From the "No Dating" Rule to the Flaunt-Your-Love Contest: What's Going On With Celebrity Romance?

Love is part of how a celebrity manages their image.

Yang Yang's girlfriend fans are "hurt."

On April 14, the Weibo paparazzi account "National Star Scout" posted a set of candid photos of Yang Yang and Victoria Song, and their romance was "allegedly exposed" (neither had responded yet).

For the fans who call themselves "Yang Wool" — a pun on his surname, which sounds like "sheep" — and who treat Yang Yang as their bense (their one true favorite, their ideal type), this was flatly bad news. They flooded the comments under his Weibo posts: "Did any of you also lie awake all night the night before last? Did any of you also suffer all night long?" "Don't like Victoria Song, don't like Victoria Song, don't like Victoria Song — important things get said three times." "Baa. Not clarifying it might only be temporary, but being blind is forever!"

Yang Yang isn't the only one to go through this. Years ago, Andy Lau and Jackie Chan both hid the fact that they had married and had children, for much the same reason. Today, a rumor about Kris Wu or about AKB48 sets off the same tremors. The industry seems to have quietly agreed on one thing: an idol carries the unwritten rule that dating is forbidden.

But the rule clearly isn't universal. Even as some celebrities live under a "no dating" rule, others are loudly flaunting their love.

On March 20, 2016, Liu Shishi and Nicky Wu held their wedding in Bali, three years after going public with their relationship. Topics like "the New Zealand wedding photos," "the Little Tigers back together," the Scarlet Heart bridesmaid squad, and "company shares as a betrothal gift" filled Weibo and WeChat Moments for days.

Without quite noticing it, people have gotten used to two opposite situations: on one side, celebrity couples' romances play out as an "entertainment feast"; on the other, a dating rumor threatens to derail a career. Both point to the same thing: a celebrity's love life is never only their own business.

Who Gets the "No Dating" Rule?

While fangirls back home were "suffering" over Yang Yang, the two writers behind the Japanese entertainment WeChat account "Area 11 Accomplices," Nifei-chan and Lily-chan, were furious on behalf of the Johnny's idol Nakajima Yuto. The tabloid Weekly Post had photographed 23-year-old Nakajima Yuto holding hands with 42-year-old actress Yoshida Yo.

"Sorry, idols just aren't allowed to date," Lily-chan wrote on the account — "almost mercilessly." She told QDaily that in Japan's entertainment industry, actor, singer, comedian, and gravure model are all separate jobs. "If an idol is a product, what it sells isn't acting or singing — it's the person's own charm. The person you fall for is that person, so of course you develop a lover's urge to control him. An idol can only belong to you — to all of you!"

Feelings toward "idols" have turned fanatical enough to end in tragedy. While Jackie Chan was dating Joan Lin, two female fans killed themselves over him. "They were two Japanese girls — one jumped in front of a train, the other took poison outside my home. It affected me deeply. Afterward, when my wife got pregnant, I didn't dare make it public, and could only quietly send her to the U.S. to give birth," Jackie Chan said on a TV program, explaining why he hid his marriage and family.

Many male stars have hidden their marriages for similar reasons. Jimmy Lin announced his marriage to Chen Ruoyi in 2009, by which point they already had a son, Kimi (who appeared in season one of Where Are We Going, Dad?). Wu Chun, the most popular — and best-looking — member of Fahrenheit, revealed in 2013 that he was already married with children. And gossip about Wallace Chung's secret marriage still surfaces from time to time.

Today's fangirls like to call male idols "husband" and treat them as perfect objects of sexual fantasy. If the "ideal lover" were to have an earthy, real-world romance with an actual woman, he would lose his status as a god.

Right now the male stars in China's entertainment industry who are least "allowed to date" are probably Lu Han and Kris Wu. Forget a dating rumor — a single photo taken together can set off a storm. In 2014, a girl named Qi Meihe, the daughter of the head of Yaolai Group and later gossiped about as a close friend of Wang Zhonglei's daughter and of Ouyang Nana, posted a photo of herself with Kris Wu on Weibo, and fans attacked her for it.

Compared with the "fresh meat" idols, who have to nurse their girlfriend fans through "heartbreak," the "little flowers" — young female idols — have relatively more freedom. But a female idol who has to keep a youthful, pure "girl" image is also "not supposed to" touch worldly romance. AKB48, aimed at otaku audiences, has an explicit "no dating" rule. In 2013, member Minami Minegishi was photographed staying overnight at a male celebrity's home, and went so far as to shave her head and record a video apologizing to the public.

Charlene Choi, Ah Sa of the Hong Kong duo Twins, was once a textbook case of "not allowed to date." In 2011, she held a press conference to announce that she and Ronald Cheng had divorced after a secret four-year marriage. What was she afraid of? That her sunny, wholesome girl-idol image would be ruined.

And Who Is "Allowed" to Be Affectionate?

If you aren't playing the flesh-and-blood "husband," your private life may be a lot looser.

Even in Japan's entertainment industry, where "no dating" is the norm, Masato Sakai — who became famous through his work, as the lead in Legal High and Hanzawa Naoki — dated actress Miho Kanno for three months in 2013 and then married her in a rush. If his agency or his fans had demanded an apology, that would have been the strange thing.

Then again, Uncle Sakai was born in 1973 and was already 39 the year he married. "Youth" and "purity" had long stopped being his selling points.

Whether an idol has real ability, and how old they are, both feed into whether fans think they have earned the right to date as they please. When 33-year-old Hu Ge's relationship came out, the situation was much like Sakai's. By contrast, when Wu Lei — who played the boy Feiliu — was rumored early this year to be dating Joe Chen, the first reaction of a fan named Lanshan was: "He's still a kid!" (In fairness, he was already 16.)

This isn't only about the celebrity. It's also about the fans' state of mind. From the late 1990s to now, plenty of people born in the 1980s or before 1995 have grown up alongside their idols, all the way to "marrying age." In 2000, 21-year-old Jay Chou released his debut album, Jay. In 2015, 35-year-old Jay Chou married Hannah Quinlivan at a castle in England. Their daughter, Hathaway, was born the same year. Fans' response: "Mrs. Chou, please take good care of my youth."

S.H.E, Stefanie Sun, Gigi Leung, Vicki Zhao, Vic Chou, Barbie Hsu — all of them belong on this "take care of my youth" list.

Whether fans will bless an idol's relationship depends on something more important still: exactly who the idol ended up with.

If you like both people, you get the thrill of watching a real-life idol couple, a CP. If someone you love ends up with someone you can't accept, you switch straight into roast mode — the way female fans refused to accept Victoria Song, known for her clinginess, or the older Yoshida Yo.

For a fan it's like enjoying an idol drama and wanting the male and female leads to become a real couple, or deciding that a certain pairing has no chemistry at all. For the celebrities, a "successful match" makes both people more appealing; the opposite brings trouble.

Usually, when two celebrities who match in looks, status, and "tone" fall in love, it becomes a major entertainment event. Getting married didn't hurt Liu Shishi's career. But imagine that the man a young idol married early on wasn't Nicky Wu but a 50-year-old director or a rich businessman. Would fans still be gushing over her wedding photos?

When Wang Feng and Zhang Ziyi went public, they drew plenty of snark and "doubt," because people felt that "International Zhang" and "half the rock kingdom" didn't match. Li Chen, while dating Zhang Xinyu, had to pull a sour face and explain where a heart-shaped rock came from. But once he fell for Fan Bingbing, fans sighed that Master Fan had finally found herself a warm, considerate man.

How Do They Flaunt Their Love? And How Do You Win People Over?

In the past, a celebrity who wanted to announce a relationship formally generally had to go through the press and television. Now they can do one thing only: write whatever they like on Weibo, add a photo, and tag each other.

Credit for that goes to 2009, when Weibo arrived.

With the help of social media — Twitter, Weibo, Facebook, Instagram — celebrities can keep the initiative in their own hands, speak straight to fans, and watch the response come back. Fans, meanwhile, can read a celebrity's personality directly off social media.

That is exactly why a social-media image has become another field a celebrity has to tend carefully. Every act of flaunting love, however offhand it looks, may be a publicity plan worked out in a meeting with the management team.

The way Zhou Xun announced her relationship in 2014 has become a "success story." At 1 a.m. on May 8, the official Weibo account of her studio, "i Zhou Xun," posted a photo of the two of them, captioned "This is Archie, please take good care of him," with a link to Archie Kao's Baidu Baike entry. Zhou Xun later announced her wedding at a concert. People loved this high-handed style — very much in character for Master Zhou.

Humor and goofiness are the safest route. Deng Chao posted a photo of Sun Li crying on the set of The Legend of Mi Yue, teasing, "Xiaohua, don't be scared" — Xiaohua being their daughter's nickname. That promoted the new show and made the "national couple" more likable at the same time. When Ni Ni and William Feng broke up, they tagged each other on Weibo and joked about the "spell your name backward after a breakup" meme, which won them both points too.

Celebrity or ordinary person, though, onlookers generally dislike pure showing off, the kind of affection that ignores how everyone else feels. Zhang Han and Gulnazar used each other's zodiac animals as a private code and posted kissing photos; fans found it cloying, too much like middle-school sweethearts. And when Annie Yi posted every detail about "Mr. Qin" on Weibo, fans felt she was trying too hard.

Beyond social media, the other main stage for celebrity CPs is reality TV. In China, starting with Where Are We Going, Dad? in 2013, celebrities began rising to fame as family units. Tian Liang, Ye Yixi, and their daughter Cindy; Li Xiaolu, Jia Nailiang, and their daughter Xiao Tianxin — many viewers had no interest in either couple's work at first, but were won over by the image of a healthy family.

We Are In Love went further, having celebrities pretend to be couples and flaunt their love, and manufacturing the fake "national couple" of Liu Wen and Choi Siwon. So are viewers watching an idol drama, or watching real people?

Running alongside all of this is a gossip boom on social media. Big WeChat gossip accounts like "Serious Gossip" and "Deep-Digging Late-Night Gossip" take celebrity love stories apart from every angle, every day. Unlike gossip magazines, with their formulaic melodrama and feel-good uplift, "Serious Gossip" adds detailed commentary on personality and values. Read a piece like Why Zhang Ziyi and Wang Feng Fit Each Other Perfectly or Why Is Liu Shishi Still So Devoted to Nicky Wu? and you always come away having learned something new — then forward it straight to your best friend.

Fans get a sense of taking part, which stokes their enthusiasm further.

What Does Flaunting Your Love Get You? And What Rules Come With It?

Wanting to tell the world you have found a good partner is a common human impulse. But celebrities, as public figures with influence, don't only get more elaborate ways to flaunt their love. They can also draw real commercial value out of it.

There is a term for it: the "husband-and-wife act." Deng Chao and Sun Li, and Huang Xiaoming and Angelababy, are currently the two most popular "national husband-and-wife acts." When both partners are already famous, appearing together does even more good. Deng Chao and Sun Li's film Devil and Angel scored only 4.0 on Douban and still took 600 million yuan at the box office — partly thanks to their joint appearances on shows like Running Man and Happy Camp.

Huang Xiaoming and Angelababy's wedding became a national entertainment festival. Every brand the two endorsed took up "wedding marketing." Dove Chocolate ran a "same gift box as Baby's" promotion on Taobao. Crest toothpaste changed its slogan to: "Baby, we made a deal: now that you're Mrs. Huang, your teeth have to stay white too." The couple also jointly endorsed the Wondrous World resort and Vatti home appliances.

Commercial performances and the satellite channels' New Year's Eve galas are all glad to use celebrity couples to lift the mood. Xie Na and Zhang Jie share the stage at Hunan TV's New Year's Eve gala every year, along with countless episodes of Happy Camp. Dragon TV booked Huang Xiaoming and Baby last year. Zhejiang TV booked Fan Bingbing and Li Chen this year.

What's worth the most is the change in the celebrity's own image. Sometimes the "right" relationship pushes a career forward. Hannah Quinlivan went from unknown to star, and began appearing on shows and taking endorsements. Angelababy only reached the top tier after getting together with Huang Xiaoming.

Or, if flaunting your love can't turn you into a "fresh meat husband," there is another road: the "good man" or "good woman," the "winner at life." That might suit you better anyway. When Ada Choi — the Empress in Empresses in the Palace — showed her husband-bragging side on shows like Day Day Up, many viewers who had only seen her play cold, aloof characters realized how adorable she is in person.

People habitually read someone's personality, emotional intelligence, intelligence, and even "morality" off their relationship status. And a celebrity's job description includes enduring the harshest scrutiny there is.

For a celebrity who has flaunted their love, a breakup isn't a very serious outcome — but cheating gets labeled a "scandal" by the public. Wen Zhang no longer fits romantic morality dramas, and Chen He has drifted away from "Zeng Xiaoxian, the good man." On April 15, the big Weibo account @Kuang Jing broke the news of "a female celebrity cheating and divorcing" without naming her. Netizens guessed it was Yang Mi and Li Yifeng. News of Hawick Lau turning up at an event ran under headlines about his "awkward expression." If the rumor isn't cleared up, it could do serious damage to Yang Mi's and Li Yifeng's careers.

So celebrities have no private space? In fact the audience doesn't care what the facts are. They watch celebrity romance the way they watch an idol drama. And a third party is not the love story most people enjoy.

At bottom, flaunting love has an audience because devoted love itself fits mainstream values. Society's overall views on marriage and on the sexes shape how the whole machinery of flaunting love runs.

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez began dating in 2011, when both were still in their teens. In the West, nobody attacked them for "setting a bad example for children."

The secret marriages and children of Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Jimmy Lin, and others all rested on their wives being willing to stay hidden. A female star can hardly hide a marriage and a child — how would a pregnancy go unnoticed? She might, of course, simply choose to go home to her family instead. Japanese fans dislike seeing young female idols date for the same reason: they fear the idols will marry and leave the industry, the way Momoe Yamaguchi once did.

Even now, female stars still commonly face another kind of moral policing. Western fans are used to seeing stars like Emma Watson or Jennifer Lawrence break up and get back together. But in China, what would people say if the Liu Shishis didn't marry and dated around instead?

Failing to marry looks dispiriting too. Every time Ruby Lin or Lin Chi-ling appears in public, they are asked about being an "over-the-hill leftover woman." "Single" and "winner at life" stand at opposite poles, and both are folded into the gossip machinery around female stars. Next to them, being able to flaunt your love well really does look like the most comfortable ending of all.

Images from: celebrity wedding photos, Weibo, Douban Movie.