The battle between Kris Wu and Hupu, a popular Chinese media platform that focuses on sports news, has recently gone viral online, with millions of Wu's fans and JRs (a nickname for Hupu fans) taking to Sina Weibo to defend their respective fandoms.
Wu was suddenly thrust into the spotlight on Wednesday after an official Hupu account, Hupu Pedestrian Street, posted unedited video on Sina Weibo of Wu singing his "Bad Girl" with a caption that read: "How many seconds can you endure this?" The post was immediately noticed by Wu's fans and within an hour fans of the idol gathered on Hupu to bring the battle to Hupu users on their home turf.
Despite the virtual onslaught, Hupu Pedestrian Street continued its criticism of Wu, going on to publish several short videos and articles aimed at Wu's performances on reality show The Rap of China and poking fun at the idol's frequent use of the slang term "skr."
"Skr" was originally an onomatopoeia describing the sound a car makes as its skids around a sharp turn and later became slang used by many Chinese rappers to express awe for something. When The Rap of China began broadcasting in the mainland in early July, Wu's frequent use of "skr" to assess the performance of contestants helped the term go viral online.
As the war began to pick up speed, Wu fans ran into a major roadblock when it came to registering on Hupu, which requires applicants past a sports trivia test to become a user.
Like real life, this virtual spat has been seen as a commercial opportunity by some. On Taobao, one of China's biggest online shopping retailers, some stores have begun selling Hupu accounts to angry Wu fans that failed the sports trivia test.
The battle has also expanded past discussion concerning Wu's talent or lack thereof to become a battle of the sexes.
There is a large distinction when it comes to gender between the two groups. Wu has a fan base of more than 6.6 million female fans while Hupu is a male-dominated sports forum with only 660 thousand users. As time has passed, the argument that began with Wu has turned into an attack on traditional gender stereotypes. Wu's supporters have been insulting Hupu users by saying they have come down with "straight man cancer," a slang term for men who are stubbornly sexist, and as such are unwilling to accept a pop star who is "much better than them."
Meanwhile, groups of Hupu users have resorted to labeling the other side as superficial "brainless fans of Wu" who only support someone for their looks.
Wu's official studio entered the battle on Wednesday afternoon with a statement on Sina Weibo that accused Hupu of slandering Wu by spreading an edited music video and that Wu's managers would be taking legal action.
Later that same day, Wu himself became involved, posting on Sina Weibo: "Whose piece of cheese did I touch?" He noted in his post that his music is not for haters and that he planned to write a diss track in response.
By Sunday, Wu's post had more than 400,000 likes.
"Stick to your own criterion. Just fight back with your real strength and have a good rest!" netizen Tingting_baby commented on the post.
