In China, young people are encountering myriad challenges, from societal pressures around success to existing in a highly surveilled society, that have made them turn to the internet in search of a balm to soothe their pain. What has emerged is a host of content called digital ibuprofen – viewed as a way to numb the anxieties of modern living.
The most popular digital ibuprofen at the moment is the Japanese webcomic Chiikawa (2020), a portmanteau of the Japanese words small () and cute (). Set within what has been called a “post-apocalyptic gig economy”, Chiikawa follows the daily lives, jobs (like weeding and monster hunting) and struggles of small, emotional creatures. The appeal of the sweet, strange world to a disaffected youth becomes apparent as darker themes emerge.
These animals face challenges like sitting exams to get higher pay, doing menial labour to survive, and suffering burnout. Along the way they try to avoid scams and monsters that want to eat them. But amidst it all they manage to maintain positivity by cultivating friendships and enjoyment, especially by sharing delicious food.
Rather than the explicit cynicism of western cartoons such as The Simpsons and South Park, much of digital ibuprofen represents a distinctly East Asian approach to social satire that uses cuteness and surrealism to disguise its message. Chiikawa is part of a lineage that includes characters like Aggretsuko (2016) – a cute red panda who de-stresses from office life by singing death metal at karaoke – and Gudetama (2013) – an apathetic, depressed egg yolk.
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Pay attention and you’ll see that these characters are trying to navigate many of the same issues that Chinese youth face. This is a group who spends their school years frantically studying for highly competitive high school final exams called .
They are then faced with entering a brutalising work environment where 996 has become a shorthand for the normalisation of working 9am till 9pm, six days a week. Such unrelenting demands of work have been widely documented as China emerged from its rapid development in the early 21st Century.
Burnout has become common and the Chinese dream seems to have receded in the face of economic downturn. In response, movements such as “lying flat” (), meaning doing the bare minimum, or becoming a full-time child – taking a career break to live at home and help parents – have emerged.
Then there’s the impact of the explosion of China’s digital landscape. Following huge infrastructural investment, China has become a technology powerhouse with widespread engagement with Chinese social media and innovations in goods and services online.
Yet this growth has come with other issues. There are more online scams and a constant awareness of government surveillance and control over public speech. These young people are living a world where online comments are monitored, deleted or worse. In some instances, a thoughtless post could lead to an invitation for “a cup of tea” (informal questioning) at the police station.
So digital ibuprofen becomes an apt analogy for the psychological desire to be numbed in the face of all these daily challenges – even if the internet simultaneously feels like a dangerous place.
The cuteness inherent in these soothing products has a significant history in East Asia, not only in sweet characters such as Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, but also in the late 1990s and early 2000s Japanese healing boom ().
In response to economic recession and the resulting loss of stability for many, new goods and services, such as cat cafes, massage and aromatherapy, became popular ways for workers to de-stress. Japanese media also promoted manga and anime that focused on peaceful environments and low-conflict daily life to comfort their audiences.
For instance, Aria (2001), a show about a young woman training as a gondola tour guide on a futuristic, water-covered Mars, focuses on the small, everyday joys of life.
Digital ibuprofen is just the latest evolution of this tendency to seek comfort from media that promise to heal and understand us in the face of modern pressures.
As the darker themes in Chiikawa attest, within this cuteness is what has become a uniquely East Asian type of protest – that of soft rebellion. This is where extreme passivity and retreat into childhood things is used to articulate a dissatisfaction with the demands of the adult world to grow up. There is a quiet resistance through non-engagement.
From 1960s Japanese university students openly reading manga comics in class to the childlike clothes of Lolita fashion subcultures, extreme cuteness has signalled a resistance to becoming mature, responsible producers in an economic system stacked against them.
Also, in a conservative society based on traditional Confucian principles of order and hierarchy, soft rebellion neatly circumvents restrictions and limitations without the need for open confrontation, which can invite real risks and consequences from an uncompromising state.
But, while digital ibuprofen may look like it merely numbs the pain rather than deals with the root cause, it also allows youth to explore their dissatisfaction safely, without inviting trouble. Although you have to earn a living, the message of Chiikawa is that goodness is present wherever you find it, and you don’t need a lot in life. There’s friends to share good times, to help each other through hard times. And at the end of the day there’s always cake.