"Marrying a rich woman in the Middle East" sparked controversy, and transnational couple bloggers are being backfired by traffic

The transnational couple bloggers are actually creating dreams with a unique personality, and they have both traffic and business. However, there are constant controversies. Let's read the article to understand.

Taking advantage of the information gap between China and foreign countries and satisfying netizens' curiosity and voyeurism about different intimate relationships, lifestyles, and even values ​​has always been the traffic code for transnational couple bloggers.

Recently, some bloggers who married far away in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, have attracted the curiosity of many netizens by presenting the luxurious life of "being a lady in the Middle East".

For example, @加州肉姐even uses the banner of "feminism" to convey an equal, affluent, and happy transnational life; @辣辣在ＳaudiＡrabia does the same, attracting attention by sharing content that many people don't know, such as Saudi childbirth customs, Saudi polygamy system, and Saudi Eid al-Fitr.

The comment sections of these bloggers are often filled with questions like "Is she a concubine?", which in turn brings new discussions and traffic to these bloggers.

On social platforms, such transnational couple bloggers have become increasingly common. There are Chinese-British couples who are extremely gentlemanly and romantic, as well as Chinese-Japanese couples who seem warm and harmonious. There are so many Chinese-Korean couples that netizens are no longer surprised by them.

Under the high wall of cultural differences, "cross-border pairing" has a natural appeal to netizens. However, the reason why these cross-border couple bloggers can continue to attract fans on the Internet is that they have captured the curiosity of netizens and actively catered to the beautiful fantasy of Chinese netizens about intimate relationships.

The character of a good little wolfdog, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law that is more harmonious than that between family members, the unified expression of "patriotism"... In the midst of separation and synchronization, these bloggers have found the key to attracting traffic.

However, as more and more international couples present similar content to netizens through short videos, people have begun to re-examine this relationship and judge the underlying logic behind these contents.

A while ago, the Angel of @Alife, a top transnational couple blogger with 4 million fans, was exposed. The girl's mother was exposed to be involved in a fraud case and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Taking advantage of this exposure, fans have revisited the past and denounced the fake persona created by the blogger in the video.

Although @Alife’s Angel’s scandal is somewhat unique, it still serves as a wake-up call to netizens: how real and fake are those seemingly confident and happy lives and emotions?

“I dislike all couple bloggers equally, not just those with cross-border relationships. They have no other use except to satisfy my voyeurism.”

"I really don't like watching cross-border romances, especially those that show off the man's looks. It looks like Cyberpunk selling his body."

"It's nothing more than a scam. I don't think a serious couple from different countries would use this as their data traffic password."

But disenchantment and dream-making are carried out simultaneously, and smart traffic players always know how to provoke the sensitive points of the Internet. In this fantasy dream created by a transnational couple blogger, the performers and the audience constantly repeat the process of "information misalignment and diversion - gradually losing freshness - looking for more contrasting content". Gather traffic and then achieve business.

1. Curiosity, personality, and showing affection: How do transnational couple bloggers create their dreams?

Lieqi is a transnational couple blogger who was the first to guess the traffic code.

For this reason, "marrying a rich woman in the Middle East" has become a new round of traffic for transnational couple bloggers. After all, before this, discussions on marriage and the status of women in the Middle East mainly appeared in serious social issues, and were more of a non-positive, unpublicized perspective.

Therefore, when a group of internet bloggers who "married to Saudi Arabia" came out to share their experiences and show the local living customs in detail, they immediately attracted a lot of attention. However, unlike most negative perceptions, these bloggers, intentionally or unintentionally, showed netizens the splendid life of the "tycoons", respected emotional relationships, and a subtle "big woman" attitude, which was perfect.

The culture of separate gatherings for men and women, luxuriously decorated villas, colorful nightlife, how two people live in the same yard... When specific details of life are connected with the regional symbols in our cognition, there is a sense of pleasure of exploration.

While revealing the secrets, the cross-national differences also add a layer of mystery to these bloggers. Especially the bloggers who "married to Saudi Arabia" are always questioned as to "which wife they are", especially when @加州肉姐 had two children in her video, and was even suspected of being the children of the first wife.

In response to this, @Saudi Meat Sister expressed her disdain for such doubts in the video, and also responded that "I would not be someone else's mistress." She even created a character for the Saudi husband that was more in line with the expectations of domestic netizens, such as a well-known entrepreneur, a non-chauvinist, and a background board next to his wife.

Although it is difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, the values ​​that are in sync with those in front of the screen, despite the completely different life details, have truly attracted a wave of likes and traffic for the blogger.

Secondly, beyond cultural differences, setting up a perfect partner persona and creating an attractive emotional state has become another traffic attraction for many cross-border couples. After all, in reality, emotional relationships are always a mess, and family life is always about firewood, rice, oil and salt. Those who are far away in a foreign country, enjoying the unique scenery, feeling the sunset, fine wine and lover's life, seem like a utopia.

As the information gap decreases, many multinational bloggers can no longer rely solely on curiosity to attract traffic.

There are also huge differences between the two models of "middle-aged woman and foreign man" and "middle-aged man and foreign woman". In the "middle-aged woman and foreign man" pairing, the man is often tall, sunny, "obedient and clingy" or "good family man". In these characters, there is no machismo, laziness, or impatience. What can be seen is self-discipline, fitness, and doting on the wife, and even a decent social status.

For example, in the Sino-Japanese multinational couple @妮宝一家, the Japanese husband is considerate and attentive. He will order his wife's favorite dishes in advance, make SPA appointments for his wife, and buy small gifts after get off work; the Sino-German couple @ONLee, the boy Gerrit is a younger man who is romantic, clingy, and likes to boast; the Sino-Australian couple @AriaAndBrandon, who are known as the "real version of Twilight", the boy is also dubbed the "role model of a fairy boyfriend" because of his handsomeness and gentleness.

In contrast, the emotions displayed by bloggers of cross-border love relationships with Chinese men and foreign women are not so delicate, and their personalities are more likely to be funny. For example, the Chinese-Russian couple @跨國刘先森 mainly attracts fans with earthy jokes; in the videos of the Chinese-American couple @KatAndCat, the girls often use "strange Chinese accents" and wear military coats to show a carefree, beautiful and unaware funny image.

Behind this difference is the difference in audience groups. The core audience of "Chinese women and foreign men" is women, while the audience of "Chinese men and foreign women" is mainly men. However, in terms of scale, the cross-border distribution of "Chinese women and foreign men" on social platforms is much higher than that of "Chinese men and foreign women".

Finally, the trump card that almost all transnational couple bloggers will play is patriotism.

If a woman marries someone in a foreign country, there will inevitably be a plot in which a girl cooks Chinese food for other relatives and friends, and then receives a lot of praise; there are also settings in which boys express their liking for Chinese, even though they have not made any progress after studying it for two years; there are even bloggers who speak out together for sudden disasters in the country.

Even bloggers who don’t intentionally present this kind of content will be asked by netizens to do reverse cultural output. For example, in a recent video posted by @TJandClaire, a boy showed off his Chinese online buzzwords.

This "patriotic sentiment card" once again won the favor of domestic audiences for the foreign couple bloggers. In the comment section where @妮宝一家 said "I want to bring my parents-in-law to China", netizens actively suggested "bring my parents-in-law to the Northeast where it's not hot", "don't go to the South, it's super hot", and "I'm looking forward to it".

The emergence of transnational couple bloggers has made the originally vague foreign lands into specific details such as decoration, food, and family, and has also become the traffic password on the Internet. However, it is precisely because of the information barrier and the difficulty of background checks that it is difficult to distinguish between true and false transnational couples.

2. From “creating your own brand” to “live streaming”: the business experience of a transnational couple blogger

Behind the emergence of a large number of transnational couple bloggers is the considerable profits brought by traffic.

@加州肉姐, who said in the early days that "I don't lack money, I don't sell goods", not only started live streaming to sell goods, but also created her own brand REVANNA with traffic, and launched different branch categories such as jewelry, perfume, agarwood, and beauty products and their own stores. At the same time, she is also frequently selling a "Syrian ancient soap".

Whether it is a self-created brand or a collaboration, the main selling point of online celebrities is the personality and story. The essence of @Saudi Meat Sister’s business is also the difference in foreign cultures. In her videos, the agarwood culture of the Middle East frequently appears, and @Saudi Meat Sister’s husband is also a person who “likes to collect various agarwood and perfumes.” Therefore, the creation of REVANNA has a reasonable background, and even has a certain regional culture to support it.

Although they are all sold domestically, when @乔治肉姐promotes agarwood or perfume, she emphasizes the "Middle Eastern characteristics", that is, "why more than 20 Middle Eastern countries are burning agarwood" and "why Middle Eastern girls like to put perfume on their hair."

However, some netizens discovered that the perfume sold by the blogger is actually shipped from Yiwu, and "can be wholesaled in Yiwu."

In addition, when @加州肉姐 was promoting Syrian ancient soap, she used the reason that "the situation in Syria is turbulent and unstable, and their domestic ancient soaps are piled up and cannot be sold, so we help solve the problem." Although it seems absurd, there are still many orders, and one of the ancient soap links shows a sales volume of 430,000.

But on the other hand, many netizens who have placed orders have personally tested it and found the user experience to be poor and hard to describe. Many netizens also said, "Just watch the show, why do you really buy it?"

Despite the controversy, @加州肉姐 has indeed made money by bringing goods. According to Chanmama data, @上午 has broadcast 104 live shows this year, 54 of which brought goods, with a total GMV of over 100 million. Other matrix accounts mainly use "videos to bring goods", and the total GMV of a single account ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions.

REVANNA Agarwood even ranked TOP2 on Douyin's incense review list, and the store "REVANNA Agarwood Garden Party" had sales exceeding 100,000.

Although @辣辣 does not have a personal brand in Saudi Arabia, the sales path is exactly the same as @加州肉姐, which is "matrix account + main account live broadcast sales + matrix account slice sales". Currently, @辣辣's sales categories in Saudi Arabia are mainly beauty and skin care, daily necessities, and jewelry, such as Turkish anti-hair loss shampoo, aromatherapy dry hair, and South African imported green cream.

The way most cross-border couple bloggers monetize is mainly through conventional live streaming and embedded promotions.

The Chinese wife of the Chinese-Japanese couple @妮宝一家 has started regular live streaming, with an average of about 40 live broadcasts per month. According to Chanmama data, the total sales of live streaming has reached 50 million to 75 million since January 1, 2024. However, the brands sold by @妮宝一家 are mainly beauty and skin care products of conventional mass brands such as Boruimei and Shiseido, as well as daily necessities, clothing and underwear, etc., without strong regional characteristics.

More international couples, such as @AriaAndBrandon and @TJandClaire, mainly use video placement, and the cooperative products are mostly skin care products, such as Estee Lauder Advanced Night Cream, La Mer, CeraVe Ammonia Cleanser, and Waterforward, etc.

Unlike the "Chinese woman and foreign man" who have achieved great success in both traffic and business, the "Chinese man and foreign woman" has relatively limited business. For example, although @KatAndCat is also a product placement, the cooperation is still in categories such as eye cream and clothing, with the American girlfriend playing the role of planting grass, and the frequency of cooperation is not high. Although @跨國國刘先森 has 185,000 fans, it currently only has links to snacks and daily necessities in the product window, and there is no live broadcast to bring goods, and there is almost no video placement.

The curious stories and perfect personalities have brought these bloggers room for monetization and also attracted more people to join.

3. Netizens collectively fight against fakes, are online couple bloggers a cyber scam?

Although transnational couple bloggers use information asymmetry to create dreams, the difficulty of background checking also makes them a hotbed for netizens to fight against fakes. As more and more transnational couple bloggers appear, netizens are no longer just immersed in the beautiful dreams created, and begin to actively dispel the enchantment.

A while ago, @Alife's Angel was exposed for "a girl and her mother teamed up to defraud 5 million yuan", shocking many fans and netizens. Although it ended with "the girl's mother was sentenced to 14 years", the girl publicly apologized and said that she was not aware of it.

But angry netizens did not buy it and started to dig deeper to fight the fake. Previously, the boy was rumored to be the son of Estee Lauder and had British royal blood, but netizens found out that "the man is not a nobleman at all, and his father is just a mid-level employee of Estee Lauder" and "he was just an unemployed vagrant before marrying the woman."

In addition to @Alife’s Angel whose profile was exposed, many top transnational couple bloggers who are still active have also been exposed for their fake profiles.

For example, @AriaAndBrandon, who has more than 4 million followers, was also embroiled in controversy over her “personality”, with people saying that the girl’s so-called scholarly family background was just a packaging. She was also accused of “selling fakes”, saying that the so-called Australian products were not Australian at all.

In fact, the core of netizens' doubts is the packaging of character settings, that is, the so-called sweet story is just a false script written by MCN.

Although, except for @Alife's Angel, there are no clear signs of collapse of other questioned bloggers, the associated MCN behind them also explains the existence of packaging to some extent.

For example, @AriaAndBrandon and @TJandClaire are both celebrities of Xianzi Culture, and the now-dead @Alife’s Angel is a celebrity of Erka Media, which holds 20% of Xianzi Culture’s shares. In other words, the same group of operators are behind these top transnational couple bloggers.

It was discovered that in addition to these transnational couple bloggers, Erka Media also has many top transnational life bloggers, such as @东北人(酱)在洛斯安迪, who has more than 10 million fans on Douyin, @保罗在美国, who has 12.348 million fans, and @张大碗子, who has 4.232 million fans.

Although the connection between the operators cannot be used as direct evidence for netizens to fight against counterfeiting, it is undeniable that the content presented in the end has been professionally packaged and designed, but to different degrees. "My friend's account started recording from the dating stage, and he started cooperating with MCN when he had only a few thousand fans," a netizen revealed.

Similarly, the highly-watched transnational couple bloggers who "married to the Middle East" have become the target of netizens' anti-counterfeiting efforts.

As early as 2022, travel blogger @申典启 publicly reported blogger @加州肉姐 for "misleading domestic women, supporting local religions, and selling voluntary low-quality perfumes", but there was no follow-up to the report.

Moreover, when comparing @税务肉姐 and @辣辣在那个加州, although they are not associated with the same MCN, they are almost cut from the same mold in terms of monetization logic and even slicing rhetoric. Even the content they share is similar, and the Saudi husbands of the two in the video are somewhat related to the perfume industry. Even netizens often can't tell them apart, "Are 那个蟹姐 and 辣辣在那个上午the same person?"

In addition, the blogger's portrayal of her husband's high class, industry, and social status were also questioned by netizens.

The pink bubbles presented by many transnational couple bloggers are also being burst by netizens, especially those who are also in transnational relationships.

"Find some white men to say some chicken soup for women, and you can become a spiritual leader", "These couple bloggers want to buy the idea that the two have no love at all and are purely for making money, or at least one of them has NPD", "I talked to my old npy, he said that it is really awkward to hold a camera to record the daily life of love, and he is not willing to make this money"... Many netizens mentioned.

In essence, whether it is an intimate relationship or a life of ostentatious wealth, transnational couple bloggers are selling information gaps, creating dreams on the Internet, and presenting a perfect life that is out of reach. True or false, it is okay to watch for fun, but when these bloggers, whose businesses are as difficult to distinguish as their personalities, start targeting fans' wallets and promoting certain values ​​in a subtle way, we still need to be cautious.

Author: Bean sprout

WeChat public account spicy (ID: ylwanjia)