Many of our alert readers will know of the expression, “Me and my yacht”. They will also be aware of the limits to the actual truth contained therein. Turns out that in China, this is a concept that has not only been once again taken to extremes, but that the Chinese desire for “face” has also in due process created a multi-billion renminbi industry.
Four exquisite photos of an astoundingly expensive villa, accompanied by the words, “Maybe I should redecorate my home”; or a carefully-filtered photo of bread with the caption, “Always feel that breakfast is more important”; or the best for last, a photo of a first-class aircraft cabin plus the snap line, “Almost missed it”.
Fake, fake, fake.
We now live in a China in which people have become actors, portraying the character which they themselves want others to admire. Yes, this is an excellent use of expensive, energy-consuming and ecology-damaging, internet bandwidth. And sociologically, yes, there is the desire for face, but what are even more powerful potents for anyone, including the Chinese?
Money. Power.
At the end of the Chinese National Day holiday, one of the many topics to start trending on China’s version of Twitter, Weibo, was, “¥60 is enough to travel the world on WeChat Moments” .
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Thanks to market demand, the faking of people’s personalities and characters by use of online content has quietly become an industrial chain.
For the ¥60, purchasers receive a whole set of photos and videos of travelling, for the purpose of posting on WeChat Moments. The really clever part, however, is that an additional fee makes it possible to modify the posting location information.
“Yes, that’s my yacht, and I’m on Tahaiti!”
As most are aware, WeChat Moments has in recent years become one of the most important platforms for self-promotion. Through likes, comments, etc., people receive feedback on their shared content very quickly, and such feedback gradually becomes a part of their self-awareness.
It’s all a far cry from real life, where our friends know much of the truth to our character, and do not hesitate to call us out from time to time.
So shall we give it a go?
Search “朋友圈” (literally “Friends’ Circle”) on e-commerce behemoth Taobao, and see returned results such as “Friends’ Circle DIY” and “Friends’ Circle Location Modification”. The sheer depth of the issue is noticeable by the fact that many of these merchants have volumes exceeding 10,000 or even 100,000 transactions. During the recent holiday, when the bulk of the country tries to do some traveling, it was noted that there were many more customers than usual purchasing location modifying services.
Then there are the videos of luxury cars and piles of cash (I swear I am not making this up) that can be purchased; a set of 50 goes for just ¥6.60. An additional ¥8 per video shall be charged to put the purchaser’s own voice on the video; “Just back from the Ferrari dealer this morning”.
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But what price love? Elsewhere, some merchants also include strategies and tutorials to teach boys and girls how to create WeChat Moments that will attract the opposite sex.
For the really shrewd, some WeChat business practitioners create a high-end looking WeChat Moments, mainly to create a rags-to-riches image, so that potential customers identify with their lifestyle, thus generating trust in products.
A darker twist then takes us into fake news territory. It has been reported that there was someone who claimed to be an editor of People’s Daily, Zhu Xiangyu, sharing articles from the People’s Daily on WeChat Moments, and using Location Modifying to often position himself at the People’s Daily Headquarters.
Ingenious. Why didn’t we think of that?
Thankfully, there is another side to the coin. A growing movement believes that WeChat Moments is not the whole picture of life, refusing to accept such ideal characters after careful modification. Shunning WeChat Moments altogether, they devote their time and energy to real life issues, such as family happiness and progress at work.
That the final sentence above is necessary to this article is telling as to the depth and seriousness of the issue at hand. But after the poster of fake WeChat Moments loses interest in the character they have created, the bubble is burst with all that remains one empty shell. According to a poll conducted by CCTV.com on Weibo, most of those questioned said it was nothing but vanity that brought about the “¥60 is enough to travel the world” phenomenon.
