“名媛”升级版？凡尔赛文学刷屏朋友圈
Suppose your partner one day presented youwith a Maserati as a gift. How would you show it off to your friends?
For some Chinese millennials,their firstinstinct might be to gloat by posting photos on their wechat Moments socialfeed,along with captions like “It’s just a few million yuan or “This will look greatat my shanghai villa.” For the younger post-‘90sgeneration,however,flaunting privilege has come to be defined by false modesty.
In other words, the humblebrag has found a home in china.
“It’s such an unfashionable color-how coulda man have such bad taste?” a young member of China’s wealthy elite might scoffin a social media post, eliciting comments containing the phrase fan’ersai wenxue,or “Versailles literature,” the country’s equivalent to humblebragging. On microbloggingplatform weibo, the buzzword has become a trending topic, with over 440 millionviews by Tuesday evening.
“Versailles literature” stems form the Japanesemanga series “The Rose of Versailles,” about the lavish lifestyle of MarieAntoinette, and now refers to anyone with a haughty, “let them eat cake” airabout them.
The term was actually coined by a Chinese vloggermonths ago, in May. It went viral recently thanks to social media posts by a bloggerwith the Weibo handle Meng Qiqi 77. Known for sharing regular updates of her charmedlife and romantic anecdotes involving her hunky husband, Meng Qiqi 77 flexed likea Venice Beach bodybuilder.
Meng Qiqi 77 may have made the greatestcontribution to popularizing Versailles literaturthe China, but she’s not the only one to toot herown horn with a well-crafted humblebrag.
“I often see Versailles literature in my WeChatMoments,” Zoey Zhuang, an active Weibo user, said. “They post about buying newcars, new shoes, even new furniture. But all the photos are fake, never mind the words.”
Versailles literature is reminiscent of thewidely read but also controversial novels of writer Guo Jingming. Guo’s bestseller,“Tiny Times”-serialized since 2007 and adapted for film in 2013-is now viewedas a pioneer of Versailles literatur, given that Gou’s characters have acertain penchant for Gucci, Louis Vuitton,and other luxury brands.
