Wei Chunliang Says | Ten Thousand People Cycling in Kaifeng at Night, a New Era of Mass Hysteria

Tens of thousands of college students, departing from Zhengzhou at dawn, cycle for 5 hours, heading to Kaifeng, 50 kilometers away. This is a grand spectacle of the new era.

French thinker Guy Debord believes that the spectacle is essentially “a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.”

Night cycling to Kaifeng is this kind of spectacle.

According to media reports, this cycling activity, imitated by hundreds of thousands of people, started with four female college students from Zhengzhou.

After class, the four girls wanted to eat Kaifeng’s soup dumplings. They set off at 7 p.m., cycled 50 kilometers from Zhengzhou, spent 3 hours, and arrived at their destination, enjoying the delicious soup dumplings.

Of course, they also posted on social media.

From the very beginning, this performance art was visual. They didn’t take the 10-yuan shuttle bus, nor the 20-minute high-speed train. They insisted on spending several hours cycling 50 kilometers. What they pursued was this visual spectacle.

The important thing is to be seen in the form of a spectacle, rather than actually reaching the destination itself.

The later imitators also valued this visual spectacle.

And when Xiaohongshu and Douyin joined in, this visual spectacle became a grand media spectacle.

It raises the banner of the value of “Youth has no price, madness is now”, guided by “I want to buy osmanthus and drink wine together, but it’s not like, the youth’s journey”, shouting the slogan “PASSION”, hundreds of thousands of people cycling, becomes a coercive, mandatory monologue, it is correct and unquestionable, anyone who spoils the fun in front of it is unwelcome.

I watched many videos of night cycling to Kaifeng. Everyone in the shots was full of enthusiasm, laughing so happily, “Youth is embodied at this moment”, becoming the most common copywriting for cycling short videos.

This is a joy that people who pursue a sense of real meaning cannot understand. They cannot understand, are Kaifeng’s soup dumplings that delicious? What exactly are they going to do in Kaifeng? They also don’t understand, spending more money, suffering more, exhausted, what are they after?

Isn’t it good to have fun comfortably? No.

Because, the cycling itself on the road has become the whole meaning. Or more accurately, the joy of cycling on the road has become the whole meaning.

This is the self-realization of the spectacle, its means, and also its purpose.

From this perspective, even if it is not stopped, Kaifeng receives this wave of traffic, even if it can be converted into economic benefits, it will definitely be very weak.

When the meaning of cycling points to itself, Kaifeng’s soup dumplings become an excuse and a pretext, and the joy on the road becomes empty, illusory, and meaningless.

But precisely because of the emptiness, the illusion, and the meaninglessness, this joy becomes more and more fascinating. Night cycling, getting rid of the meaning and responsibility of daytime life and study, and order, it pursues wild, spontaneous, and light joy.

This point distinguishes night cycling to Kaifeng from marathons and music festivals.

Although they are all happy, young college students are unwilling to passively wait to be arranged, unwilling to only be the audience to set off the actors on stage, they try to create the spectacle themselves and become the protagonists of the spectacle.

Therefore, if we must say, night cycling to Kaifeng is actually more like Halloween. They are different versions of happiness, but they all go the same way:

A brief escape from daily life, throwing oneself into a strange space, forming and joining a collective, being seen by the crowd, and being seen by more people together with the crowd.

Two or three hundred thousand young people who cycle at night seem to be declaring to the world with their actions that what they really want is very simple, not success, not contribution, but only happiness, pure, scarce, and light happiness.

And behind the passionate cycling to Kaifeng, is there also unknown repression and distress?

An author said that tens of thousands of people gathering for night cycling is a “group hysteria”.

I think this is an accurate judgment, but from the perspective of understanding.

Tens of thousands of young people want to get out of the track of life, cycling on the road, and only for cycling on the road, lasting for a long time, enjoying it, does it mean that our society may indeed be sick?