The bling and hollow ring of ill-gotten gains

Guo Meimei arrested for World Cup gambling

When what a person has is not enough to boost their self-image, some go the extra mile and make things up. In 2011, Guo changed her online status from "entertainer" to "general manager of business functions at the Red Cross", which triggered the biggest public relations disaster in the organization's history in China. Even today, after she has explained the origins of her made-up connection with the charity, there are still people who sarcastically say that what they donate to disaster relief may end up paying for some bimbo's Maserati.

You cannot accuse Guo of a deficiency, though, in keeping an eye on the pulse of public curiosity. Some of the news stories she fabricated in the aftermath of her Red Cross scandal are essentially negative for her image, such as owing 260 million yuan ($42 million) to a casino in Macao. It was an indirect way of saying she had that much money to fritter away in the first place. She knows how to grab people's attention, and the tidbits she threw to the media usually made their way into the headlines.

Bad reputation

Her motto: "Bad reputation is still reputation", is shared by quite a lot of people in this country. Traditional Chinese society, closely knit as it was, used to be heavy on honor, so shame functioned as a deterrent for acts not accepted by the majority. Things went to such extremes that traces of individual needs were suppressed.

However, the pendulum seems to have swung to the other extreme. The kind of things some people now say in public are simply astounding, such as the infamous remark by a contestant on a dating show: "I'd rather weep in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle." It encapsulates the priority some in contemporary China place on their goals. Should we applaud her for her honesty, or should we be shocked at her warped sense of happiness?

In a sense, Guo is a practitioner of that philosophy. We see her smiling next to her big house, her expensive cars and her big pile of luxury items, but are the men who made these things possible her real love targets? Judging by the news reports, she appears to prefer young, handsome guys who she would not charge for dating, so she clearly used the rich and older men as a way of making money. She is the quintessential gold digger.

A gold digger compares unfavorably with a socialite, who is famous for being famous and milks that fame for personal gains. Paris Hilton and the Kardashians built their fortunes by selling their images via modeling, acting, perfumes and suchlike. They may not have much tangible talent per se, but they seem to have earned their money fair and square. Guo was eager to launch a career in entertainment too, but she seemed to use "performing" as a springboard to attract rich men who will reward her more handsomely than any acting gig would.

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