Thanks for doing this blog! I occasionally browse XiaoHongShu and it's really interesting to see how different the content on Weibo is.
For one, maybe because it's image/video focused, the content on XHS seems to come from a more affluent and urban demographic. Comments do come from a wider spread though.
Probably because of my IP address, I get a lot of international student memes and #relatable things (mostly about how expensive everything is, but occasionally about conveniences they take for granted that don't exist in even world class cities).
The aspirational content are also fascinating. I get the impression that a lot of people, especially young women, are well aware of systemic problems that make it difficult to live how they want, but many also think that they personally have the luck/intellect/work ethic to like, beat the system that's keeping other girls down. Very "rip to you but I'm different, I'm never getting married and I'm just going to work hard and be independent and enjoy life". I think this might be a very common attitude from the urban middle class, it definitely seems like a big voice on XHS.
Like, there's this girl who does numbers and her vlogs are all just hustlegrind stuff. She works 2 different office jobs and lives in a 1 bedroom apartment. I think it's probably supposed to be.... Relatable or aspirational? I dunno if she's in a similar vein as those TikTok girls who wake up at 5am and do yoga and run 3 side hustles alongside their full-time jobs. But I guess a big element of the Chinese girlboss is that she's never getting married, she aspires to be single for life.
A really striking thing is how much of the content wouldn't be out of place on western social media. A great deal of what shows up just boil down to, "I hate my job, I'm not paid enough for this shit, everything is so expensive, I will never own a home" or like, people's efforts to escape that trap.
(To be fair I'm fairly sure the majority of the content I see comes from the big cities, and Guangzhou specifically)
Thanks for doing this blog! I occasionally browse XiaoHongShu and it's really interesting to see how different the content on Weibo is.
For one, maybe because it's image/video focused, the content on XHS seems to come from a more affluent and urban demographic. Comments do come from a wider spread though.
Probably because of my IP address, I get a lot of international student memes and #relatable things (mostly about how expensive everything is, but occasionally about conveniences they take for granted that don't exist in even world class cities).
The aspirational content are also fascinating. I get the impression that a lot of people, especially young women, are well aware of systemic problems that make it difficult to live how they want, but many also think that they personally have the luck/intellect/work ethic to like, beat the system that's keeping other girls down. Very "rip to you but I'm different, I'm never getting married and I'm just going to work hard and be independent and enjoy life". I think this might be a very common attitude from the urban middle class, it definitely seems like a big voice on XHS.
Like, there's this girl who does numbers and her vlogs are all just hustlegrind stuff. She works 2 different office jobs and lives in a 1 bedroom apartment. I think it's probably supposed to be.... Relatable or aspirational? I dunno if she's in a similar vein as those TikTok girls who wake up at 5am and do yoga and run 3 side hustles alongside their full-time jobs. But I guess a big element of the Chinese girlboss is that she's never getting married, she aspires to be single for life.
A really striking thing is how much of the content wouldn't be out of place on western social media. A great deal of what shows up just boil down to, "I hate my job, I'm not paid enough for this shit, everything is so expensive, I will never own a home" or like, people's efforts to escape that trap.
(To be fair I'm fairly sure the majority of the content I see comes from the big cities, and Guangzhou specifically)