Censorship On 25 March 2021, the 11th episode of the season was originally scheduled to be aired on that day, but due to the
Xinjiang cotton turmoil, and the clothing title of this show was
Adidas, the airing of this episode was postponed. On 27 March 2021, when the episode was aired out of order, the brand logo was blurred out.
Fan behavior On 11 April 2021, Weibo administrators issued an announcement, citing irrational star-chasing behavior as an excuse to impose a 30-day ban on a series of fan club accounts, many of which are the fan clubs of
Youth With You and
Produce Camp (Chuang) trainees.
Departure of Tony Yu Jingtian On May 5, 2021, it was announced that the leading trainee, Tony Yu Jingtian had officially departed from the show, citing "health reason", right before the final night, possibly due to pressure from recent scandal involving his parents' alleged illegal businesses. Before the finale, Tony was involved in a controversy on 30 April 2021, when rumors with multiple photo evidence surfaced on Weibo that his parents had relations to a KTV involved with drugs and prostitution. This caused an outrage among Chinese netizens, as China had a long history of battling with the social implications of drug use. Later that week, it was also questioned if Tony had dual citizenship, having both Chinese and Canadian citizenships, which is illegal in China for anyone over the age of 18 years old. Tony's mom took to social media that they were no longer involved in the operation after having sold it in 2008 The scandal was investigated to be false accusations, his parents were eventually cleared from any wrongdoing claims.
Milk-wasting controversy Aside from the main votes of the domestic and international
iQIYI app,
Youth With You series also calculates votes from multiple platforms:
Weibo, iQIYI Paopao, Mengniu Dairy milk app on
WeChat, and others.
Mengniu Dairy is the official sponsor of the series. Fans could gain extra votes if they purchase its products and scan the QR codes printed inside the packaging to support their favorite contestant on WeChat. This has resulted in fan clubs buying milk products in huge amounts. This sponsor strategy is also used by another group survival show
Produce Camp (Chuang). However, the show is involved in a major milk-wasting controversy when a video showing thousands of bottles of milk being bought up and then discarded by fans went viral on social media in May 2021. The video shows large amounts of milk was dumped into the drain after opening by some fans during
Youth With You Season 2 because fans only needed the bottle caps for the QR codes. Nearly 270,000 bottles of the beverage were wasted in the video. On 7 May 2021, iQiyi closed all the voting channels, and announced on social media that the finale is cancelled and postponed, as it reviews and adjusts the rules of the show.
Finale cancellation After the milk-wasting controversy broke, the production of the finale scheduled on 8 May 2021 was suspended since 5 May 2021. In the afternoon of 6 May 2021, the eliminated trainees returned to Dachang, the filming site of
Youth With You, for the finale rehearsal, but left the site that night. On 7 May 2021, iQiyi closed all the voting channels, and announced that the finale is cancelled and postponed. The future of the finale remained unclear at that point, as to whether it would postponed, cancelled completely, or the filming site would be changed. News broke out that the finale has been recorded low-key or rehearsed in the midnight of 8 May. The debut team is reportedly formed and the team name is rumoured to be "
NINEVER", while the 9-member line-up is consist of Luo Yizhou, Jojo Tang Jiuzhou, Lian Huaiwei, Neil Liu Guanyou, Jerome Deng Xiaoci, Kachine Sun Yinghao, Liu Jun, X Duan Xingxing, Sun Yihang. The ranking is speculated to be without manipulation as the show is under pressure. Meanwhile, on 8 May 2021, many of the top 19 trainees who are not in the debut team has left respectively. However, on 9 May 2021, iQIYI and the management of
Youth With You announced on
Weibo that the finale is officially cancelled and denied that they have formed a debut team. == Notes ==