Young people gather on Xiaohongshu

In the world of social media, traffic is often king, and Xiaohongshu has become a new battlefield for young people to pursue traffic. This article explores in depth how young people attract attention through marginal content on Xiaohongshu, as well as the social and psychological motivations behind this behavior, for your reference.

How can young people on Xiaohongshu get the most efficient traffic? The answer seems to be to get close to it.

In order to achieve equality around the edge, the "generous display faction", "scheming green tea faction", "external force addition faction", "partial close-up faction", "text metaphor faction" and "physical object association faction" have come out one after another, and each faction has its own unique killer moves.

At the same time, the "Photoshop-to-make-funny" group, "online flirting group", "popularity-seeking group" and "mutual praise group" in the comment area also determine the popularity of the notes and guide bloggers to do a better job.

Amidst the praise and traffic, the disciples of the six major sects gradually lost themselves and vowed to skirt the line to the end. However, the risks of having their posts deleted by the platform and being recognized by acquaintances can easily shake their determination to skirt the line.

Moreover, how to monetize the traffic gained by skirting the rules? How strong is the monetization ability of fans attracted by skirting the rules? Why do young people choose Xiaohongshu as their skirting position?

I wonder if these young people who are becoming more and more addicted to masturbation can find the answers to these questions.

01 Six major sects that skirt the line

How do young people get traffic on Xiaohongshu?

Different methodologies produce different results, but the most efficient way seems to be to skirt the line.

Nowadays, many young people who want to debut on Xiaohongshu have started to attract traffic. According to their specific methods, they can be roughly divided into six major schools:

The first group is the "generous display group"

The members of this group use the most primitive, simple and rough edge-skirting methods. They follow the principle of exposure is king and show their bodies generously. Bikinis, backless dresses and miniskirts are often the most frequently used props in this process.

The second group is the "scheming green tea group"

Unlike the "generous display group", members of this group need to create specific scenes and show different storylines when they are on the edge, and then pretend to expose their bodies accidentally.

For example, food falling on one's body, repairing one's own motorcycle, looking after the kids at home... these common scenes in life can all be used by them as background boards when they are doing something fishy.

The third faction is the "external force addition faction"

A simple physical display may not be lethal enough, so members of this group often use occupations, props, venues, etc. to buff their borderline behaviors. High-end elements such as uniforms, luxury cars, and big hotels seem to be the easiest to attract the audience's attention.

The fourth school is the "partial close-up school"

The borderline behavior of the first three groups requires innate advantages in appearance and figure, which can easily exclude most people; but for other young people, showing their own partial beauty can also achieve the same effect.

Therefore, these young people who are skirting the line will not show their faces or whole bodies in front of the camera, but only their hands, legs, feet and other parts. The imaginative spectators will fill in the unknown with their own imagination.

The fifth school is the "text metaphor school"

If the first four factions still require the person himself to appear on camera, then this faction seems to be a forced one without any boundaries.

The members of this faction put puns and associative words into the text, causing readers to have bad associations in their pretentious descriptions; at the same time, some members directly posted marginal topics, attracting Lich Kings to appear in the comment section, and they all let themselves go during the discussion.

The sixth school is the "physical association school"

Words can inspire imagination, and so can real objects. Vegetables, fruits, and food in nature have all become their props.

Some users post pictures of peaches, cucumbers, eggplants, abalone, etc. in their notes. The color experts in the comment section are likely to start making associations based on these pictures at a speed that no one can catch up with.

02 Who has the highest traffic?

The joint efforts of the six major factions have made the young people on Xiaohongshu seem to have achieved marginal equality. Both the talented and the untalented can gain traffic by marginalizing.

At the same time, from the perspective of traffic conversion effect, young people can be roughly divided into three categories according to their frequency and style:

The first category is occasional edge

This type of young people normally post notes and share their lives. Occasionally, a note that seems to be on the edge can bring them a lot of traffic, but after the heat passes, they are still just passers-by.

Brother Pang observed a blogger with thousands of followers and found that the most popular note on his homepage was about a half-exposed dress, which received more than 2,500 likes; but his usual daily updates received less than 100 likes.

The second type is random edge

Different from the above-mentioned group of people, this type of users always insists on skirting the edge, but their methods are not specific and they often wander between the six major schools, resulting in weaker monetization effects.

For example, a blogger who used to take photos of legs in the "partial close-up" style, after sticking to the same style for half a year, suddenly started taking photos of the whole body; at the same time, there are bloggers who jump back and forth between the "generous display style", "external force addition style" and "partial close-up style", and the style of their homepages is disorganized.

The third type is targeted edge

Bloggers of this type try to attract traffic, and they attract traffic in order to monetize it. Therefore, they stick to their own school and develop a specific style to attract fans in a targeted manner.

Brother Pan discovered that there was a customer service blogger at a construction site who had accumulated 20,000 fans and became a member of an MCN company by relying on his unchanging uniform, black stockings, and sales office.

From this point of view, young people who want to get close to Xiaohongshu must first find the right track.

In the comment section of Edge Notes, there are also four major factions coexisting.

Among the faction dominated by male users, the "photo-editing and funny faction" is afraid that the bloggers will be cold, so they put clothes on the revealing pictures to make the originally sexy and seductive photos become dignified and elegant.

The "online flirt" showed his true nature, openly chatting up people after getting horny, saying: "I'm also in X place, let's get to know each other." "Beautiful lady, what's your WeChat ID?"

Among the faction dominated by female users, those who are trying to attract attention put their beautiful photos in the comment section, hoping that other users will share the same love.

The "Jimei mutual praise faction" demonstrates their ability to praise others, praising ordinary bloggers to the point of making them look like gods. Behind a series of flattery, most of them are waiting for mutual praise from the bloggers themselves.

Of course, there are also some users who read the notes without saying a word and then report them, causing the blogger to be caught violating the rules. In serious cases, the blogger may even have his account blocked.

For example, a blogger posted a photo of herself in a swimsuit and after it received more than 2,000 likes, the note soon became invisible; another blogger noted "normal outfit and no bad connotations" in order to pass the review, but her post may still be deleted.

However, for bloggers who are on the edge of the line, although illegal deletion of posts is common, account blocking does not seem to be common. After a blogger's sexy notes were deleted, they could just slightly process the pictures and repost them.

At the same time, Xiaohongshu's algorithm seems to be helping LSPs find content they like. For example, when Pan was writing, he liked and collected a lot of notes about jade feet. As a result, the homepage of Xiaohongshu is now occupied by all kinds of feet.

03 Why do we need to skirt the line?

Why do so many young people like to use Xiaohongshu?

Therefore, quite a number of bloggers do not think they are skirting the line, but instead display their beauty normally.

For example, some netizens said: "Big breasts are considered borderline? Perky butt is considered borderline? That's really unbearable." "If you don't deliberately make that kind of ghostly expression and make seductive movements, I don't think it's considered borderline."

Netizen Qianqian posted several selfies of herself wearing suspenders and stockings on Xiaohongshu. She told Brother Pan: "I feel that these are very normal photos. The scale should not be too large. I didn't post any photos that were actually wiped."

It seems that many girls do not agree that the notes they post are borderline; and they post photos of their beautiful bodies not only to receive praises, but also to gain traffic.

For example, netizen A Tao said: "Because rubbing the edge is the password for traffic, many people do it to satisfy their vanity. I also like to take photos of my good figure and then post them on social media. Although there is usually not much traffic, I still feel happy."

Blogger Yezi told Brother Pang: "I once did knowledge sharing. It took 5 hours to make a video, and the traffic was over 300. After one month, I had 200 fans. One day, I wore black stockings and posted a daily video. The number of fans increased by more than 10,000 in one day. With such good traffic, how many people would not be tempted?"

Another netizen said: "I posted a piano playing video seriously, but my followers were in the single digits for two or three months. I wore a bit thicker underwear, and my traffic went up immediately. Although the comments section was scolding me for skirting the line, everyone was watching the skirting the line."

Although it is easy to gain traffic by skirting the line, as a blogger, it is easy to be discovered by acquaintances and thus suffer social death in real life.

In this regard, netizen Fanqie told Brother Pang: "I have a colleague who was doing a marginal live broadcast. After being recognized by people in the company, everyone went to the live broadcast room to tease her and give her little hearts. Only she herself was kept in the dark and was still dancing there."

Meanwhile, netizen A Xiang also said: "Although I also tread the line, I have my own bottom line. If someone asks me to meet or take nude photos, I will definitely resist. My family knows that I tread the line, but they just want me to keep a good balance."

In order to avoid being recognized by real people, many bloggers have begun to incorporate technology and hard work when they are on the edge.

For example, Brother Pang found some borderline bloggers on Xiaohongshu who were suspected to be digital people generated by AI; some bloggers stole pictures from the Internet and lied that they were themselves; or they covered their faces and deeply Photoshopped the pictures to make them unrecognizable.

On the other hand, in order to avoid showing their faces, more and more bloggers have converted to the "partial close-up school", "text metaphor school" and "physical association school", resulting in the internal competition becoming increasingly fierce while these three schools are growing stronger.

04 How to monetize traffic?

Why do so many young people on Xiaohongshu want to attract traffic?

Pang Ge communicated with many bloggers and found that there seemed to be three reasons:

First of all, it is a professional requirement.

For some bloggers, generating traffic is for work, especially for those in marketing professions such as car sales, bank employees, real estate consultants, etc., who regard traffic as the key.

For example, a BYD 4S store anchor complained: "The live broadcast traffic has been very poor recently. I am about to fail to meet my sales targets. I am really anxious and about to cry. I don't know if I should do something to get close to the edge. I have already bought the black stockings, high heels, and hot girl outfits."

Secondly, it is the second income.

Bloggers who feel that their jobs seem hopeless try to gain traffic by skirting the rules, and then transform themselves into slash-job youth to create plan B in their lives.

Previously, Internet celebrity lawyer Xiao Bingxin became popular on the Internet by dancing in a skirt dance style, which attracted many people to imitate her. After she became popular, she also said: "Being a lawyer earns 5,000 yuan a month, and doing skirt dance earns 20,000 yuan a month."

At the same time, Xiao He, a real estate consultant, also told Brother Pan: "The real estate industry is in a cold winter now. I work 12 hours a day and earn only more than 3,000 yuan a month. It's hard to change careers at my age. I can only try to take fitness photos, attract fans on Xiaohongshu and open an online store."

Finally, a full-time job.

For those young people who are unemployed or looking for work, turning a side job into a full-time job can not only earn them a good income, but may also help them achieve financial freedom.

For example, netizen Xiaoli told Brother Pan: "I am taking the marginal route, earning 20,000 to 30,000 yuan or 30,000 to 40,000 yuan a month, mainly through live broadcast rewards, but this road is really difficult to walk, I will be scolded, blocked, and very tiring. I plan to say goodbye to this line of work when I have made enough money."

Although bloggers have the possibility of monetization by attracting traffic, this traffic mostly attracts male fans of low quality, which is not very helpful for monetization.

In this regard, blogger Xinxin said: "I think the most appropriate way is to half-cover the face with a lute; the kind of edge that is filled with various elements will appear to be too much, and it is easier to attract losers. Not only will it be difficult to realize it later, but it will also attract attacks and abuse."

Meanwhile, a blogger on Xiaohongshu said: "I often post outfit notes, but in the fan profile, 80% of them are male fans, and there are no female fans to share nice clothes with. I plan to scrap this account."

05 Why Xiaohongshu?

Although relying on marginal means to gain traffic seems to have become a consensus among young people, why do many people choose to focus on Xiaohongshu?

Pango found that there seemed to be three reasons:

First, it has to do with the privacy situation.

As a newly emerging social platform, many real-life acquaintances have not been transplanted to Xiaohongshu, giving young people room to express themselves.

For example, Xiaoli told Brother Pan: "If you want to get away with it on Douyin, you need to turn off various permissions, otherwise it's easy to be swiped by acquaintances, which is embarrassing and socially dead. Xiaohongshu will be much better."

At the same time, Brother Pan is often recommended users by the system on Douyin and Kuaishou. After clicking on their homepages, he found that they were acquaintances he knew in real life, and he felt embarrassed for a moment.

Secondly, it is related to user portrait.

Qiangua data shows that Xiaohongshu has 312 million monthly active users, with a male-to-female ratio of 3:7, 50% are those born after 1995, 35% are those born after 2000, and 50% are users in first- and second-tier cities.

It can be seen that young women in big cities constitute the majority of Xiaohongshu's users, and the characteristics of this group, such as youthful beauty and willingness to show off, also influence the content of mainstream notes.

Finally, it is related to the strategy of attracting men.

Since Xiaohongshu has fewer male users, the platform seems to intentionally set up professional recommendations for men from an algorithmic perspective to attract male users to join.

For example, netizen Xiao Jiang told Brother Pan: "I wanted to see the difference between the male and female Xiaohongshu accounts, so I re-registered a male account. As a result, the content recommended was all selfies of buttocks and breasts; the female account was completely different. When I first registered, the content recommended was all about mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflicts and original families." Previously, on Hupu, which is dominated by male users, Xiaohongshu also advertised: "There are so many beauties on Xiaohongshu, free to see, without spending a penny."

From this perspective, it seems that it is easy for young people to get traffic by skirting the line on Xiaohongshu; however, with the emergence of skirting content, skirting the line itself seems to be involuted and raising the threshold for entrants.

And those young people who are obsessed with gaining traffic and have long forgotten their original intentions, what can they get after struggling in the vortex of traffic?

Author/Pango Producer/Daman