photos to prove their identity as a Smart.62 Director Li at first tried to join their group chat, but the request never got approved. He said that the members in the group are all from similar backgrounds and it is a rather closed group, parallel to outsiders’ world. Two standards that prove one is a Smart is that first, you have joined the “family”, and second, your hair is standing up.63 For Smart members who do not have a specific meeting place, the group chat is a crucial place for the “family” members to communicate and maintain orders, and fashion acts as a tool to help construct as well as gatekeep this space.
Smart Immigrant Workers in Factories “Non-mainstream” is directly translated from the Chinese word “fei zhu liu”, which means an “alternative” or “subcultural” style. This descriptive word is more often used in a negative way to describe subculture styles such as “Smart.” The group of young people associated with this style initially consisted of those from rural areas in mid and southern China who were born in the 1990s and went to big cities in Guangdong Province to earn a living in factories at a young age. In the documentary, the youths interviewed started working at the age ranging from 11 to 16.64 Luo dropped out of school and started to work in a factory when he was 11, and that was when he started to explore an alternative style drawing inspirations from media contents he consumed: he made a hairstyle imitating the main character from Li, Yifan. “We Were Smart.” “Dui tan <Sha ma te wo ai ni> dao yan Li Yifan.” December, 17, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nM4y1c7z5/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.1 64 Li, Yifan. “We Were Smart.” 62 63
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