General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Diorsman (屌丝男士)

Diorsman (屌丝男士, English title Diors Man) is a Chinese web sitcom produced by Sohu Video, created, written, directed, and starred in by Da Peng (Dong Chengpeng, 董成鹏), which ran for four seasons from 10 October 2012 to 20 May 2015¹^•². It began as the second spin-off brand of Sohu's talk show Da Peng De Ba De (大鹏嘚吧嘚), after the "Da Peng Theater Show" segment, and aired as a standalone weekly mini-series of roughly 15-minute episodes³. The title comes from diaosi (屌丝), internet slang for underprivileged young men, and the show was one of the earliest commercial successes of Chinese original online content⁴^•⁵.

Key fact	Detail
Format	Weekly mini-series of self-contained comedy sketches, about 15 minutes per episode, no continuing plot³^•⁶
Run	Season 1 premiered 10 October 2012; season 2 on 5 June 2013; season 3 in early 2014; season 4 on 20 May 2015¹^•²
Creator	Da Peng (Dong Chengpeng), director, writer, producer, and lead; produced by Sohu Video with Tianjin Jinhu Culture¹
Model	A homage to the German series Knallerfrauen (屌丝女士); its star Martina Hill joined the cast of season 4²^•⁷
Viewership	Cumulative plays approached 1.7 billion after three seasons; the first episode of season 1 passed 10 million plays⁸^•⁹
2014 takedown	Pulled from Sohu entirely in late April 2014 for review; returned in mid-May 2014 with crude language and suggestive scenes removed⁸^•¹⁰
Film spin-off	Jian Bing Man (煎饼侠), released July 2015, earned over 1.1 billion yuan at the box office¹¹

Spoilers

Format and premise

The series is not a conventional sitcom with fixed sets and continuing storylines. Each episode is a collection of short, disconnected comedy bits in which Da Peng plays different ordinary men, a company white-collar worker, a man on a blind date, a cook, a foot masseur, and similar roles, while his celebrity friends make guest appearances⁹^•⁶. The production describes its method as taking everyday moments worth savoring, exaggerating them into absurdity, and using self-mockery to entertain both the performers and the audience⁶.

Da Peng acknowledged that the creative idea came from the German mini-series Knallerfrauen, but said that of about 120 sketches only 3 were remade directly, with the rest localized around Chinese topics such as workplace hazing, crowded elevators, awkward bus encounters, karaoke, and references to hit variety shows like The Voice of China⁹. He stated that season 2 would be entirely original⁹.

Production and cast

Sohu Video (with Tianjin Jinhu Culture Co.) produced the series; Da Peng served as director, writer, and producer, and also led the cast¹. Regulars included Liu Yan (柳岩) and Qiao Shan (乔杉), and the guest list grew across seasons to include Wen Zhang, Bai Baihe, Fan Bingbing, Han Geng, Jia Ling, Ma Li, Huang Haibo, Jung Yong-hwa, and others³. Season 4, produced with Marco (马可) as supervising producer, featured the German Knallerfrauen lead Martina Hill alongside Fan Bingbing, Yuan Shanshan, Liu Yan, Han Geng, and Jung Yong-hwa⁷. Da Peng, a disciple of comedian Zhao Benshan, was already a Sohu Video host on Da Peng De Ba De when the series made him famous⁹^•¹¹.

The episode count of season 1 is reported differently: listings on Plex and DramasQ count 7 episodes, while Baidu Baike's season-1 entry says 6³^•⁶. Plex lists the four seasons as 7, 6, 8, and 8 episodes, 29 in total³. Season 3's premiere is likewise dated 4 March 2014 by Sogou Baike, while a Xinmin Evening News page dated 26 February 2014 reports the third season launching that day²^•¹².

Viewership and significance

The first season was an immediate hit. The first episode alone surpassed 10 million plays, and all six (or seven) episodes together exceeded 100 million views, according to a celebration event report in November 2012⁹. Baidu Baike adds that the first episode passed 4.4 million views within 24 hours of release⁶. By April 2014, after three seasons, cumulative plays were approaching 1.7 billion⁸.

Industry position. Analysts of Chinese online video place the series in the second stage of self-produced content, roughly 2010 to 2013, when short web dramas first proved that low-cost productions could win reputation and attention and build a platform-owned IP⁵. iResearch's account of Sohu Video's self-produced catalog lists Diors Man as one of the platform's flagship titles in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, and credits it as one of the earliest hit web dramas that laid the foundation for Sohu's original-content strategy¹³. One brokerage report counts five seasons between 2012 and 2015, while most other sources, including Sohu-era press and database listings, count four⁵^•³.

The show also rode and reinforced the diaosi phenomenon. The word, coined around 2011 in Baidu's Liyi Tieba forum, spread explosively in 2012, the year the series premiered, and a survey cited by People.cn found about 526 million people, roughly 40 percent of China's population, willing to call themselves diaosi⁴^•¹⁴. Scholars treat the series as a typical example of short, low-budget, self-mocking Chinese web comedy¹⁵.

The 2014 takedown

In late April 2014, days after four American series including The Big Bang Theory were removed from Chinese video sites, Diors Man was pulled in its entirety from Sohu's PC and mobile platforms⁸^•¹⁰. Sohu did not initially give a detailed reason; a Wall Street Journal Chinese-language report quoted Sohu chairman Charles Zhang (张朝阳) saying the series was under review because some content might be "problematic" and that he expected it back online soon¹⁰. Sohu insiders told Beijing Evening News that the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television had singled out the series and required the removal of crude language, with re-release expected within days⁸. Many netizens suspected the involvement of Japanese adult-film actresses, including Akiho Yoshizawa (吉泽明步), who appeared in the cast, and the show's more explicit storylines¹⁰^•¹⁶. The series returned to Sohu in mid-May 2014 with sexually suggestive scenes and the AV-actress segments deleted⁸. Baidu Baike records that the first three seasons were re-edited into a censored "green version" after the internal review¹. Commentary at the time read the episode as a tightening of official management of video-site content, whose review standards had diverged sharply from those applied to television⁸.

End of the series and the film

Season 4, confirmed in advance as the final season, began shooting in mid-2014 with Martina Hill joining the cast, and premiered on 20 May 2015²^•⁷. The franchise extended to cinema with Jian Bing Man (煎饼侠), a comedy released in July 2015 that Da Peng described as the series' film version; it earned over 1.1 billion yuan, far above his own expectation of 500 million¹¹^•¹⁷. Da Peng stayed at Sohu, where he had worked since 2004, until announcing his departure in November 2018, by which point the series had made him an internet celebrity and delivered major traffic to Sohu Video¹¹. Plex lists the show as canceled after four seasons³.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Korean and East Asian web series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?