Author: Mu Zitong Editor: Zha Jun
本文经授权转载自那个NG（ID：huxiu4youth）
Koreans have Koreans' "Squid Game", and Chinese have Chinese's "self-discipline challenge".
The ascetic games called "Self-Discipline Challenge" have long been the traffic code of foreign influencers, but in China, it is evolving into a mysterious game for the desperate.
Like Squid Game, it offers huge enough bonuses to make you turn over, "not so easy and have a chance to live".
The only difference is that it doesn't want your life – but it's more than your life.
As long as you insist on being alone for 26 days, you can take away 859,000 yuan.
Who listens to this condition, who must not tremble greedily?
Of course, there are some pros to "being alone", but it doesn't seem to be a problem with a little more attention:
Challengers must live in a designated room, turn off the lights at 10 a.m. and turn on the lights at 6 a.m. every day, and only turn the lights on and off once a day.
Challengers must accept the live stream and may not move, turn off, cover, or occlude the camera or face in any way during the challenge.
Use the mobile phone every day in the designated time period, use and call can not be timed, put back in place after use, and do not leave the monitoring range.
Do not actively communicate with the outside world, do not make indecent gestures, and do not drink or cover the beer in the room.
It's a bit cumbersome, but it's not excessive. are all based on the derivation of "health knowledge" and "live broadcast rules", as if as long as you can endure loneliness and be a correct and healthy person, you can sit back and wait to get money.
This is the "self-discipline challenge" that suddenly became popular last year.
In the designated room, sign the contract, live "self-disciplined" for a certain period of time according to the rules agreed in the contract, and as long as you do not violate the rules within the agreed time, you can take away the sky-high bonus - it sounds like a hundred benefits and no harm.
There are even some things worth touching, since you left our mother and Wang Duoyu, how can anyone send you money for you to live a healthier life?
Mr. Zhang, from Baoji, found such a live broadcast room on the short video platform.
According to the anchor, their company is holding a "self-discipline challenge to win bonuses" activity, if you successfully challenge for 3 days, you can get 6,800 yuan, 28,000 yuan for 6 days, 58,000 yuan for 9 days, 88,000 yuan for 12 days, and 859,700 yuan if you survive 26 days.
During the period, accommodation and meals will be provided by the organizer, and the whole event will be videotaped.
After carefully reading the rules sent by the anchor and inspecting the authenticity of the event, Mr. Zhang paid the registration fee of 6,900 yuan with great ambition and went to Xi'an to start the challenge.
It turned out that what kind of will test this is, and it is basically the popularization of contract law.
In less than 24 hours, Mr. Zhang was eliminated on the grounds that he covered his face for more than 3 seconds.
It turns out that in the seemingly fair, just and open contract, it is actually killing every step of the way.
The real killer moves are hidden in harmless brackets, after the rule "no occlusion of the face in any form", the brackets read: If the occlusion action is generated, it should not exceed 3 seconds at a time.
In just this short line of words, countless people have sunk into the sand.
Annoyed, Mr. Zhang immediately signed up for the second time and paid 6900 again, this time until the next morning.
Because I got up and wanted to tidy up the quilt, I turned my back to the camera for more than 3 seconds, and stepped on the red line of "face covering".
Mr. Zhang, who did not believe in evil, borrowed 7,000 yuan from a friend and signed up for the third time.
This time, he adjusted the challenge gear from 26 days to 10 days, but the development of things made no difference: because he blocked the beer in the room during exercise, violating the challenge rules, Mr. Zhang's 6,900 yuan registration fee was confiscated again.
It turns out that pies don't fall from the sky, but traps do fall. According to the contract, the organizer has a thousand and one ways to determine that a challenger has failed.
Mr. Chen, from Changsha, paid an application fee of 9,000 yuan, but was sentenced out of the competition in less than a day because he rubbed his eyes for more than 3 seconds and was judged to cover his face.
Perhaps in order for him not to come in vain, at least to experience it for a long time, the organizer did not tell Mr. Chen, who was still working hard and self-disciplined, that he had already been out.
There are also people who cover their faces with pillows when they sleep, show their belly when changing clothes, and don't put the remote control back in place after using it.
As the saying goes, there is no excuse for the crime of wanting to add, and a steady stream of challengers bring a pile of lucrative registration fees and take away a belly of sinister life.
It's not that no one called the police, but with little effect.
After paying the sky-high "tuition" three times in a row, Mr. Zhang was furious. He reported to the public security and complained to the market supervision department about the company that held the challenge.
Both departments said they could not do anything and advised him to seek legal prosecution.
According to The Paper, after Mr. Chen from Changsha complained to the AMR, the local AMR also responded:
After investigating the company involved, the challenger made a video recording of the whole process when signing the contract, and the challenger pressed on every clause of the contract, "judging from the contract, there is no situation of inducing consumers".
To put it bluntly, one is willing to fight and the other is willing to suffer, following the "principle of voluntariness", self-discipline challenges this foot, and firmly stepping on the gray area that is difficult to govern.
In the face of Mr. Zhang's accusation of "fraud", the organization company responded with a particularly tough response: "We go to the court now, and the court has recognized it, the industrial and commercial bureau, and the police station have all recognized it. ”
They say that the self-discipline challenge is not an impossible task, and that someone who successfully clears the level will receive a reward, although the probability is only "one in a thousand".
Now, Mr. Zhang's case has failed in pre-trial mediation and is awaiting trial.
If a game with cruel rules is voluntarily attended by players, is the game provider to blame for their tragic end, or is it their greedy self?
This is also the subject of discussion in Squid Game Season 2.
When Sung Ki-hoon, the sole survivor of the previous season and the protagonist of the previous season, denounced the game's ruler for "taking advantage of other people's troubled lives" to disregard human life, the ruler replied:
"Participation in the game is voluntary."
"We just created the game."
Just like Kong Liu's social experiment with the homeless in the park: a piece of bread and a scratch card of equal value are placed in front of him, which one will the homeless man choose?
All the homeless people in the park, they chose scratch cards.
It seems that victims of the "self-discipline challenge" have good reason to be called "self-employed".
From the very beginning, the "self-discipline challenge" was like a botched telecom fraud, with a suspicious air everywhere.
When I randomly clicked into a "Self-Discipline Challenge" live broadcast room, and watched it for less than a minute, I received a cordial private message from the background:
"Hello, +○○○○○ for more information."
As we all know, a good thing to make a lot of money, if there is a kind and thoughtful pre-sales service, the price must be in the back.
After several rounds of media exposure, the contract still uses the old version of changing the soup without changing the medicine.
Turn on and off the lights at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., don't be naked, play with your phone but don't move your phone, and don't cover your face in any form.
The only update is that the face occlusion action cannot exceed 3 seconds, and it has become "If the occlusion action is generated during static time, it cannot exceed 3 seconds each time, and walking does not count", and the most mentioned problems in the news are rubbing the eyes and folding the quilt, and will no longer be judged to fail.
But after a cursory sweep, you can still predict a hundred accidents that will cause the challenge to fail.
For example, when you accidentally kick the quilt while sleeping, your belly button is exposed.
In addition to the customer service who answers all questions, every place reveals the perfunctory readiness to withdraw the stall and run away at any time.
There are many typos in the contract.
The scene of the lucky person clearing the customs and receiving the banknote on the top of the homepage was still 1 year ago.
The live broadcast room refused to even release the real-time footage of the challenger, and only played a few minutes of recorded footage on a loop.
A middle-aged man walks boredly from the table to the toilet, from the toilet to the sofa, and from the sofa back to the table, as if trapped in the infinite time of Shutter Island.
No one knows if anyone actually received the money, and how many actually participated.
Everyone has countless opportunities to smell the smell of danger and suspicion, but they still choose to "gamble", so in our opinion, these victims are somewhat "deserved":
Wasn't it your own choice that caused all this?
Victim guilt theory is one of the explanations, but it is not enough to explain everything.
"Self-discipline challenge" is obviously a good business, and various self-discipline challenge rooms are blooming everywhere in China.
In just 20 minutes, I swiped no less than 10 of them.
According to reports, there were six or seven applicants who participated in the challenge at the same time as Mr. Zhang.
Why did such a lucrative business suddenly take off until last year? Why is the story so crudely woven and people still moving forward?
The disease is on the surface, but also on the inside.
The vast majority of challenge companies have an open door attitude, as long as they are 18-55 years old, physically and mentally healthy, regardless of gender.
But in fact, from the detailed rules of the challenge, you can faintly peek that the challengers have a very similar appearance:
You can drink "8+1", you can "be angry" - these code words point to middle-aged men who can't do without tobacco and alcohol, and there are also a series of labels hidden behind them: low education, high economic pressure, and difficult life.
Much like the participants in Squid Game, they are often saddled with heavy foreign debts that can only be helped out of a fortune that can only be lifted from the sky.
Mr. Zhang, who has repeatedly failed in three challenges, came with debts, but after the challenge, he owed more.
They are part of a growing group of indebted people.
According to data from the China Enforcement Information Disclosure Network, as of December 26, 2024, there are more than 8.5 million "judgment defaulters" in mainland China, also known as "old lai".
The wind of the times is still blowing forward, and the sand and gravel in the wind have already dampened many silent faces.
They are not extremely poor people with no food and clothing, but on the way forward, they accidentally stumbled on the side of the road. They still believe that they can do it, after all, this is how they have supported their families all the way.
It's just a windfall that brings about a turnaround.
They may have escaped the scams of accidentally winning the lottery and having a good job in Myanmar, but they fell headlong into the "self-discipline challenge". Because the challenge of self-discipline is not a wasted measure, it requires you to suffer a little first.
Wang Xiang was lying on the ice, so the carp was so moved that he jumped out to fulfill his filial piety.
Guo Ju buried his children, so gold grew in the soil.
East Asians who are keen on the narrative of "giving" are always more likely to believe that there is value in enduring hardship.
Classical tales of suffering and reward are linked to an unbreakable causal relationship, even if they may be illogical.
As a result, it is logical to believe that with the rigorous dedication of the spirit and will in the challenge of self-discipline, the reward of money can be earned.
Just like Tehching Hsieh in 1978, in the 12-square-meter "Cage", he stayed for a whole year without talking, going out, watching TV, or writing, achieving a great reputation in the history of performance art.
In "Squid Game", the upper-class represented by Kong Liu stepped on the bread all over the ground, and in the face of the distressed homeless man, he said disdainfully:
"It's you who threw these away, not me."
He despised these gamblers blinded by greed, laughing at their stupidity and short-sightedness, but he did not know that the obstacle could be greed or a glimmer of hope.
In The Nature of Poverty, sociologist Banerjee states:
There is also an underlying reason why the poor cling to beliefs that seem flawed: Hope becomes essential when there is nothing they can do.
can't cure a serious illness, so they believe in witches - "even if they know that they can't solve any big problems, they still have to do something for their health, which is very important."
Which is more important, having bread to feed you today, or having a glimmer of hope for the future? There is no such thing as a judgement.
Participation in "Squid Game" may be voluntary, but the person who created "Squid Game" is the source of misfortune.
If a game has only one bad ending, it must be because it was a wrong game.
Not long ago, the Mengyin County People's Court in Shandong Province ruled on a "self-discipline challenge" dispute, ordering the service company to refund 5,400 yuan of the challenger's 6,000 yuan registration fee.
The challenge rules in the challenge agreement involved in the case were unilaterally formulated by the development service company in advance, which restricted the plaintiff's rights, reduced the liability of the development service company, and made the rights and obligations between the plaintiff and the defendant unequal, and the plaintiff was obviously in a weak position. Therefore, the standard clause is invalid.
On the other hand, in this case, "pay 6,000 yuan to participate in the activity and win 250,000 yuan", including the element of "gambling", is more similar to the act of shooting luck, which is extremely utilitarian, violates the original intention of self-discipline challenge, and also contradicts the friendliness and integrity advocated by the core socialist values, and should be negatively evaluated.
This article is reprinted from [That NG]