Baozou () is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

featuring comics and animations. The Baozou style of comics, originally inspired by

rage comic A rage comic is a short cartoon strip using a growing set of pre-made cartoon faces, or rage faces, which usually express rage or some other simple emotion or activity. They are usually crudely drawn in Microsoft Paint or other simple drawing prog ...

s of the US, was popularized in China and later developed into its own style. Bauzou is an Internet phenomenon, emerging from the specific sociopolitical context of contemporary China, and a staple in Chinese popular online culture, arguably triggering the

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

subculture in China. Still or animated Baozou figures are created and used as emoticons to depict simple and crude visuals used in electronic or web messages. Internet users often use Baozou figures in parody of a range of different emotions. Baozou (which roughly translates to "out of control" or rage in Chinese) also produces '' Baozou Big News Events'', a popular humorous show covering news, literature, history, psychology, politics, chemistry and biology.

Background

In 2008, Wang Nima founded the baozoumanhua.com website to spread the popularity of images he created from rage comics. The new form of

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

became known as Baozou comics. The rough, unpolished comics are typically created by amateurs and spread across the internet. Baozou is known as a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

franchise, but the website has expanded to include live action stand-up,

Flash animation Adobe Flash animation or Adobe Flash cartoon (formerly Macromedia Flash animation, Macromedia Flash cartoon, FutureSplash animation, and FutureSplash cartoon) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional) p ...

shorts, apps, anime parodies, and an animated series of short stories. One of the website's developments is the app, Baozou Daily. The website's videos also appear on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. Wang Nima, founder and editor in chief of Baozou, was named one of the top 10 web celebrities of the decade in China by search engine

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...

, in part for his work on '' Baozou Big News Events'', an internet show by Baozou that covers news and other popular subjects. Baozou founded the Baozou Foundation that aims to help young people in need.

Emoticons

Emoticons made in the Baozou style are often parodies of emotions. 400 Baozou faces have been pulled from baozoumanhua.com, and over 300 Baozou faces can be found on WeChat. The faces are universal, using exaggerated facial expressions for comedic effect. They often mock common experiences rather than targeting insults. Baozou emoticons also tend to be general-neutral. Premade faces that can be found on the baozoumanhua.com website include celebrity faces such as

Yao Ming Yao Ming (; born September 12, 1980) is a Chinese basketball executive and former professional player. He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Associat ...

and

Jackie Chan Fang Shilong (born 7 April 1954), known professionally in English as Jackie Chan and in Chinese as Cheng Long ( zh, c=成龍, j=Sing4 Lung4; "becoming the dragon"), is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman known for ...

. Users take the pre-made faces or other images and alter them using

Microsoft Paint Microsoft Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in ...

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...

to depict a desired emotion. Baozou established the UGC platform which allows users to create and share content.

Baozou Big News Events

''Baozou Big News Events'', also referred to as ''Baozou Big News'', is a Chinese internet talk-variety show which is produced by Baozoumanhua. The show has created Internet buzzwords that are widely used in China. The host, Wang Nima, wears a headpiece with a comic face on it and reports ridiculous news events. The show imitate the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

comedy news show

Russell Howard's Good News ''Russell Howard's Good News'' was a British comedy and topical news television show which was broadcast on BBC Three between 2009 and 2014, and on BBC Two between 2014 and 2015. Hosted by comedian Russell Howard, it offered his commentary on th ...

. The first season aired from March 29 to August 8, 2013, the second season from December 20, 2013, to June 20, 2014, the third season from June 27, 2014, to June 26, 2015, and the fourth season was released on July 10, 2015. The initial season aired ever two weeks with short episodes. As the show evolved, the style and schedule changed to being released once a week.

In popular culture

In China, Baozou has gained public attention. The comics appear in online communications including instant messaging platforms such as

WeChat WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has bee ...

and QQ as well as micro blogs, e-bulletin boards and forums. The popularity of the comics is in part due to the growing sensation of

emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using Character (symbol), characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a ...

s in China. Baozou comic creators have created facial expressions from online photos and videos that are used across the web to express feelings. The science fiction film '' Next Gen'' is based on the Baozou comic ''7723''.

References

{{reflist Chinese culture