On 恶搞

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The word ehgɑo (恶搞)“mischief”, used mainly on the Internet, refers to a subversive reprocessing of images of public figures, events, literary or artistic works and so on by means of scripts, graphics, videos, etc. in order to achieve the effect of a joke, humour, or irony. As this type of mischievous reprocessing usually goes beyond the normal moral boundary and is intended to destroy the true, good and beautiful images in people’s minds, it is called ehgɑo—literally, “evil making”.

Example

From late 2005 to early 2006, a young man selected some scenes from the film The Promise, inserted them in a case reported on the China Central Television’s China Legal Report programme, added an appropriate narration and produced a short cyber-video entitled A Bloodstained Case Triggered by a Steamed Bun. This 20-minute short video used the steamed bun that appeared in The Promise to link the scenes and characters in the film and the TV programme and added popular rap music to it. This made many Internet surfers feel that the video was “refreshing and funny”. But the popularity of the video on the net enraged the director of the film, believing that the producer of the video was trying maliciously to sabotage the film and that what he had done was ehgɑo.