This morning, we published a long article, “The plight of the “small-town problem makers” group”, and the following is a handwritten note from a young intern reporter, Yin Bo Tong.
I received this question from editor Chen Xiao on Dec. 19, the fourth day after the incident. Frankly speaking, I didn’t have much impression of the fall of Wu Lei (a pseudonym) from Bejing Jiaotong University at that Time, because it didn’t make it to the top of the social media and didn’t make it to the pages of major media. But talking with my friends after I received this question, we unanimously realized that there have been several suicides of college students in 2020. And the real survival situation of this group in society is worth our attention.
But in the process of investigation, I and the other two intern reporters met with great resistance, many from Wu Lei’s classmates, they think that our investigation of Wu Lei’s matter is “eating human blood buns”, and our interview has been defined as “stinky” and “rubbing hot spots for profit”, to be honest, this is also I never expected.
Later I thought about it, perhaps because the media environment is now more complex, many people are therefore wary of journalists. Wu Lei’s roommate once told me that the network is now so hostile that sometimes no one cares even if the truth is told. This silence caused by the deterioration of public opinion has in turn aggravated the deterioration of public opinion, so later, with the support and guidance of Ms. Chen Xiao, I decided to persevere with it. I still wanted to know Wu Lei’s living condition and wondered if there was a common problem faced by many college students there.
Fortunately, there were still students who were willing to talk to us. I soon found out two things, one is that in the impression of all the students, no one found that Wu Lei had “signs” of suicide, their evaluation of Wu Lei is sunny and enthusiastic. Second, Wu Lei is a “communist idealist”, as a post-00s, this is particularly distinct.
Since all the people closest to Wu Lei refused to be interviewed, I was in a state of no progress. When I was anxious to learn more about Wu Lei, I found another way to “communicate” with Wu Lei himself – he left a lot of records on various social media platforms.
In Qzone, I read more than 5,900 space statuses he posted from 2014 to 2020, I checked his 132 answers and 71 favorites on Zhihu, and went through all his NetEase cloud Music listening records and B station updates. After “communicating” with Wu Lei through his words left in this world via the Internet, I “entered” his inner world in a unique way.
So much of the material for this piece comes from Wu Lei’s social media records from his lifetime. This material leaves some clues about his growth and changes, but we certainly don’t dare to say that we have read Wu Lei thoroughly, after all, it is only the part of him that he is willing to reveal to people. But I also firmly believe that these records can reflect to some extent the real world inside him. Because in the process of browsing these records, I see certain attitudes and beliefs that have been consistent across his growing footprint.
He is a man who lives in “two worlds”, on the one hand, he has a highly idealized model of society inside him, and on the other hand, reality is powerless and disappointing to him. He is also a person who lives highly in the spiritual world and may have experienced the collapse long ago. Many people say they don’t understand why Wu Lei chose to die, even if he couldn’t make it to graduate school, couldn’t get into graduate school, even if his academic performance was too low because of his freshman year score to bring up his average score, it was far from suicide.
But everyone is living in their own world of values construction, the next person think “small setbacks”, may be for another person is “the sky is falling”. What is Wu Lei’s inner world like? Those other college students who chose to end their lives in extreme ways, what is their inner world? What kind of world do they understand? Why do they have to put their lives on the line when onlookers think that what they experienced was just a “setback”? If this article can provoke some thoughts in this regard, perhaps that is the greatest meaning of the interview and writing.
As a young person who graduated recently, I was also very confused and perplexed. I can understand the anxiety and pressure that many students face when they graduate or are about to graduate. Nowadays, all industries are “rolling in”, and many people will not find their ideal job at once, and will face the negativity from social values. But I realize now that it is really important to never put yourself in a single value system and measure yourself instrumentally.
Recent Comments