Xiaomi executive resigns over speech describing customers as ‘losers’
Wang Mei was forced to step down from her senior role at mobile phone and gadget company Xiaomi after describing customers with a Chinese slang word referring to unattractive young men. But was she punished more harshly because she was a woman?
Until this week, Wáng Mè 王嵋 oversaw talent training programs for smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi, arguably China’s most successful consumer electronics brand. But last week, she said publicly that Xiaomi’s future hinges on selling products to the diaosi (屌丝 diǎosī) — a Chinese slang term used to describe economically unattractive young men. Now she has stepped down from her post and apologized for “inappropriate remarks.”
In a statement (in Chinese) on Wednesday, Wang, vice president of Xiaomi Group’s “Qinghe University,” an internal company training platform, said that she decided to resign after her “hurtful” comments about Xiaomi fans and users.
“The remarks I made were wrong and were not meant to be shared beyond a technology industry event,” Wang said. “My speech did not in any way represent Xiaomi’s point of view. I hope that my words won’t cause any misunderstanding about the company.”
In another statement (in Chinese) from Xiaomi, the Chinese phone maker announced Wang’s resignation, saying that the former executive took full responsibility for her comments, and that the company was not involved in her speech-writing process.
“Xiaomi fans and customers are our most cherished friends,” the statement reads. “We sincerely apologize for what happened.”
Wang made the speech at a human resource management forum in Beijing on November 21. When explaining Xiaomi’s main target market, Wang said that the company valued young customers and the diaosi the most. “The future belongs to young people. And, of course, when they grow out of their diaosi stage, we will consider making expensive smartphones,” she stated.
The term diaosi — which literally means “penis wire” or “cock wire” — first appeared in 2010 as an insulting expression for young men with mediocre looks and dead-end jobs. Or, to translate it simply and accurately: loser. Initially used as an insult, the term quickly went mainstream as a generation of young people — both men and women — embraced it self-deprecatingly and appropriated it as an identity for ordinary young people struggling to make a living — without powerful connections or money — in a highly competitive society.
Despite the term being increasingly widely accepted and stripped of its negative connotations over the years, a cohort of Xiaomi users still took offense at Wang’s speech, slamming her for disrespecting the brand’s largest group of customers. “It seems that Xiaomi’s business model is basically making money from the poor while looking down upon them,” a Weibo user wrote (in Chinese). “I can totally imagine a group of Xiaomi executives discussing new products tailored to the diaosi while making fun of us at a meeting. This hits hard,” another person commented.
However, others pointed out that making budget smartphones appealing to the diaosi has been a core part of Xiaomi’s identity since its launch. They argued that considering the term’s wide adoption in Xiaomi’s marketing materials and interviews given by male executives at the company, Xiaomi seemed to be applying gender-based double standards at the workplace, by punishing Wang more harshly than her male counterparts would have been. “We don’t see Chinese tech companies take action this fast when their male executives make sexist remarks. If Wang were a man, Xiaomi would probably just shrug it off as a tasteless joke,” a Douban user wrote (in Chinese).
