6 Cooking Authenticity* 1 Li Ziqi, Af fective Labour, and China’s Influencer Culture Rui Kunze Abstract This chapter conducts a case study of Li Ziqi 李子柒 (1990-) to examine the role of af fective labour and the construction of authenticity in the context of China’s influencer culture. It argues that Li enacts cooking as a form of af fective labour that resonates with her followers’ own af- fective needs, social values, and aspirations. The chapter also analyses the Chinese state’s interactions with grassroots content producers such as Li Ziqi. It shows how the perceived authenticity of her persona and content is redirected by state media to address domestic issues (such as revitalising rural areas and promoting values of economic neoliberalism) and to present an attractive image of China to international audiences. Keywords: food media, influencer culture, authenticity, Li Ziqi, Sina Weibo, YouTube At 23:43 on July 4, 2015, Chinese influencer Li Ziqi 李子柒 (Li Jiajia 李佳 佳, 1990-) posted the following entry on Sina Weibo from an iPhone 6: “No matter what will come out in the end, I will try my best to do it! Perhaps I will fail, but at least I won’t regret it ….” This text is accompanied by two photos which show, respectively, a young woman looking down and an open notebook whose enumerated contents are too blurred to make out. These photos generate a montage ef fect, portraying the moment when a young woman makes a significant decision in her life and sketches her action plan. As the earliest entry currently accessible to the public, this post serves as the starting point of Li Ziqi’s self-narrative of her entrepreneurial career. * Research for this chapter was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Project No. 404534127). Imbach, Jessica. Digital China. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024 doi: 10.5117/9789463720670_ch06