The story behind the ‘Instagram of China’

Windmill, sunflowers, Chinese hipster. Photo credit: small_grass.

Given China’s obsession with selfies, it’s hard to believe that an app designed for photographing your “inner self” could become popular, much less viral.

“In Asia, everyone can make themselves look great in photos. There are an unlimited number of apps that can help you edit your face into a she jing,” jokes Yang Liu, the founder of Fotoplace, a Shanghai-based startup comparable to Instagram. She jing, which literally translates to “snake demon”, refers to whitening and slimming one’s face in photo apps.

“If you took a photo of me without editing it, even I wouldn’t want to look at it,” she says, laughing. “So I get it. But there’s way too many of them.”

Last February, Fotoplace became viral almost overnight when it launched what would become its flagship feature: widescreen mode. It’s a simple function that edits photos to make them look like shots from a widescreen film. In China, this also means adding subtitles. Due to the variety of dialects in China, moviegoers are used to seeing subtitles in movies, even those in Mandarin. By adding subtitles to photos, Fotoplace lets users overlay one-liners onto their photos in a format that’s immediately recognizable.

“What I wanted was to be able to casually take a photo while documenting the feeling of a moment,” says Yang Liu. “In one glance, [the widescreen photo] contains a story. It feels cinematic. Your first thought is, ‘This is a movie; this is a story.'”

A widescreen photo on Fotoplace. Photo credit: Yang Liu.

Fotoplace’s app contains a database of quotes from various sources: books, movies, songs – even internet memes. Once users choose a photo, the app automatically picks a subtitle for the image. Users can also edit and write their own subtitles or flip through Fotoplace’s database. Subtitles come in both Chinese and English, though the latter is automatically translated (with varying degrees of coherence).

“Fotoplace has always tried to achieve one thing,” says Yang Liu. “I want it to be the number one application in China that lets users use images to express their inner self.”

She describes a photograph on Fotoplace that only shows a solid, black rectangle. “2:03 in the morning, I’m all alone,” it says. Sans subtitle, it looks as if the photographer accidentally blocked the lens with his thumb. With that one line of text, however, there’s a narrative, says Yang Liu. The photo becomes a story about being lonely in the middle of the night.

Hipster power

In many ways, Fotoplace’s success rides on a growing mass of Chinese hipsters known as “little clean and fresh” in Chinese. It’s a new generation of artsy intellectuals, born out of the country’s indie pop movement and shaped by the One Child Policy and Douban, a Chinese social networking site where users discuss lifestyle and cultural topics.

They’re like hipsters from other countries – they shun mainstream culture and live bougie lifestyles – except more precious. As the name suggests, a typical “little clean and fresh” will wear pastel-colored clothing and have a penchant for cheesy, sentimental statements. Most of these hipsters belong to a young demographic with some being mere tweens.

“They’re very imaginative. They have a strong desire to express their inner self,” explains Yang Liu. “They like to socialize, but they can also appreciate solitude. […] They are good at finding beauty in everyday life.”

Beyond Instagram