In 2015, I started to write recommendations for a live streaming platform, so I got to know some very special anchors.
They are young children in their 20s, often compared to their age by poets as “blossoming flowers.”
But their lives are not the usual wild ride; they thrive in sickness and pain in strange, unimaginable ways.
In the eyes of others, they are in order to attract attention at the grandstanding, unreasonable. But to me, they look like sick flowers.
I tried to understand and record their stories, to observe their real life behind the camera. I was a mere note-taker, with no attitude, no reprimand, no pity.
“I hope they can always eat delicious.”
“Do you drink Coke?” A Rabbit to meet the first one asked.
The glutton for food is a big fan of fizzy drinks, with boxes of coke making her home look like a makeshift warehouse.
“Coke is rabbit’s best friend.” “She said, sounding like she was reading a line from a fairy tale.
But the real meaning of this sentence is not good, only a few people know that the word “rabbit”, is a group of people with eating disorders on the Internet to call themselves a collective lingo. There are more than 40,000 followers and more than 5 million posts on relevant topics telling the stories of these people.
This group is between the ages of 14 and 40, mostly women, and has only two themes in life: eating and losing weight. “Rabbit” and “vomit” homonym, in order to lose weight at the same time can also enjoy unlimited food, they use their hands to pick, intubation and other methods every day, to eat the things completely spit out.
One of them is Ah Tu, who turns her life into a job: she eats in front of live cameras, and then spends an hour spitting out all the half-digested food in her stomach, as everyone watches her eat it with gusto.
At the end of each week, she would withdraw money from the live streaming platform. As a famous “eating broadcast”, she received gifts converted into RMB, ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 yuan per month.
“I can tell if a man is a rabbit by his hands.” A tu says that people with eating disorders maintain a kind of congeneric understanding: a persistent tooth scar below the index finger, above the tiger’s mouth, is their common imprints — the back of the hand is inevitably scarred by the teeth because the finger has to be pushed deep into the throat to induce vomiting.
A Tu, who has a history of vomiting for more than 10 years, used to wonder if her methods were crazy or pathological, until a search on the Internet brought her into the rabbit camp.
The first time I found one of my own kind, I was as happy as an alien finding one of my own kind on a different planet. “Everyone here has become a rabbit. There were models, there were students, there were florists… They took off all the labels like they were going home and taking off their clothes, and they talked about vomiting.” They talked about why they started vomiting, exchanged better methods, and repeatedly expressed their determination to quit the habit, Said A Tu.
For a long time, A Tu regarded this place as her other home. People are strange but kind, understanding each other without interfering with each other. But she also hated being a regular: where everyone was sick, it was normal.
Here, she learns from experience and becomes more skilled, but at the same time sees the real harm of vomiting — she learns that it is a mental illness, but — “It’s okay if everyone does it?”
Since childhood, A Tu has eaten a lot.
When she was a child eating, she was often praised by the adults “obedient”, “don’t worry about”, they gently pinched her meaty face. Her parents usually give her too little praise, she only more desperately put food into the small intestines and stomach, to win the world’s kindness and praise.
The little girl with her nose in the bowl is always proud and eager to show the adults the empty bowl, and the praise of the people has shaped today’s girl with a big stomach.
A rabbit is the same as a lot of girls at first, because of losing weight on the road of “vomit”.
Her first boyfriend is tall and warm in her memory. She always doesn’t wear her school uniform properly and has no serious appearance, but her hands are warm. He would say to A Rabbit when he fell in love passionately: “I will like you all my life. Marry you.” Will also say in the break up: “you so fat, take a look in the mirror fat pig. Who would like you?”
After breaking up, A Tu thought about going on a diet, but always failed in her best friend’s kind invitation and the delicious food in the canteen.
Once, when she had eaten too much, she felt a pang in her chest, and in the midst of self-reproach and self-reproach, she thought to herself: Spit it out, spit it out, and it will make her feel better; Spit it out, and the undigested food won’t turn into pesky fat in your body.
The first “gushing” (which implies that she vomits very smoothly and cleanly for a short period of time), she vomits awkwardly in the toilet of the school dormitory, but the empty feeling of no food in her stomach even gives her a strange pleasure — she eats, but does not have to feel guilty for it, and she is not obese.
Soon, A Rabbit slowly pined down and became the envy of the “eat a lot of fat little fairy”. A secret sense of superiority and vanity gripped her, and she could not have loved such a compliment.
With the “secret prescription” for keeping fit, Ah Tu began to eat to cope with the sadness of lovelorn and the pressure of going to school. A Tu has an unwritten rule at home: eat carefully and do not eat while doing other things — that is, as long as you eat all the time, you can escape from the problem set, from the “overall test” results, from the shadow of your ex-boyfriend, until you escape to the “neverland”.
Originally, a rabbit’s appetite is just a little bigger than the average girl, but not scary. But one day, after eating an entire “family bucket” and many scattered fruit drinks alone, she first discovered her terrible “potential”.
Nowadays, every time Ah Tu broadcasts, her online audience reaches 100,000 — perhaps many viewers envy her, because it seems that she can easily earn a high income by paying rewards by eating a big meal in different places.
After the lens, more embarrassed than bright.
Unlike those who really have “talent”, A Tu’s “eating sowing” can only be regarded as a speculative “fake”. Her stomach couldn’t digest all the food she had swallowed so quickly, so she ended the recording with a smile and rushed to the bathroom to save her already overloaded stomach.
Usually before going on air, she swallows a raw egg to protect her stomach and lubricate her. Then, during the broadcast, drink a lot of carbonated drinks, the rich foam will be conducive to vomiting. Spectators take it for granted that an oversized drink is something that a real gobbler would not drink during a match.
In the last two years, A Tu gradually realized the irreparable harm of “vomiting” on her body: vomiting for many times did great harm to her throat, and her voice was hoarse which did not match her lovely appearance. “So when I do live, I use a sound changer. The finished video is accelerated to distort the sound, all to disguise it.” A Rabbit again in the face sign say, “Before I appear in the mirror, I want to hit this – heavy shadow on the face.”
Ah Tu’s face didn’t match her body: she was much thinner than she had seen on live television, so thin that the bones at her wrists bulged like large bags. Her face was too round for her thin body, and more like the face of a girl who was a little chubby.
“Because when I threw up, my mouth was wide open, here, here…” She poked her forehead, “It will be very sour, and gradually, the muscles will become developed, so ‘Rabbit’ will lose weight, but its face will become bigger and uglified.”
A husky voice, a large face, and yet only the gentlest of punishments. Over the years, Ah Tu has been hospitalized for oesophagitis many times. If it goes on for a long time, the terrible symptoms such as broken esophagus and throat cancer may come in waves. But she can’t stop, with hundreds of thousands of followers’ urging ‘her daily tweets, and the company running her schedule like a money-making machine, keeping her on a high-density treadmill that doesn’t get damaged.
At first, ah Tu said, “I just wanted to get more praise for being able to eat.” But the moment she is signed, she is already on a non-stop train, where she can only constantly turn her ability to “glutton” into money to feed the audience’s appetite for wonder.
First she was glad, then anxious, then frightened. But the train had become so clogged with communities of interest that she could not turn back.
“Make more money. Make more money and go do something else.” She has tried to open an online store to sell snacks like other “web celebrity”, but the income is limited.
“I don’t want to do this anymore… I’ve lost my passion for eating.” She laughs heartily in front of the camera, praises the food and tucks into it, cuts off the camera and tosses a fresh can of soda on the floor, with a dull thud: “Maybe this is the way to die.”
Before saying goodbye, A Tu suddenly mentioned, “I really don’t know why I agree with you to write my story, but I envy them (the audience) very much that they can eat very delicious food, treat my experience as a story, fingertips a few times, brush to the end.
“I want them to eat delicious food forever.”
“I am plastic surgery strange, come ah old niang afraid of you? !”
Mengda’s microblog and broadcast room are unified and divided: her microblog receives hundreds of private messages of abuse every day, and some people in her broadcast room are willing to spend thousands of yuan to brush gifts, just to keep the words of abuse for a long time.
But she did not speak or act like the “mental retardation” of the scolding. She is gentle to the point of prim, loves pets, and is most recently reading Bellow’s More People Die of Broken Hearts.
It was comfortable with Monda, you think, until she looked up —
It was an overworked face, definitely not ugly, but so unnatural as to make one feel uncomfortable. It had all the hallmarks of this era’s instant aesthetic — big eyes, a high nose, toot lips, a pointed chin — but each was too much for its own good. When Munda speaks, the pompous prosthetic slips and disconnects with the muscular movements.
This is a girl with crazy plastic surgery, and people feel superior by calling her names, and she is rewarded for being called names.
Mengda has a pretty sister, white, clever, delicate, pleasing since childhood. Mengda was sent to first aid at birth, barely surviving, congenital malnutrition, small left foot, permanent disability. Later, because of taking hormones, fat, large acne on his face, hair thin and yellow.
Comparisons and injuries have been happening since Mengda’s innocent childhood: during the Spring Festival, children want to eat cherries. The adult tease elder sister two say who writes 100 numbers to give who eat first. Mengda then went quietly to write, while her sister wrote a few lines and ran out. By the time she finished writing the numbers and came out, her sister had nearly finished eating the cherries. She asked why he had not kept his word, and he said, Sister is so good, you want to have more next time.
My parents have tried their best to treat my sister as equals, buying them the same clothes, using the same things and learning the same Musical Instruments. However, in summer, Mengda dared not wear sandals to expose her deformed feet, and the sneakers matched with her skirt were too abrupt. After the quarrel, her sister got the right not to compromise with her sister, and she also got fairy dresses and many praises. Mengda knew that she could not drag her sister to be as ugly as she was; she could only try to be like her sister.
Later, the sister on the “two”, dream to reach the college entrance examination results barely enough “three” line. The family couldn’t afford to pay for two college students at the same time, so of course the victim was Monda.
College when the first part-time salary and a whole year to save the cost of living, Mengda resolutely decided to use plastic surgery. Though her friends urged her to “be sensible,” Mengda knew that the money was going to be spent steadily, starting with the bowl of uneaten cherries.
Sick flowers in the studio
“Plastic surgery can be addictive and once you start, you can’t stop,” Mengda said.
At first, she just wanted to have double eyelids, but the beauty shop manager kept saying that her “hard injury” was her nose. “Once the nose is done, the whole person will be different.” A “nose comprehensive + double eyelid” package, 13,000, dream to a cruel promised. At that time, she had no idea of beauty. She only thought that if she spent money, she would “make it more obvious and look better”.
“The nose is comprehensive” convalescence is very painful, after anesthetic strength, dream arrived just discovery oneself whole face already swollen into original two times big. The next day, she felt a foreign body in her nose, which the store manager said was normal.
“I didn’t have any money, so I chose the cheapest materials, and post-natal care was as cheap as I could get. I had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but I was afraid to think about it. I don’t have the money for anything else.” Dream said.
The nose recovered well, but she found that the “European double eyelid” was made too wide and looked strangely fake.
Even so, When Mengda looked at herself in the mirror, she felt great joy, even a sense of revenge. On those days when you can’t see, when your nose hurts, when you can’t wash your face, loneliness can be painful and painful.
Why, she always wondered, could anyone look good without such a price? And I’ll think, if I can get through this pain, I’ll get through more pain, I’ll be better looking than my sister, and I’ll get back all the praise and affection I can’t get.
As soon as her recovery period was over, Mengda started planning her next face-lift in her head: facial thread carving, belly ring liposuction, forehead filling… Behind every project lies a more perfect self. But the cost of her first surgery has already overwhelmed Mengda — saving money for a part-time job is too slow and she can’t wait that long.
Because she likes playing games at ordinary times, she naturally began to be a game anchor. She played the game well and was also beautiful. She gradually accumulated some popularity. When the audience was large, the reward could be around 300 yuan a day.
Live streaming also gives Mengda a sense of relief and satisfaction: “Actually, I like reading books and I have so much to say. When I was young, I didn’t have many friends. I just read books at home. After plastic surgery, I always feel that people around me talk about me, and I am not willing to socialize… But I’m especially relaxed with strangers, and I’m not ashamed when they say I look good. Because [I] know more, I joke, I can talk for hours… I never knew I could be so popular.”
Mengda soon had enough money for her second surgery. To make her eyelids more natural, she wanted a ‘forehead fill’ to give her eye sockets more depth.
The “hyaluronic acid fill” recovered quickly, taking only a few hours from the start to get out of the hospital. But at four o ‘clock in the morning, Mengda was awakened by the pain. She thought there was something wrong with her forehead, but when she woke up with the light on, she felt the pain coming from her nose — which, when she looked in the mirror, was red and swollen and transparent under the light. She didn’t take it seriously. She took some anti-inflammatory drugs and fell asleep. But the pain simmered and deepened during the night, tormenting her with fear.
The next day, Mengda was told that because of rejection, she would have to have her nose prosthetics removed and have surgery to repair it — the “three noes” beauty shop and cheap materials that Mengda initially chose to save money exploded, costing her more money than the previous surgery and her newfound beauty.
She did not dare to ask for money from her family, so she scraped together the money and finished her first repair operation. She watched in despair as the bridge of her nose collapsed and her false confidence collapsed: “The feeling of being knocked back to her original shape is fake.”
Unable to talk to her family and friends, Mengda turned on the live stream on her mobile phone, both to talk and to get the money for a second repair operation from viewers. But her collapsed and slanted nose was soon noticed by someone who called her a liar and a “plastic surgeon”. “Suddenly I found that everything was fake. The attention and love of others on the Internet were also fake. They were all based on the fleshy mountain under my eyes. I watched everything fall and perish before my eyes.”
Ironically, Mengda’s outburst has catapult her to unprecedented heights in popularity. People watching the live broadcast were tired of watching the beautiful smiling face, and suddenly they saw a woman with twisted face, crying and cursing. They were so curious that they clicked and watched Mengda swearing loudly in the video.
“Too many people scold me, I can’t see. Maybe give me a gift to show me how good you blacks are!”
“I am plastic surgery strange, is shameless! What, come on, am I afraid of you?”
…
That night, she has been scolded to be forced by the network police “next broadcast” so far, earned nearly 10,000 pieces of “reward.”
After that day, Mengda suddenly realized that livestream makes money by attracting eyeballs, and the eyes of appreciation and the eyes of disgust are the same. She looked at her face in failure and knew that this was her only asset.
Soon after, she had a “web celebrity campaign” with the live streaming platform — she has become one of its “traffic Kings” as a result of her own efforts and the company’s promotion.
“My face is, in fact, quite contrasting, which is that when people are discussing a contract with you, they don’t subconsciously trust such a person to have a clear mind. If you act so, people will like you more than they expect.”
Mengda began to transform her face into the ultimate snake face, using hyaluronic acid ridges to create an astonishingly high nose and triangular chin, and exaggerated dirty makeup. After taking a selfie, she made the sense of dissonance worse and became a buffoon as she basked in the popularity of the popular micro blog.
She took the first step, and the company laid out the countless steps that followed, professionally and efficiently.
People who like to look at the ugly and curious always watch Mengda’s performance quietly through their fingers while Shouting hot eyes. Mengda would forward an official announcement of the film and write: “XX [the film’s heroine] faces are stiff after plastic surgery. I am the most suitable heroine for a baby who has a natural and beautiful face.” After the post drew thousands of abuse from her followers, Mengda turned off the message and went back to reading her book.
“Don’t they know I’m being stupid? Yes, of course. But they don’t want to think of me that way. They just have to treat me like a total, self-defeating idiot to have fun and feel superior intellectually.” Mengda seemed very careless, “we are all alive in a mess, scolded by the boss, family pressure is great, I give them a vent to create.”
“They vent their bad feelings to you, and to whom do you vent yours?” I asked her.
She looked down and said nothing — I felt a little apologetic, because at the beginning of the interview, Munda had told me not to ask questions that she thought were worth it.
At present, Mengda can get 7,000 or 8,000 yuan for each “advertising promotion fee”, plus “reward” for live broadcasting. After the company takes a cut, it still gets nearly 200,000 yuan every month. But her face had become a sensationalistic tool, rendered stiff by too many creepy effects.
She mentioned a tweet that said if a rich man offered you $5 to eat shit, would you eat it? What if it’s 500,000 or 5 million?
“One reviewer said, I can eat him bankrupt, believe it or not?
“When my relatives bought a house and asked me to borrow money, I was in a position of confidence,” Said Mengda. When I got the things I couldn’t get as a child, I felt I had dignity. I had to be a little harder on myself, and now I get all I want.”
“More money, more money,” she said. “It would be more secure.”
After the hyaluronic acid dissolved in her face, she wanted to see the university. She had thought about taking the exam again: “But now I’m getting more and more impetuous, and I may not be able to pass it. Go and have a look.”
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