not authorised to speak to media.

Profit motives may also explain why content originally produced for a domestic Chinese audience sometimes migrates to overseas platforms such as YouTube and X, which are blocked in China.

According to CUHK’s Fang, intense competition for attention within China pushes creators to look further afield, while significantly higher payouts per click on foreign platforms provide a strong commercial incentive to do so.

“As a result, there is a large wave of ‘self-media’ expanding overseas digitally, where they can tap on the sizeable Chinese-speaking audience living abroad,” he said.

A current affairs commentator with two million followers on Weibo told ST that independent content creators who rail against other countries typically wield far less influence than their loud online personas suggest.

“They may sound tough when they lambast Trump or other foreign leaders in their videos, but in real life they wouldn’t even dare to talk back to the administrator of their residential community,” said the commentator, who declined to be named as his employer prohibits him from speaking to foreign media.

He said most online commentators operate far removed from China’s foreign policy establishment, neither receiving guidance nor providing meaningful input to policymakers in Beijing.

“When crafting their spiels, they don’t have to care about logic, truth or the impact on China’s relations with other countries. They simply tell followers what they want to hear, pandering to their nationalistic instincts,” he said.

Their followers are not tuning in for deep insights into other countries, either. “Watching such content is simply a way to pass time and let off steam,” he added.

“People outside China tend to view such videos through a political lens. In reality, however, this is a highly depoliticised industry where political commentary is mere entertainment,” he said.

The commentator also rejected the notion that most such content is directed by the state. “We can’t rule out a few rare instances with official backgrounds, but the vast majority are just firing off cannons on their own,” he added.