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Chinese Influencer Slammed for Livestreaming Herself Eating Protected Shark; Police Now Investigating

2022-07-22 , 12:46 pm

Last Updated on 2022-07-26 , 11:54 am

If this isn’t grotesque, I’m not quite sure what is.

Tizi, a popular Chinese influencer with millions of fans on Douyin and Kuaishou, China’s two major live-streaming platforms, has come under fire for cooking and eating a shark purported to be an endangered species in her latest video.

She is believed to have eaten a 50kg fish that many believe to be a young great white shark, a protected species in the country, and police are now investigating.

Pictures of Tizi peppering the shark with spices, cooking the shark, and ultimately eating it have been flooding the web.

The video posted on both Douyin and Kuaishou on 17 July has been removed after it triggered widespread criticism.

What is Tizi Famous for?

Hailing from Sichuan, which is famous for its spicy food, Tizi garnered popularity for her sweet appearance but daring appetite. Crocodiles, ostriches, and her latest hunt for sharks are just a few of her more well-known episodes.

She always cooks rarely-eaten animals in a massive wok with heaps of spices and cooking oil.

In the latest video, she ate the roasted tail of the shark covered with pepper while excitedly proclaiming, “This is so yummy!”

The rest of the shark was chopped into small pieces and boiled with spices.

The Controversy

At one corner of the video frame was a notification saying the animal was “bred in captivity and is edible”. However, people online have questioned the integrity of that warning label.

Web users have called for an investigation from the authorities as many found her behaviour “disgusting”.

“I’ve seen her videos before. They were outrageous. She also ate a crocodile and a golden giant salamander … It was extremely disturbing,” one user wrote on Weibo.

Another said: “She literally eats anything to grab eyeballs. I was horrified when seeing her eat a crocodile tail once.”

Denying the allegations

To this, Tizi vehemently refuted the claims that she was eating the endangered species.

“I bought it legally and I am looking for a lawyer. These people were talking nonsense,” she responded to Sichuan local news app Red Star News on Thursday.

Policy Changes

This is not the first time influencers are facing such criticisms. Another popular food Vlogger and chef, Zou, was detained in May last year after sharing a video that featured him cooking and eating a giant triton, a protected species of sea snail.

It was not always like that.

China once thrived in an industry where people uploaded live streams of themselves eating large quantities of food—something similar to the Korean version “Mukbang”.

However, these live streams have significantly reduced over the past two years after President Xi Jinping sought to combat unnecessary overeating and food wastage in China.

With censors targeting videos featuring the consumption of large quantities of food, many influencers turned to their last resort by eating extremely unconventional food instead.

This has resulted in a whole new industry being bred, leading to some bending the rules just to poach the most unconventional of food.

The things people do for views, eh?

To know how people can earn money from views, watch this to the end: