From the “Stigmatization of the Chrysanthemum” to Symbolic Recontextualization: A Content Analysis and Critique of the Premises of Cultural-War Narratives on Short-Video Platforms

This study draws on nearly one hundred short videos and their comments concerning the “stigmatization of the chrysanthemum” and efforts to “restore the chrysanthemum’s reputation” on Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and WeChat Channels. Combining content analysis with textual analysis, it examines platform distribution, modes of presentation, historical narratives, causal attribution, and audience reception. The survey shows that the sampled videos form a highly stable interpretive framework of “cultural war”: they first summarize traditional Chinese chrysanthemum culture in terms of auspiciousness, longevity, and moral integrity; then interpret modern funerary use as the disappearance or reversal of traditional meaning; and subsequently attribute this change to the importation of Western culture, its secondary reinforcement in Japan, and a rupture in domestic cultural memory. Expressions of “sudden realization,” “cultural regret,” and “cultural invasion” in the comment sections further confirm this framework. The empirical material raises a further question concerning the premise of this narrative: does a flower’s entry into funerary ritual necessarily mean that it has changed from “positive” to “negative”? The analysis distinguishes foreign origin from cultural invasion, funerary use from negative meaning, the emergence of new meaning from the disappearance of old meaning, and semantic change from symbolic stigmatization. Traditional chrysanthemum culture already encompasses multiple meanings, including longevity, moral integrity, reclusion, seasonality, and vitality; in mourning contexts, the chrysanthemum may also convey respect, remembrance, love, and blessing rather than denigration. Symbolic recontextualization and meaning accumulation therefore serve as analytical tools that replace a linear model of “meaning replacement.” “Funerary association” and “social stigmatization” are two processes that may occur in sequence but cannot be directly equated. Short-video narratives of “restoring the chrysanthemum’s reputation” produce an interpretive framework concerning semantic purity, cultural subjectivity, and collective victimhood. What cultural communication needs to recover is society’s capacity to understand that one symbol may simultaneously bear the meanings of auspiciousness, moral integrity, mourning, respect, and remembrance.