“Beijing Dama Have Something to Say” - Group Identification and Online Collective Action among Retirees in Contemporary China

Sep 2, 2026

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In 2016, a WeChat account named “Beijing Dama Have Something to Say” was created by a small Beijing company and became widely known among Chinese retirees. Through hundreds of volunteer-made videos led mainly by middle-elderly women, the platform gives voice to elderly people’s interests, shared difficulties, and perceived injustices. Using ethnographic materials and video content analysis, the study examines “Beijing Dama” as a case for emerging “group consciousness,” enabling retirees to defend collective interests online despite a constraining political environment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

First encounters

Formation of the Beijing Dama platform

Early WeChat group expansion

Growth and transformation of the show

Host and volunteer roles

Special Feature china perspectives # “Beijing Dama Have Something to Say”: Group Identification and OnlineCollective Action among Retirees inContemporary China JUSTINE ROC HOT ABSTRACT: In 2016, a WeChat account called“Beijing Dama Have Something to Say” was created by a small Beijing-based company.Now widely known among retirees throughout China, this platform provides its public – mostly composed of recently retired womenborn between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s – with hundreds of videos where volunteer retired women speak up in the name ofelderly people’s interestsand spread awareness of their shared difficulties and injustices as a generation. Using ethnographic materialsand video content analysis, this paper takes the“Beijing Dama” as a case study to address the development of new forms of “groupconsciousness”among Chinese retirees, leading them to defend their collective interests online despite China’s constraining politicalenvironment. KEYWORDS: China, ageing group consciousness, online collective action, gender, generation, intergenerational relationships, Third Age,elderly rights. ## First encounters In January 2016, Mr Zhou tagged me in a WeChat group. I hadmet the 67-year-old two years before, during my fieldwork amonga group of former zhiqing (知青, educated youth or sent-downyouth) who, now retired, met daily on a public square in KunmingCity. Knowing that I was conducting research on retirees’gatheringsin urban China, Mr Zhou forwarded to me and his friends a link toa video uploaded on QQ Video by an account called “Beijing DamaHave Something to Say” (Beijing dama you hua shuo 北京大媽有話說, thereafter “Beijing Dama”) . Dama 大媽, as I will explainfurther in the article, is a Chinese word that has been recently usedto designate “aunties” or women belonging to the “middle-elderly”(zhonglaonian 中老年) – a rather newly formed age category,located between the middle-aged andthe oldest old, which in theChinese context roughly includes people in their fifties to seventiesand usually retired, given the extremely low average age ofretirement in China (51.2 years old in 2009 according to Chen andChen (2009: 68)) . In his message, Mr Zhou encouraged me to check out the video,commenting: “Let’s support Beijing Dama!” The video featured SunHuilan, a 68-year-old woman appearing in the credits as a retireeliving in Beijing’s Chaoyang District who volunteered for the show.Facing the camera, she was talking, with a strong Beijing accent,about the pensions her generation received as retirees, which she considered particularly low given what they had endured. Before herfive-minute speech, punctuated by funny video inserts and soundeffects, an on-screen sentence read: “You don’thave to be someoneto have a say; Senior Citizens Day is not the only time to hear theirvoice: let’s listen to their takes on society’s hottest topics.” Alsouploaded to the channel were other videos where Sun dealt with avariety of topics such as the elderly’s relationships with their adultonly children, respect towards older people in public spaces, orhealth practices. The Beijing Dama public WeChat account had only been createdfor a month and was associated with a WeChat institutionalaccount registered by a small Beijing-based company. On top ofSun’s weekly videos, the account rapidly started to develop andmanage group chats that retirees scattered around the countrycould join to get in touch with their peers, exchange sharedexperiences, and provide Sun with new ideas for topics. “This willbe a home for you and for millions of other elderly companions,where you can talk with people your age about what makes youhappy, about the country’s important events, and what’s happeningin your home,” stated the front page. I immediately joined, and wasplaced in group No. 19, as the first ones had already reached, in amatter of days, the 100-person limit imposed on WeChat groupscomposed of unverified personal accounts. There I found myself inthe company of

FAQs

What is the “Beijing Dama Have Something to Say” platform?

A WeChat-based account distributing hundreds of videos in which volunteer retirees, mainly middle-elderly women, speak about issues affecting elderly people and their generation.

How does the article analyze retirees’ online collective action?

It uses ethnographic materials and video content analysis to study how “Beijing Dama” fosters new forms of group consciousness.

Who are the main participants featured in the videos?

The videos are largely presented by recently retired women, typically born from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, often connected to the “middle-elderly” age category.

Sep 2, 2026

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