Psychoanalytic Clinical Record: Assessment and Interpretation of the Subject "Mr. Youshan"

Case Number: C-2026-Bilibili-001 Subject of Analysis: Internet alias "Mr. Youshan" (real name Li Peiran), Bilibili content creator Core Diagnosis: A highly self-aware cultural performative personality structure, whose contradictions stem not from unconscious conflict, but from a conscious cynical strategy. He has not experienced a "persona collapse"—rather, he has designed "collapse" itself as part of the performance, to accomplish a deeper parasitism on the logic of traffic. His existence is Lacan's so-called "desire of the big Other" reflected most subtly in the era of self-media.

I. Structure of Consciousness: The Clear-Eyed Cynic and the Dialectic of Performance

Unlike many internet celebrities immersed in self-illusion, Mr. Youshan presents a highly instrumentally rational clarity. He does not believe himself to be a "contemporary Li Du (Li Bai and Du Fu)"—rather, he precisely knows the exchange value of the signifier "playing contemporary Li Du" in the market. He livestreams insults at his audience calling them "Kong Yiji (a failed scholarly figure from Lu Xun)," then posts cash on Weibo—this is not schizophrenia, but the parallel operation and public mockery of two symbolic orders (cultural loftiness vs. commercial success).

Constitution of the Cynical Subject: His famous quote "The Wei-Jin 风骨 (intellectual integrity) is merely a ludicrous fig leaf" is the core decryption of his consciousness. This means he explicitly knows that the symbols he manipulates (风骨/integrity, recluse, rebellion) are "fig leaves" whose function is to conceal the "ludicrous" essence of traffic chasing. However, true cynicism is not exposing ideology and then exiting the game—it is "knowing it is false, yet participating in and maintaining this falseness more actively than anyone". The more he performs contempt for traffic rules (howling, acting unhinged), the more he strengthens his "rebel" persona, thereby harvesting more traffic—he perfectly practices what Žižek said: "They know, but in their actions, they act as if they do not know."
Simulation of Desire: Lacan held that human desire is the desire of the big Other. Mr. Youshan's performance is a precise simulation and feeding of the collective unconscious desires of young audiences. What he simulates is not "literary talent" but young people's fantasy posture of "escaping discipline, achieving freedom." Zero college entrance exam scores, dropping out of a third-tier university, railing against the system—these are not his scars, but the "medals of rebellion" he presents to his fan base (70% are students aged 15-25). What fans consume through him is not the Ode to the Nymph of the Luo River (洛神赋), but the vengeful thrill of "an ordinary person with failed credentials who, in the name of culture, can look down upon the vulgar world".

II. Operational Mechanism: "Spectacularization" of Classical Culture and the Spectacularization of Symptoms

Mr. Youshan's true "talent" lies not in classical Chinese literary accomplishment, but in transforming classical cultural symbols into "cultural spectacles" conforming to short-video dissemination logic.

From Text to Spectacle: He violently transforms the Ode to the Nymph of the Luo River (洛神赋) and Man Jiang Hong (满江红 / Full River Red) from texts requiring silent reading into comprehensive spectacles incorporating visual and emotional shock elements such as "high fever," "gliding steps," "head-banging," and "howling." Scholarly research yields to dramatic performance; precision of emotion yields to intensity of affect. Professionals criticize his "uniform howling," but this is precisely his strategy—establishing an instantly recognizable, thought-free affective stimulus tag, like factory-produced "emotional canned goods."
Public Sale of Symptoms: In classical analysis, symptoms are private suffering. With Mr. Youshan, symptoms are thoroughly spectacularized and commodified. "Going mad" is performance; "going bankrupt" is script; "begging for rewards" is interactive segments. He even pre-writes potential "persona collapse" into the script ("Tomorrow I will still falsely claim to be a Top 100"), thereby immunizing himself against all criticism. Critics accuse him of "hypocrisy," but he can transform this into the tragic narrative of "all are drunk while I alone am sober," further consolidating his persona. This forms an impregnable semiotic closure.

III. Fundamental Contradiction: Symbolic Murder and Material Dependency

His predicament is structural, stemming from the inherent paradox of his survival mode:

Dimension of Contradiction	Surface of Performance (Symbolic Posture)	Underlying Survival (Real Need)	Resulting Tear
Toward knowledge authority	Claims "Yu Hua and Mo Yan will be replaced by AI," despises the existing literary order, performs symbolic patricide.	His entire cultural capital and appeal are rooted precisely in the classical literary tradition and authority system he despises.	Hollowing out his own existential foundation. Denying the value of classics equals denying the sole source of appeal in his performance content.
Toward audience/fans	Insults them as "Kong Yiji," mocks undergraduate students,塑造 a condescending enlightener posture.	Livelihood entirely depends on these "Kong Yiji's" charging, tipping, and liking (livestream begging for tips to survive).	"Eating from the bowl while cursing the hand that fills it". This split destroys the most basic 诚 (sincerity) and 义 (righteousness) of the "literary integrity" persona, exposing its pure utilitarianism.
Toward the 风骨 (integrity) label	Uses it as a core selling point, performs the posture of treating money as dirt and pursuing spiritual freedom.	Posts cash on Weibo, thoroughly monetizing all words and deeds into traffic.	Reducing 风骨 (integrity) entirely to a clownish fig leaf. When the fig leaf is voluntarily lifted, the performance falls from sublime tragedy into absurd farce.

This contradiction is not a mistake, but a necessary product of alienation under the traffic economy. He must continuously devalue the system he depends on for survival to maintain the "rebel" persona; yet to survive, he must attach himself most deeply to this system. This is an inescapable dead loop.

IV. Cultural Significance: A Contemporary Fable About "Recognition"

Mr. Youshan's entire struggle can be summed up as a frantic response to a question from the big Other: "What do you really want from me?!"

The Eternal Cycle of Lack: He initially sought recognition from the educational big Other (the college entrance exam), and after failing, turned to the traffic big Other (platform algorithms, Top 100 selections). However, the logic of traffic is a never-satisfied "desiring machine" that provides only momentary pleasure, not eternal recognition. His five failed attempts to break into the "Top 100" are a vivid portrait of this lack. The "Top 100" is no longer an award for him, but Lacan's "object petit a"—a phantom forever approached yet never truly captured, driving him to "run this pathetic marathon while spitting blood."
Performance as "Digitalized Horcrux": In the digital age, immortality's "being remembered by posterity" manifests as the perpetual storage and clicking of data. Every howl, every bout of madness, is an upload of self-fragments to the cloud, attempting to forge an immortal "horcrux" in the digital symbolic order. Yet this is destined to be tragic, because traffic memory is even more ephemeral than bodily memory—yesterday's tens of millions of views are today already overwritten by new trending topics.

Conclusion: Mr. Youshan is not a simple "pseudo-literary figure" or "clown." He is an extreme modernity sample who has thoroughly instrumentalized the self and spectacularized culture within traffic alienation. His "clear-eyed degradation" is more lamentable than ignorant fanaticism, and also more diagnostically valuable. He shows us that when the profound meaning of classical culture is flattened into spectacle symbols for rapid consumption, when the spirit of rebellion is encoded into replicable traffic passwords, what is ultimately produced is not a contemporary "Wei-Jin 风骨" (Wei-Jin intellectual integrity), but a digital phantom who, in a data desert, builds cultural mirages for himself—knowing full well their illusoriness, yet compelled to keep performing.

His story reveals, like a fable: the cultural transmission of our era may be sliding from the cultivation of "conveying truth through literature" (以文载道) toward the alchemy of "exchanging madness for traffic" (以疯换量). And the greatest tragic participants may be those young viewers who pay for his howling on their screens and draw illusary courage of resistance from it—they think they are consuming weapons against vulgarity, yet unknowingly, they are the most important fuel sustaining this vulgar carnival.

Copyright Notice: This is a preview translation — Chinese original is the authoritative version. Copyright belongs to Guangzhou Phaenarete AI Technology Co., Ltd. Unauthorized reproduction, citation, or distribution is prohibited.