China Radio and TV Association (CRTA) issued a statement on Sunday, strongly condemning a famous Chinese crosstalk comedian, Guo Degang, writing an implicitly sarcastic poem to insult the just deceased Wang Xiaodong, former head of Beijing TV station (BTV). It calls for a nationwide boycott of Guo, and BTV has already flown the flag.

Guo posted his poem on Weibo, a microblog website where he has more than 55 million followers, insinuating that Wang's death is "retribution" for his deeds. As a public figure, Guo should be condemned for his inappropriate and immoral remarks.

However, the CRTA in trying to rally 400 local TV stations to launch a unified boycott of Guo faces an uncertain prospect. Based on recent Internet polls, quite a number of people oppose such a boycott. The Internet cannot fully mirror public will, but it at least has shown a certain tendency of public opinion.

Although famous, Guo's immorality is always a taint on his public image. It is largely attributed to him indulging one of his disciples to beat a BTV journalist three years ago. However, his popularity is not impacted by his barbarity and rudeness. His fans are still increasing, asking for more laughter and fun from his performance. Whether Guo is moral or not does not matter to them.

When the grass roots-oriented Guo has a confrontation with the State-owned BTV, the reaction of public opinion will be extremely complicated. "Challenging authority" has become a label in the Internet community, and the traditional influence of mainstream media has been massively deconstructed. This tendency has made BTV and the CRTA in a less advantageous position at least on the Internet.

Nowadays, Chinese society has been so diversified that even a single man can be tremendously empowered to challenge a whole media industry. On a lot of occasions, a single man's personal ability to mobilize social resources is no weaker than a traditional media unit such as the BTV.

Although Guo showed no respect to the deceased and that has been recognized by the public, whether he would be punished or even banned is not decided by the CRTA, but by whether the society supports it or not. Guo still has a great chance to escape any punishment, and he is probably becoming more famous because of it.

This conflict, although happening in the entertainment industry, has raised many doubts about Chinese society, such as whether the value of an entertainer needs to be measured from an ethical perspective, how much influence Chinese TV stations still have on public opinion.

This conflict has also made a significant issue reveal itself more clearly: When State power confronts individuals nowadays, many "united fronts of public opinion" have been rallied by these individuals. Is it an inevitable phenomenon that a diverse society has to meet? The question remains to be answered.