I’m Really a Superstar

Translator: Legge Editor: Legge

The countdown started.

Three.

Two.

One.

The Spring Festival Gala\'s live broadcast officially began!

A short, two-minute promotional video was broadcast at the start. This video was very elegantly shot but also very traditional in a sense. All the different industry frontline workers in their work uniforms appeared in this promotional video and finally boarded a packed train for the holiday season. Everyone then gave a fist and palm salute before several words appeared on screen—Spring Festival Gala.

Music started to blare. It was a piece of traditional folk music to which the performers came onto stage with in their beautiful stage costumes. There were people dancing the Uighur folk dance, the Dai folk dance, as well as the Mongolian folk dance.

"Uh…"

"Why do I have an ominous feeling about this?"

"I do too."

"A hodgepodge of performances? Fuck!"

"The composition of performers is too complicated!"

"This opening dance is already exuding the feeling of a \'Spring Festival Gala\'!"

"Has there been a year they did not do this? Hurry up and find something to criticize them about!"

"Flamers, step up!"

Some of the flamers were already ready, but as the gala had only just began, they were not in the groove yet. They could not find a good entry point and were unable to muster up a truly worthy criticism yet.

At this moment, the Mongolian folk dance performers rotated to the front and the big screen behind them started showing some of Inner Mongolia\'s locations. Each location was accompanied with New Year photos of locals wearing traditional Mongolian deels on horseback, standing outside their yurts, or studying at school.[1.]

"Where are the flamers!"

"Where are they?"

"Say something!"

"Where is everyone\'s fighting spirit?"

"Who will be the one taking the opening shot at the Spring Festival Gala!"

Suddenly, an insult appeared on Weibo: "I\'m from Inner Mongolia, I\'m here. I wanna say this: I\'ve been telling my foreign friends for many years that we don\'t live in yurts, don\'t ride horses, don\'t bathe in milk, and don\'t wear deels anymore. But after the Spring Festival Gala is broadcast, all my years of effort go down the drain."

With this insult, everyone was laughing madly!

"Ahahahahaha!"

"Pfft! Hilarious!"

"What a goddamn professional flamer!"

"Just a look at that insult and I know it must be by a professional!"

"Too awesome!"

"This is the first flame heading into the new year!"

"Hahaha, I laughed so much my sides hurt!"

"Aiyo, which mighty flamer is this!"

"Let\'s see who posted that, it\'s hilarious!"

In the end, when the netizens saw this person\'s name, they laughed even harder!

"Pfft!"

"It\'s Zhang Ye!"

"Fuck, it\'s Zhang Ye himself!"

"Rofl!"

"Hahahahaha!"

"So it\'s Zhang Ye! I was still wondering whose fighting strength could be so fierce!"

"Quick, come and see! Teacher Zhang has fired shots at the Spring Festival Gala again!"

"I was saying that after the Spring Festival Gala production team issued such a strong statement obviously targeted at Zhang Ye, if he did not strike back at them, it just wouldn\'t be his style!"

"Teacher Zhang has also joined the flaming army!"

"Zhang Ye the Mighty!"

"Teacher Zhang, well done!"

The flaming army immediately exalted at Zhang Ye\'s participation!

If it were any other flamer\'s insults, it might not have spread so quickly. But since this insult was from Zhang Ye, there was no doubt about how fast it would spread. Zhang Ye had such a vast number of Weibo followers at 10 million that before the opening dance on television was over, this insult of his had already propagated all over the Internet!

...

Zhang Ye\'s maternal grandma\'s house.

His third sister yelled, "Hahaha, Brother, you\'re so sarcastic!"

His second sister also laughed loudly. "Brother, you\'re really serious about flaming them?"

"What a classic!" His eldest sister was also giggling nonstop while browsing Weibo. "Our brother\'s eloquence is still as amazing as ever! This insult was so professional. It found the perfect entry point and hit it spot on!"

However, Zhang Ye did not really care about all that. This was the essence of the netizens and flamers from his previous world, so how could it not be good? How could it not hit the sweet spot?

...

After the opening dance was over.

The hosts took over the stage!

Chen Ye who was dressed fully in red said, "The annual welcoming of a joyous festival!"

The female host beside him said loudly, "The country celebrates together for the new year!!"

Their hosting lines did not have much creativity and basically stuck to the traditional New Year greetings of past years. The only thing that was different from previous years was the stage, which was much grander and incorporated more technological elements this time.

Very quickly, the second performance of the night started.

It was yet another singing and dancing performance, with an emphasis on singing.

A big shot singer came on stage and sang, "Oh, homeland, a brand new atmosphere!"

A big name actor came on stage. "Year after year, a brand new look."

A veteran singer sang loudly, "The common folk very happy."

A female soprano: "Let\'s advance together with the Communist Party."

This was a new song composed and written by an unknown person. It was the first time it was performed at the Spring Festival Gala.

The netizens flamed it.

"The lyrics have an overly proper energy!"

"Fuck, isn\'t there anything else they can perform?"

"I\'m almost falling asleep."

"Could we not have such performances? Why does this year\'s Spring Festival Gala seem so much more boring than previous years\'!"

"There are so many points that we can criticize that I don\'t know where to start!"

"It\'s time for the skits!"

"Anticipating the language performances!"

The third performance welcomed this year\'s gala\'s first skit.

But when the audience began watching, they felt even more speechless.

The skit was titled "This is a new policy." It depicted a rural farming family running into some problems and obstacles when they had to get something done. Their problems ended up being solved by the country\'s recently approved new policy. As the skit came to a close, the performers got together and praised the new policy.

The netizens had mixed reactions.

"It\'s nice, I guess."

"Only the beginning was a little funny."

"BS, how was it even funny? I was totally speechless throughout the skit!"

"It was so boring! There\'s nothing funny about it at all!"

"What sort of a skit is this even?"

"*faints*. It turned out totally different from what I had expected!"

Then it was time for another song and dance performance which included the shouting of slogans. Afterwards, the time finally came for the first crosstalk routine of the night. It was exactly that mass crosstalk Tang Dazhang was leading his group of 60 people to perform, titled "Family Reunion"! It felt like the crosstalk routine used to be scheduled at a later time that was closer to midnight. But perhaps due to the great pressure from public opinion and doubt, the Spring Festival Gala production team made some last-minute adjustments and pushed forward Tang Dazhang\'s crosstalk routine.

The language performance began.

Tang Dazhang led his senior and junior brothers as well as his disciples and strode onto the stage.

The moment he came on, Tang Dazhang smiled and waved at the audience as he said, "We meet again, my friends."

The applause in the audience was scant, but many of the audience members were amused when they heard that. It wasn\'t because his words were funny, but because many of them were reminded of Zhang Ye\'s joke in "I Want to Get on the Spring Festival Gala" that ridiculed Tang Dazhang.

"Let us first wish everyone a prosperous new year!"

The 60 people bowed and said in unison, "A prosperous new year!"

"It\'s a good day today."

"Yes."

"A year is just like a day."

"That\'s right."

The crosstalk routine began. It started off with two people speaking, then when it entered the singing segment, the remaining crosstalk actors joined in as well. Some of them played the erhu and sanxian, with a few female Jingyun Dagu actresses gradually joining in as well. The entire crosstalk performance was loud and filled with song and dance![2.]

The netizens were dumbfounded by what they were watching.

"Is this still a crosstalk routine?"

"Why does it feel like it\'s a singing show instead?"

"How boring!"

"There was only one funny point in the entire performance and it\'s an old gag from several years back. There was also one joke that felt really familiar that I thought was adapted from something Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai did before!"

"This is really a true family reunion! I pissed myself listening to that!"

"They shouted the catchphrase so clearly, but it still wasn\'t as good as I expected it to be!"

"Tang Dazhang is getting on in years. He\'s becoming more and more irrelevant now and is already out of touch with times!"

"This year\'s Spring Festival Gala seems like it doesn\'t belong in the same era as us. If someone told me I was watching a Spring Festival Gala from five years back, I might just believe them!"

"I finally get why Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai were not invited to this year\'s Spring Festival Gala. Teacher Zhang and Teacher Yao obviously do not have as great a political awareness as Tang Dazhang!"

After several performances, many people had run out of patience!

One by one, the flamers started berating.

Even Zhang Ye\'s fan club leader, Big Saber Bro, joined in.

Fan Yingyun: "On this night, every person in the country will be able to sleep peacefully. My mother will no longer have to worry about my insomnia!"

But among all the insults, one of them didn\'t seem to fit in with the rest. "Exciting, how exciting! This year\'s Spring Festival Gala is the most enjoyable News Simulcast broadcast that I have ever watched in the entire twenty-odd years of my life. It has gotten rid of the customary newscaster reporting with the aid of imagery or video highlights, and replaced it with a collection of songs, dances, skits, and video clips instead. It promotes the good policies of the party and simplifies it for the layman. The country is thriving and the people are prospering. This is a new creative breakthrough by the Publicity Department that will ensure the news reaches the minds of our people and helps to put into practice the Three Adjustments. It is definitely worth our comrades at the news publicity battlefront learning from!"

Published on Weibo by: Zhang Ye.

The moment the other flamers saw this, they were astounded!

"Damn, what a burn!"

"Teacher Zhang has beautifully done it again!"

"News Simulcast?"

"Hahahahaha!"

"Heh, it\'s a proper gala but you described it as a News Simulcast broadcast instead! Haha!"

"This insult is way too godly!"

"Looks like Teacher Zhang is going to offend yet another bunch of people tonight!"

After several minutes, the hosts started pairing couplets in a light-hearted hosting segment.

One of the hosts came up with the first half of the couplet. "The country is thriving."

Chen Ye matched the second half. "The people are prospering."

Right at this moment, Zhang Ye made yet another post on Weibo: "Good news, everyone, good news! Comrades who are able to finish watching this year\'s Spring Festival Gala will definitely not experience any difficulties in the coming year!"

"Hahaha!"

"Dying from laughter!"

"That\'s what you get for offending Zhang Ye! !"

"Pfft, hahaha! I\'ve decided to not watch the Spring Festival Gala anymore. All I need is to read Zhang Ye\'s Weibo as we cross into the new year!"

When the next performance ended, the hosting team reappeared again to thank the higher-ups and audience for their unwavering support over the years. They also thanked the Spring Festival Gala production team for their hard work on the show.

At almost the same time, Zhang Ye\'s insults started again. "Thank you. Everyone should also thank this year\'s Spring Festival Gala production team for making us see our mistakes. As of this night, all of us owe the previous versions of the Spring Festival Gala our deepest apologies—we are sorry!"

"We\'re sorry? Pfft!"

"Aiyo, I can\'t take it anymore!"

"Zhang Ye is too sarcastic!"

"I\'ve passed out from laughing too much at my computer! Hahahaha!"

"Yeah, we all really owe an apology to the previous versions of the Spring Festival Gala! We shouldn\'t have criticized them back then!"

"Can you guys stop being so funny!"

"Just look at Teacher Zhang\'s caliber of insulting. The rest of you really aren\'t a match for him!"

"No shit, of course we can\'t compare to Teacher Zhang when it comes to dishing out insults!"

"Amazing! At the critical moments, we still have to depend on Teacher Zhang!"

A lot of the other flamers accepted this remark. "Indeed, Zhang Ye\'s literary skill and eloquence are at the professional level. Compared to us amateur flamers, he\'s on a whole different level!"

With that insult, the results were clear!

Tonight, Zhang Ye stood with the public and joined sides with the flaming army. He had even become the leading figure of the flamers and threw out the insults incisively, bringing the standards to a new height, to a new realm!

The Spring Festival Gala\'s live broadcast continued.

Zhang Ye\'s insults also continued!

Every word the hosts said could be caught by him, and every performances\' details had weak points that Zhang Ye could make fun of at length. A lot of the flamers had already stopped their "duties" and were just watching Zhang Ye sling his insults during the entirety of the Spring Festival Gala. Of course, there were also some performances and artists Zhang Ye did not ridicule. People like Zhang Yuanqi and Zhang Xia—and Ci Xiufang\'s skit performance—were all spared. As long as it was someone Zhang Ye knew personally and had a good relationship with, he did not say anything about them. This fellow has always been this way….He\'d always mix business and private!

Everyone had a good laugh!

Zhang Ye\'s family members didn\'t know how to react.

His mother said, "Son, you\'re not even touching the dumplings and only care about posting on Weibo? Why are you always engaged in such tomfoolery?"

Zhang Ye answered in high spirits, "Did you only realize that now? I\'ve always been like this!"

His third sister, who only wished to watch the world burn, said, "Brother, how about another one! Insult them again!"

Zhang Ye said, "I\'ve just posted one, go on and Like it!"

"Understood! Hahahaha!"

...

When the Spring Festival Gala ended.

As the production team staff were about to check online for the audience and netizens\' reactions to this year\'s Spring Festival Gala, everyone—including the executive director, assistant directors, and other staff members—were all dumbfounded the moment they checked Weibo!

What is this?

What is all this?

Everyone nearly vomited blood!

Zhang Ye! Fuck your grandpa!

You\'re too damn wicked, you!

Those hundred-plus ridiculing posts on Weibo made by Zhang Ye had utterly shocked the Spring Festival Gala production team! Over a hundred posts! You\'re going to participate in Beijing Television\'s Spring Festival Gala tomorrow, so you should be busy preparing for it right now. Yet as a big shot celebrity, you\'re free enough to stay home to watch television and insult our Spring Festival Gala on the eve of the Spring Festival? Every member of the Spring Festival Gala production team cursed!

This damned hooligan!

The worst hooligan in the entire entertainment circle!