China’s first Suishi Literature Award gave the “White Lotus Award” to blockbuster online literature Jinxiu Weiyang (Princess Weiyoung) last Sunday, recognizing it as the worst piece of plagiarized literature online.

The special prize soon drew attention online. China’s netizens start to call it China’s Gold Raspberry Awards – not for worst movies but the worst plagiarized pieces of literary work. 

Online literature has become an important cultural industry in China in the past two decades, with user numbers growing over 300 million, according to the People’s Daily. However, the profitable industry also provides chances to irresponsible writers who plagiarize other’s work over the lack of surveillance. The phenomenon has been criticized for years but very few authors have apologized after being reported. 

At the prize ceremony run by Tianjin Writers’ Association in Beijing, many young writers and outstanding works are praised, apart from the White Lotus Award – a setting for criticizing irresponsible plagiarism among Chinese Internet writers.

“We planned to call it Gold Snotty Awards at the beginning, but then this is denied for being inelegant,” said deputy director of the Tianjin Writer's association Li Bin, causing laughter in the audience.

“The prize is set to remind everyone that being original and being creative is very hard for a real writer,” said Li. “Everyone can take part in the campaign, starting from rejecting reading plagiarized works.”

Simultaneously, the humiliating award gathered landslide support in China. 

“Shall we have the award more often, like three times a year, as many literatures are waiting to be nominees,” said @JiangzhuangzijiqulegehaoID on China’s largest social media Weibo. 

“Please give a vote ticket to each of us too,” said @Hanyeyaohu, “Many are not convinced with the result. Lots of works should have been awarded.”

The prized author did not attend the ceremony. The prize money was given to Hao Jingfang, Chinese science fiction writer who won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Folding Beijing in 2016, for her charity project that teaches children to read and write.