Wuhan Diary 2020 | Weibo/YouTube
Vlogger “蜘蛛猴面包” (“Spider Monkey Bread”)
During the two months of lockdown in Wuhan, the outside world had limited reliable information about conditions on the ground there, as reporters, especially those from international media, struggled to gain access to the city. Many locally-based videographers and vloggers filled the void with personal video diaries. Among them is the whimsically-named vlogger “Spider Monkey Bread” (“蜘蛛猴面包”), who now has almost 5 million followers on Weibo and 23,000 followers on YouTube. His 20 video diaries show him driving around the empty city, telling stories about volunteers, medical workers, and ordinary people, while sometimes delivering medicine, driving people to the hospital, or handing out masks. In one heartbreaking scene, he captures a woman weeping in the street over the death of her father. In another, he talks to a group of migrant workers who lost their jobs and workplace dormitories during the shutdown, but were unable to leave the city because of travel restrictions and thus resorted to camping out in an underpass.
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During the two months of lockdown in Wuhan, the outside world had limited reliable information about conditions on the ground there, as reporters, especially those from international media, struggled to gain access to the city. Many locally-based videographers and vloggers filled the void with personal video diaries. Among them is the whimsically-named vlogger “Spider Monkey Bread” (“蜘蛛猴面包”), who now has almost 5 million followers on Weibo and 23,000 followers on YouTube. His 20 video diaries show him driving around the empty city, telling stories about volunteers, medical workers, and ordinary people, while sometimes delivering medicine, driving people to the hospital, or handing out masks. In one heartbreaking scene, he captures a woman weeping in the street over the death of her father. In another, he talks to a group of migrant workers who lost their jobs and workplace dormitories during the shutdown, but were unable to leave the city because of travel restrictions and thus resorted to camping out in an underpass.