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bourgeois bohemians in china? neo-tribes and the urban imaginary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2005

jing wang
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Abstract

this article treats an understudied subject in popular culture studies: the mutual feed between lifestyle cultures and marketing through an examination of the bobo fever in urban china. how did an imaginary class of “bourgeois bohemians” emerge in a country where the bourgeois base is statistically small and where the bohemian equation is non-existent? to shed light on this pop-culture-turned-marketing-fad syndrome, the article introduces the concept of the “neo-tribes” and maps the pathways that link style cultures to consumer segmentation. a couple of critical questions arise from this exercise. first, is the separability of taste from class symptomatic of a “chinese leap of faith”? and secondly, is the hottest market segment today – the “neo-neo-tribes” – preparing us to address the convergence of a global youth culture?

Type
research article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 183 , September 2005 , pp. 532 - 548
Copyright
the china quarterly, 2005

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Footnotes

this article is an excerpt from my book project brand new china: advertising, media, and commercial culture. the original book chapter was first presented at the “urban imaginaries” international conference at lingnan university, hong kong, in may 2004.