Wang Dadao, "If you can't be an ice-cold beauty, then just be your true self."

On the stage of the second season of Talk Show and Its Friends this year, female comedian Wang Dadao brought the topic of sexual harassment to the stage of a talk show variety show for the first time. She shared her experience of being surrounded by a strange old man on the street who asked to see her private parts, which resonated with all the female comedians.

Along with that, she also brought her unique performance style, with exaggerated body movements, hip - swaying and foot - work that resembled a female cheetah stealthily approaching before an attack. At the end, there was even an English monologue without a punchline, a line delivery with an operatic touch.

Luo Yonghao said she was one of the contestants with the most prominent personalities in all previous competitions, calling her "a talented psycho"; Li Yuchun admired her expression so much that she was "a bit confused in the head"; Lu Yu said her debut performance was "a very powerful performance".

After the competition, she returned to Kunming, ate, slept, and dealt with the anxiety brought by the popularity. She uninstalled Xiaohongshu and Weibo, and then reinstalled them. She couldn't help but search for her own name on the Internet, read the audience's feedback, the mixed reviews, and the private messages from a large number of girls flooding into her inbox.

Those private messages contained stories that many people hadn't confided for more than a decade or even longer. They were all girls who had shared similar experiences with her, and she had expressed their common shame and anger.

Netizens' evaluations of her were rich and multi - dimensional. Some said she was like a combination of Yang Li and Dou Dou, like Sister Hold, like Chen Tudou. They described her as "crazy", "neurotic", "humorous", "poetic", "vulgar", "frank", "brave", "rock - and - roll".

Wang Dadao

Wang Dadao used to really hate it when people said she "looked like someone". When she was a child, she was insecure about her appearance. Every time relatives said she looked like someone, she would pretend not to hear. If she couldn't avoid it, she would just smile awkwardly, thinking "that person must be extremely ugly".

Now, Wang Dadao doesn't mind people saying that as much. Talk show has taught her to express her anger. She has become more prone to getting angry. She gets angry when she can't comb her hair well, when she doesn't get enough sleep, and when she smells second - hand smoke. When relatives say she looks like someone again, she just goes crazy in the group chat and tells them, "I don't want to hear it."

"I don't want to lose my dissatisfaction and my opinions because of my self - shame. I want to be hysterical." After her first performance, she suddenly expressed, "I wanna scream, I wanna shout, I wanna cry without any guilt, I don't wanna keep silent because of my shame and the education I received."

Whether she's playing the ice - cold beauty she can never be or imitating the old man who harassed her by circling around her, she's always facing the same kind of shame: whether the real self can be accepted by others.

Once, in a relationship, she tried to turn herself into an ice - cold beauty to attract the opposite sex, but she failed quickly. She decided not to live in others' imaginations and just be her real and comfortable self. Talk show has brought about changes in her. All the absurdities that once brought her shame have become jokes, allowing her to accurately express her past discomfort.

She has become a braver person.

The following is Wang Dadao's self - narration, organized and published by Houlang Research Institute:

A "Divine" Family and an Ordinary Person

My grandfather passed away last year. The other day, my mom called me and talked about how she and her siblings went to visit my grandfather's grave. My grandmother bought some apples, chicken legs and other things to put on the grave. My mom asked how much the apples cost per jin (a Chinese unit of weight), and my grandmother replied ten yuan. My mom said, "Ten yuan is too expensive." Then my aunt said, "Just now mom asked dad to bless us with good health and great wealth. You won't even spend ten yuan on apples for dad?" My mom said, "Your wish is so big, but the return rate is a bit high, isn't it?"

This little incident represents the mental state of our whole family. We Sichuan people have an expression for someone who is "divine", meaning they can talk about anything and do any out - of - the - ordinary things. Most Sichuan people are "divine".

Our "divine" family members always pay a lot of attention to me. Since I was a child, I've loved to imitate. I could write, direct and perform a short play in my third aunt's teahouse, pretending to be someone else. I'm also used to laughing out loud and using exaggerated body language. If I try to suppress it, I'll just end up laughing even louder.

Once, a viewer said that Wang Dadao just says whatever comes to mind, and that I'm a big subversion of expectations. One second I'm like at a bidding scene, and the next second I'm doing a Thomas spin on the table. This is exactly how I feel about my dad. He might suddenly stand up at the dinner table and imitate someone. I never know what he's going to do next.

Growing up in such a family environment, I've become a very outgoing person. I've always suddenly done some strange and exaggerated things on the street since childhood, and I still dance when talking about jokes with other comedians. When I was a kid, I would do every move of the radio gymnastics seriously to prove that I was unique. Some classmates laughed at me, but I didn't care.

I think talk show is about personality. Some say my performance has a bit of a theatrical style, but I don't do it consciously. When I ask myself why I speak in that tone on stage, I wonder if it's because of the influence of watching movies on the movie channel's Good Movie Appointment when I was a child. Every Saturday, they would show movies like High School Musical, Moulin Rouge, The Phantom of the Opera, and Leslie Cheung's Midnight Singing. I was always moved by their singing rhythms and expressions and felt happy.

When I was a child, I knew my expressions were exaggerated. I thought I was a very special person, and there would definitely be someone who would appreciate my uniqueness. But when the boy I liked invited another girl who was like an ice - cold beauty to play Dou Di Zhu, my worldview collapsed twice: He didn't appreciate my uniqueness, and he wasn't what I imagined. I thought he was as pure as a lotus, but it turned out he liked playing Dou Di Zhu just like me.

Later, I also played the role of an ice - cold beauty in a relationship. I could feel that the boy in that relationship was also pretending. People do pretend in intimate relationships, but perhaps due to gender and social structure and other systematic factors, the degree of necessity to pretend is different.

When writing jokes, I want to share my extremely private experiences. What I want to express doesn't start from gender itself, but from more aspects. So when I saw the audience's evaluations and that they cried after watching my performance, I didn't know why they cried, but I did cry while writing. I can understand their emotions, not because I've revealed some long - ignored truth, but because I'm just an ordinary person.

When I say something that you've been holding back and want to scream out, it's because what I've experienced is what many people are going through, because the environment is like this, and we all live on the same planet.

Some Things That Are Truly Mine

At the end of 2019, I went to a club in Kunming to do an open mic. I took the stage five or six times in half a year. In April 2023, I returned to the talk - show stage, hoping to find something I could do well. Before that, I worked as an auditor in an accounting firm for three years, and then went to a media company, where I learned a lot. But at the same time, there were also some things in these jobs that I wasn't very comfortable with.

It's not just because the work was too trivial. Every year, at different time points, I had to write some repetitive plans. It was so boring, and I felt that these things didn't belong to me. I would sigh repeatedly before going to bed on many nights, cry while typing on the keyboard in the hotel, wait for my tonsillitis to subside at three or four o'clock in the morning, and cry while walking in the rainy night on my way back to the hotel.

I really cried a lot. While crying, I would ask myself how long this kind of life would last and when I could find a definite direction.

When I was in school, I thought there was eternity in love. After a breakup, I found that eternity was a lie. I often ask myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I regret and feel sorry for my life? I think life is fragile. I'm eager to have some things that truly belong to me in this world. This thing definitely isn't a child, not life itself, but something that I really write and perform.

An offline performance is like a firework. The audience may not remember much in their minds, but they can feel the beauty. That beauty only lasts for a short time and disappears quickly. But if you participate in a program, you may give this thing more exposure and a longer retention time. It may be more like a short movie that can be played at any time.

I'm not good at coming up with punchlines, and I don't know much about joke - making techniques. On top of that, I resist learning. I'm eager for those natural punchlines. Currently, I'm in a stage of confusion and exploration in my creation. When my energy is low, I'll write a protagonist who actively expresses themselves in my creation, which nourishes me as the author.

I think the work The Ice - Cold Beauty is both ugly and beautiful. If you ask me what's ugly, I can't really say. But if you ask me what's beautiful, I might say it's beautiful at those moments. Those moments when I'm accepted by the audience and new things are created spontaneously; those moments when I stare into the darkness in front of me on a dim stage; those moments when I break away from the manuscript and find the most suitable words and tones on the stage. All the pauses, all the accents, all the intonations are moments of refinement, and all the moments when these words find their coordinates.

I like precise expressions, new angles, new forms, and new precision. In The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin played Hitler. He kept pushing a balloon that looked like a globe with his head, hands, and even his buttocks. Then the balloon suddenly burst. At that moment, I thought it was amazing. Hitler's ambition to rule the world was just like this balloon. It looked big, round, and full, but in fact, it was very fragile. This kind of thing really touches me.

Shame, Bitterness, and Lingering Resentment

Since primary school, I've been extremely eager for people to like me. I'm not good at speaking ill of others behind their backs. I think everyone is nice. It's the same after I grew up. I don't want to think badly of anyone. This is actually another extreme. If I don't like someone, I can't work in the same space with them. But in real life, I have to. So I choose to change my perception and find words to beautify this person. But this kind of tolerance isn't because I'm naturally tolerant. It's because tolerance makes me feel comfortable.

The biggest change talk show has brought to me is that I can face my bitterness towards the world. I've found that I can be bitter, and everyone has parts that deserve to be criticized. I can now face my own aggression, and the bitter, angry, and even dark parts of my heart. I was insecure about my thick lips for many years, but now I can accept myself. But this isn't because my sense of self has become stronger, but because aesthetics have changed, and external standards have changed.

When I was a child, I was really afraid of hearing "You look like someone" because that person must be very ugly. But I just didn't know what to say and could only smile awkwardly. These little things can't be easily digested. It's not like you can forget about it after watching an animated series. It's like being pricked by a thorn and then it's over. But as you grow up, although those words no longer have an impact on you, you won't forget those moments when you wanted to say something but didn't.

I had many such moments as a child. My parents divorced when I was in primary school, and I lived with my mom. I hoped she would always be there for me, but that's impossible. She has her own work and wants to have her own intimate relationship.

I want my mom to be happy. On her birthday or on Mother's Day or Women's Day, I would buy carnations, stand on a short stool to cook a meal, and clean the house. I would also put a carnation at the doors of female neighbors in our building. I would imitate our physics teacher's way of speaking to make my mom laugh. I love seeing her smile.

One afternoon while writing in my room, I wrote the ending of The Ice - Cold Beauty. I found that the source of all my emotions isn't related to love or the old man who circled around me, but to those hard - to - speak - out moments in my childhood when I wanted more love and attention and my mom's tenderness.

As an adult, whenever I pass by those old mud - brick houses with six or seven floors and see the dim lights inside, I really want to live in them. Because before primary school, I lived in such a house with my mom and dad, and then I spent a few years with my mom there. That old house holds my childhood memories, my fear of the dark, and all those moments when I imitated the teacher to make my mom happy.

Seeing those lights makes me feel sad and nostalgic. But the other day when