Li Ziqi (vlogger)

Li Ziqi (; ; born 6 July 1990), is a Chinese video blogger, entrepreneur, and Internet celebrity. She is known for creating food and handicraft preparation videos in her hometown of rural Pingwu, Mianyang, Sichuan, often from basic ingredients and tools using traditional Chinese techniques. Her YouTube channel has more than 2.3 billion views and 15.2 million subscribers, as verified on May 12th 2021, which is a Guinness World Record for "the most subscribers for a Chinese language channel on YouTube".
Early life.
Li was born on 6 July 1990 in Sichuan, China, originally named "Li Jiajia" (). She was orphaned at a very young age. In an interview with "Goldthread", Li stated that she moved in with her grandparents after her stepmother mistreated her.
Career.
Li started posting her videos on Meipai in 2015. Initially, Li made her videos by herself, but her video editing skills at the time failed to "capture the creativity" she tried to express. In 2016, one of Li's videos titled "Peach Wine" caught the attention of a video-making platform CEO, who featured the video on the platform's front page, which soon elicited more followers for Li's channel. She released her first video to YouTube in 2017 with the title "Making a dress out of grape skins." As of June 2020, she has 11.7 million subscribers on YouTube, over 26.3 million followers on Sina Weibo, over 3.5 million followers on Facebook, and has inspired many bloggers to post similar content.
Her mainland audience includes urban millennials. Li's popularity may be attributed to "fugu" (, retro-nostalgia), a growing appreciation in modern China for traditional culture. In an interview with "Goldthread" in September 2019, Li stated "I simply want people in the city to know where their food comes from."
A majority of Li's videos focus on traditional foods and antiques. Besides food preparation videos, other popular videos of Li's include creating makeup and dresses from grape skins. Li rarely speaks in her videos, and the sounds of nature, cooking, and calm music are most prominent. "Hemispheres" magazine stated, "The only narration is friendly banter between Li and her grandmother, but the sounds—the singing of birds, the crunch of frost underfoot, the thwack of a cleaver, the sizzle of frying garlic—lure you into an ASMR trance, so you don't even notice how many videos you've binged."
In 2018, she launched a food brand under her own name and sold prepackaged food through e-commerce. 
She was awarded the People's Choice Award by the Chinese Communist Party's official "People's Daily" newspaper in September 2019. In August 2020, Li was nominated as a member of the All-China Youth Federation.
Reception.
State-run China Central Television praised her and stated "Without a word commending China, Li promotes Chinese culture in a good way and tells a good China story." Scholars have described her videos as a channel for Chinese government soft power. Li's videos have also been criticized for gentrifying contemporary rural life in China.
Personal life.
Li lives with her grandmother, who occasionally appears in videos, in the countryside of Mianyang in Southwest China's Sichuan. When Li was in fifth grade, her grandfather died, thus her grandmother was unable to pay for her education, this prompted Li to drop out of school at the age of 14 to work in the city, some of the jobs she worked at include being waitress (2016–2017), a music DJ (2007–2013), and singer (2006–2007). In 2012, she moved back to take care of her grandmother, who was sickly at that time.
At the start, Li sold agricultural products on Taobao as a way to earn a living before moving on to be a blogger.
Initially doing all photography and editing by herself, as she gained popularity and experience, her recent online videos are produced with the help of a personal assistant and a videographer.