On August 18, 2026, a girl from Chaoshan named Chen Nuo posted a video on Bilibili. She had been guaranteed admission to Central South University, had blue hair, and was smiling brightly. The video received 3.19 million views and 1,109 danmaku comments.
The comment section quickly went off the rails. "Capital manipulation." "Her family must have connections." "Someone with hair like that can get guaranteed admission?" More than three million people gathered to watch a girl's admission story, yet no one cared how many years she had spent studying Spanish. Everyone was discussing the color of her hair.
Three years earlier, another girl had walked down exactly the same road.
The Same Verdict, a Different Defendant
In July 2022, Zhejiang Normal University graduate Zheng Linghua posted a photo on social media. She had dyed her hair pink and was taking a picture with her grandfather in a hospital bed. It was a joyful photo: she had been admitted to East China Normal University through a recommendation program and wanted to make her grandfather happy too.
Then the hunt began. "Bar hostess." "Improper." "Someone like her deserves to study for a graduate degree?" Zheng Linghua's pink hair became her entire evidence of guilt. She spent more than half a year defending herself, collecting evidence, and filing lawsuits. On January 23, 2023, she was gone. She was 24.
Three years later, Chen Nuo's blue hair became the new object of judgment. The accusation had changed from "bar hostess" to "capital manipulation," but the underlying logic had not: your appearance does not fit my image of what a good student should look like, so there must be something shady about your achievements.
One danmaku comment read: "Reminds me of that red-haired girl who got into graduate school and was cyberbullied." Another said: "We can't let Zheng Linghua's tragedy happen again." The spectators have not forgotten. They remember what happened three years ago, yet they are still doing the same thing.
"Capital Manipulation": A Universal Label
The phrase "capital manipulation" appeared with suspicious frequency. But what exactly was it supposed to mean?
Chen Nuo entered Central South University through a foreign-language recommendation pathway. This route has barriers to entry: selection by foreign-language schools, internal rankings, and language proficiency tests. You actually have to know how to speak Spanish. This is not something some mysterious "capital" can easily manipulate.
But the skeptics do not need to understand any of that. They need an explanation, something that makes their jealousy or discomfort feel justified. "Capital manipulation" here is not an evidence-based accusation. It is a psychological defense mechanism. It means: she could not possibly have achieved this on her own; someone must have helped her behind the scenes.
This way of thinking has a name: conspiracy theory. The core of conspiracy thinking is not the pursuit of truth, but the denial of differences in ability. When someone cannot accept that another person is simply better than them, conspiracy theory provides an escape hatch: she isn't that good; someone is helping her.
From "bar hostess" to "capital manipulation," the weapon has evolved from personal humiliation into an attack on institutions and systems. The motivation, however, remains the same: denying someone's achievements is easier than admitting your own mediocrity.
The Gender Politics of Hair-Color Judgment
There is one detail worth noticing: the targets of these judgments are almost always girls.
There are plenty of boys with blue hair. Plenty of boys dye their hair pink, too. Yet you rarely see a boy questioned with, "How do you deserve guaranteed admission?" Hair-color judgment keeps happening to girls, not because girls are more likely to dye their hair, but because women's appearances have always been treated as public property to be regulated.
A girl's hair is supposed to be black, neat, and compatible with the image of a "proper student." Dye it blue, and suddenly you are "challenging public aesthetics," "not studying properly," or "failing to appreciate your educational opportunities." The implication underneath all of this is: your appearance does not belong to you. It belongs to society.
Zheng Linghua was subjected to sexual rumors because "pink hair = improper." Chen Nuo was accused of "capital manipulation" because "blue hair = not serious about her studies." The logic of the attacks is different, but the premise is the same: a girl does not deserve to appear in public on her own terms.
Deindividuation: The Mask Behind the Screen
Psychology has a concept called deindividuation. When people are hidden within a group and do not have to face the consequences under their real identities, moral restraints can drop sharply.
The internet is fertile ground for deindividuation. Behind a screen, using a username, you type "capital manipulation" at a girl you have never met. You do not have to look into her eyes, face her anger, or bear any visible consequences for your words. You do not even have to admit that you were the one who wrote it. You can switch accounts and post another comment.
Psychologist John Suler proposed six factors behind the "online disinhibition effect": anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and the perception that "this is just a virtual world." These factors can all operate simultaneously on social media. Someone who might be gentle and courteous in real life can calmly type "Someone like her deserves to study for a graduate degree?" in a comment section. It is not necessarily because they have become a different person. The screen has simply removed their social mask.
In 2024, CCTV interviewed one of the people who had participated in the cyberbullying of Zheng Linghua. His name was Wang Yin. Facing the camera, he said: "The cause and effect of this matter had nothing directly to do with me."
Everyone felt that they had only "said one thing," so no one felt that they needed to apologize. Ten thousand people saying "it had nothing directly to do with me" created a crime scene in which no one was responsible.
The Algorithm's Complicity
Deindividuation explains why individuals dare to attack. It does not explain why the attacks get amplified.
The recommendation systems of social media in 2026 are essentially anger-extraction machines. Their goal is to keep you on the platform longer, make you click more, and encourage more heated engagement. Calm analysis cannot do that. Rational discussion cannot do that. Conflict, polarization, and moral judgment can.
When Chen Nuo's blue-hair video was marked as "high-engagement content," the algorithm did not care whether the engagement was positive or negative. It only knew that the comment section was active, there were many danmaku comments, and people were sharing it. So it pushed the video to more people, including those most likely to become angry.
Platforms do not have to actively create cyberbullying. They only need to push the most conflict-generating content toward audiences most susceptible to outrage. Anger is the fuel of traffic, and algorithms are the match that lights it.
Researchers in communication have conducted experiments showing that posts containing moral outrage can spread several times faster than neutral content. Algorithms faithfully exploit this pattern. So when comments saying "capital manipulation" appear, the platform does not necessarily suppress them. Instead, they may receive even more distribution because they generate more replies, more arguments, and more time spent on the platform.
The commercial logic of platforms and the propagation logic of cyberbullying are structurally aligned at their core.
From Spectating to Execution
With anonymous masks and algorithmic amplification, a cyberbullying campaign needs only one final step: moving from spectatorship to execution.
Stanley Milgram conducted a classic experiment. A person was instructed to administer electric shocks to another person. If he was alone in the room, he would hesitate and often refuse. But when other "confederates" continued to pressure him, the compliance rate rose to 65%.
The escalation of cyberbullying almost replicates this experiment. Someone posts a skeptical comment. More people follow, creating an atmosphere of "everyone is questioning her." Suspicion becomes certainty. "Capital manipulation" changes from speculation into "fact." Fact becomes attack: "She may have connections" becomes "She doesn't deserve this." Attack becomes doxxing, spreading from the comment section to private messages, to other platforms, and eventually into real life.
At every step, participants feel that their behavior is justified because they see someone else already doing the same thing. The group provides a moral shield. What Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil" has taken on a new face in the internet age: no demons, no elaborate conspiracy, no mastermind required—only a group of people who believe they are "just saying one thing," gradually pushing a girl toward the abyss under the amplification of algorithms.
Anxiety Over Guaranteed Admission
Why does "guaranteed admission" trigger such intense anger?
Because it touches one of the most sensitive nerves in Chinese society: educational fairness. The Gaokao is widely regarded as one of the fairest channels for social mobility. Guaranteed admission naturally carries an aura of "exception." Someone can reach the same destination without crossing the same narrow bridge filled with countless competitors. This kind of exception can create anxiety in any society, but in an environment of highly constrained educational resources and pervasive anxiety about upward mobility, it becomes magnified.
The accusation of "capital manipulation" gains traction not because people genuinely believe Chen Nuo's family has some mysterious capital, but because they need to believe that the guaranteed-admission system itself is unfair. If the system is fair, then it means someone managed to find a path—through ability—that you did not know existed. That can be harder to accept than believing the system is corrupt.
Psychologically, this is related to the just-world hypothesis, or rather its reversal: when people cannot obtain the same achievements despite their own efforts, they may become inclined to believe that the world must be unfair. It is not that they were not good enough; someone else must have cheated. Conspiracy theories grow out of this psychological need.
"Capital manipulation" is not a factual judgment. It is a psychological necessity.
The Legal Vacuum
Where is the law?
After Zheng Linghua died in 2023, her family embarked on a long road to seek justice. People such as Wang Yin were sued for cyberbullying, but the outcomes were far from satisfying. Some apologized. Some paid relatively small amounts of compensation. Some have never faced meaningful legal consequences.
China's legal framework for combating cyberbullying remains fragmented. The Civil Code contains provisions concerning reputation and privacy rights, while the Criminal Law includes offenses such as insult and defamation. But these provisions were primarily designed to deal with attacks between individuals, not large-scale collective harassment. When ten thousand accounts simultaneously attack one person, it is extremely difficult for the law to assign responsibility to each specific individual.
More importantly, there are high evidentiary barriers. Victims of cyberbullying need to prove: the specific statements, the specific harm, and the causal relationship between them. Identifying the comments that caused substantive damage out of tens of thousands of accounts, and proving a causal chain between depression or suicide and specific acts of cyberbullying, is extraordinarily difficult.
The harm caused by cyberbullying is real, and sometimes fatal. But the threshold for legal accountability is so high that almost no one can cross it. Cyberbullying has become a form of violence with nearly zero cost: you destroy someone's life from behind an anonymous account, turn off your phone, and move on to the next video.
The Illusion of Justice on the Internet
Everyone participating in the trial feels that they are "upholding justice."
Those questioning "capital manipulation" believe they are protecting fairness. Those spreading sexual rumors believe they are "revealing the truth." Those forwarding the accusations believe they are "doing society a favor." Everyone thinks they are right. Everyone thinks they are "just saying one thing."
Countless "one things" become a tsunami. Zheng Linghua was not killed by a single person. She was killed by ten thousand people who each told themselves they had "only said one thing."
CCTV later interviewed one of the cyberbullies. That person said: "The cause and effect of this matter had nothing directly to do with me."
Every person believed they had no responsibility, so every person could continue judging others without any burden.
After the Verdict
Chen Nuo's situation is still developing. Fortunately, this time more people have stepped forward to defend her. The call of "There will not be another Zheng Linghua" is louder than it was three years ago. Chen Nuo herself also posted a video in response: she comes from an ordinary family, she dyed her hair after receiving her admission, and her parents support her.
But I am not sure how long this wave of "protection" will last. Next time, it will be another girl, another hair color, another accusation, and the judgment will begin again.
The object of judgment has never really been the hair color, the capital, or the guaranteed-admission system. The object of judgment is a person who refuses to live according to the template. In a society where everyone is expected to fit neatly into the same mold, anyone who deviates from that template is treated as an error that needs correcting—especially when that person is a woman.
Zheng Linghua proved with her life how cruel this judgment can be. Chen Nuo proves with her smile how absurd it can be. The judgment itself will not stop because of this. It will stop only when we begin asking the real question.
Who gave the internet a judge's bench?