Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will analyze e gao, a vast and diversified category that includes satirical and auto-ironic short digital videos, which pick on daily life and shared symbols, but that mock the authority too. As a phenomenon, they are not limited to the Chinese context but here peculiar for hugeness and political implications. They are distributed on social networking sites just to have fun and relax, generally in the urban context: in the new pop(ular) culture where entertainment is the core, they are one of the tastier ingredients.

E gao are characterized by auto-reflexive and auto-ironic self-representation, they generate virtual relationships and collective identities.

I will explore the imaginative dimension and its implication in Chinese urban context, trying to read the fiction practice, and to go in depth into the discursive practices and into the relationships implied in videos productions and fruition in the online public sphere.