Using the syntactical structure very X very Y (很X很Y) became increasingly popular among netizens of mainland China as internet slang and snowclone.
[citation needed] In the December 27, 2007 edition of CCTV's daily newscast, Xinwen Lianbo, a primary school student described a pop-up she had seen on a website as being "very erotic, [and] very violent" (很黄很暴力) as part of an appeal to strengthen the already strict web filtering in the People's Republic of China.
The statement quickly became a meme on Chinese web forums, primarily due to the nature and context of the comment, and that other parodies took advantage of the fact that huáng (黄), the Mandarin character for "erotic", can also refer to the color yellow.
This suggested that the barbershop had the backing of powerful local officials or business moguls and were free to do as they pleased without bowing to external oversight.
In response, on April 3, 2008, some internet users went to the barbershop, which had been banned by the Administration for Industry and Commerce of Zhengzhou City, holding a banner with "very sinister [with] very strong backing" (很黑很後台) on it in protest Paul International's actions.