In 2024, China wiped “China's Kim Kardashian” off every platform. Here's what they didn't touch. Wang Hongquanxing had 4.4 million Douyin followers. He was known for saying he wouldn't leave home wearing anything worth less than ten million yuan. In April 2024, the Cyberspace Administration launched the “Qinglang” campaign against wealth-flaunting content, and his accounts were wiped across all major platforms. In the first week of May 2024, Douyin removed 4,701 pieces of content and closed 11 accounts. Xiaohongshu closed 383 accounts in two weeks. Weibo deleted over 1,100 posts. The stated reason was that this content promoted harmful values and posed a potential risk of fraud. But the crackdown targeted what was visible. It didn't touch the supply chain underneath. On Chinese e-commerce platforms, a luxury lifestyle photo still costs between one and eight yuan. One listing offers 7,000 high-definition images for 0.1 yuan, delivered via cloud storage link. Empty SK-II, La Mer, and Chanel bottles still sell on Xianyu for 20 to 60 yuan each, so buyers can arrange them on bathroom counters for their videos. Location spoofing from Chengdu to Paris still costs 5.99 yuan. A staged yacht shoot still costs 3,999 yuan split between strangers. And this all makes sense in context: youth unemployment hit 18.9% in August 2025, real estate investment fell 15.9% year-on-year through November 2025. When conventional paths to wealth stall out, producing the signals of wealth becomes rational. Banning the influencers removed the most visible performers. But the audience had already memorized the script. The signals are installed. Deleting the accounts doesn't delete what people learned to see as real. - @samuelszuchan