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Li Ziqi returned to social media in November 2024, posting three videos after more than 1,200 days away. The videos featured traditional crafts including carved lacquerwork and silk production. Her return followed a business dispute over her personal brand, and she has said she intends to post on a flexible schedule rather than promise regular updates.
What happened when Li Ziqi returned?
Li Ziqi—identified by WIRED as Li Jiajia—posted three videos in November 2024 after a hiatus of more than 1,200 days, according to WIRED’s report of November 13, 2024. The report said the videos had drawn almost 15 million cumulative views on YouTube in less than a day. That figure captures the videos’ early reception at the time; it is not a current view count or an update on her audience today.
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The Rural Aesthetic: Li Ziqi and the Preservation of Chinese Culture: Bridging Tradition and... | $102.74 | Buy on Amazon |
Crafts at the center of the videos
The projects included refurbishing a worn wardrobe with carved lacquer techniques, adapting a woodshed for clothing storage, and spinning, dyeing, and weaving silk. China’s National Intellectual Property Administration describes the wardrobe project as using Chengdu lacquer art, an intangible cultural heritage practice involving carving, painting, and polishing. The administration’s account of the video offers an official description of the craft involved.
The videos make laborious processes—craft, cooking, and domestic work—part of the viewing experience. Their polished, pastoral style can introduce viewers to traditional techniques, but it also presents rural life through a carefully shaped image rather than as a comprehensive record of everyday conditions.
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Why had she stopped posting?
WIRED linked Li’s 2021 hiatus to a dispute with Hangzhou Willing, also known as Weinian, the marketing agency connected to her business. The disagreement concerned rights to her personal brand and profits from merchandise. WIRED reported that the parties reached an agreement in December 2022 after court direction and support from local government and judicial offices.
According to corporate filings cited in that report, Li held a 99 percent stake in the company controlling her trademarks, while Weinian retained a food product line bearing her name. That is WIRED’s account of the arrangement, not confirmation of the parties’ current corporate status or the present availability of any products.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What has Li said about posting again?
Li has described future videos as a possibility, not a return to a fixed schedule. In a statement reproduced by CNA, she said, “It’s not that I won’t shoot videos in the future – because I still enjoy sharing some of my life and meaningful cultural things with everyone.” She added that timing would be flexible and that she would wait until current projects were finished before deciding. CNA’s report reproduces her comments.
WIRED also reported that Li wanted to promote China’s “Intangible Cultural Heritage” arts and had spent the preceding month editing the three return videos. It said she did not plan a regular posting cadence. Her comments point to an interest in sharing cultural subjects, but do not establish when another video will appear.
What does her work represent?
Li’s return renewed discussion about more than her posting schedule. Her videos bring craft and domestic labor into a cinematic rural setting; viewers can encounter techniques through them, while critics and scholars may also ask what that idealized setting suggests about rural life and national identity.
In a 2024 paper, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg research fellow Rui Kunze argued that Li’s return to her home village and decision to make videos there had been used to promote official rural-revitalization policy and values such as self-enterprise and self-responsibility. That is Kunze’s interpretation, not a statement of Li’s own views or a settled account of what her work means. Thomas Chen’s 2025 essay for the Ohio State University MCLC Resource Center likewise frames her return as reopening debate about what she represents. Read Chen’s essay at the MCLC Resource Center.
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