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

In the wave of globalization, transnational couple bloggers have attracted a lot of attention from netizens with their unique cultural integration and lifestyle. They satisfy people's curiosity about different cultures and intimate relationships by sharing their daily lives in foreign countries. However, with the rise of this phenomenon, it has also triggered extensive discussions about authenticity, commercialization and cultural values. This article will explore how transnational couple bloggers build their image and attract traffic on the Internet, as well as the social significance and potential problems behind this phenomenon.

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 international couple would use this as a data traffic password."

…

But demystification 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 created by a transnational couple of bloggers, the performers and the audience keep repeating the process of "misplaced information flow - gradually losing novelty - looking for more contrasting content".

Gather traffic and then build business.

01 Seeking novelty, setting personalities, and showing affection: How do transnational couple bloggers create 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 secrets, transnational differences also add a layer of mystery to these bloggers themselves.

Especially the bloggers who "married far away in Saudi Arabia" are always questioned about "which wife they are", especially when @加州肉姐 had two children in the video, she was even more suspected of being the eldest wife's children.

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 comparison, the emotions displayed by the interracial love bloggers of "Chinese man and foreign woman" are not as delicate, and their personalities are more humorous.

For example, the Chinese-Russian couple @跨國際刘先森 mainly rely on earthy jokes to attract fans; in the videos of the Chinese-American couple @KatAndCat, the girls often use "strange Chinese accents" and wear military coats to show a funny image of being carefree, beautiful but not aware of it.

Behind this difference is the different audience groups. The core audience of "middle-aged women and foreign men" is women, while the audience of "middle-aged men and foreign women" is mainly men.

But in terms of scale, the cross-border pairing of "Chinese women and foreign men" on social platforms is far 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 do not specifically present this content will be asked by netizens to carry out reverse cultural output.

For example, in a recent video posted by @TJandClaire, a boy showed off his Chinese internet buzzwords.

This "patriotic sentiment card" once again helped the interracial couple bloggers win favor from domestic audiences.

In the comment section where @妮宝一家 said “I want to bring my parents-in-law to China”, netizens actively suggested “take my parents-in-law to the Northeast where it’s not hot”, “don’t go to the South where it’s super hot”, and “I’m looking forward to it”.

The emergence of transnational couple bloggers has refined the originally vague foreign country into specific details such as decoration, food, family, etc., and has also become the traffic code on the Internet.

But it is precisely because of the information barrier that background checks are difficult, making it difficult to distinguish between real and fake couples for many cross-border couples.

02 From "creating your own brand" to "selling goods through 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 used to say "I'm not short of money, I don't sell goods", not only started live streaming to sell goods, but also founded her own brand REVANNA based on the traffic, and launched different sub-categories such as jewelry, perfume, agarwood, and beauty products and their own stores.

At the same time, I also frequently bring a "Syrian ancient soap".

Whether it is a self-created brand or a collaboration, the main selling point of internet celebrities is their personality and story. The essence of @加州肉姐’s business is also the differences in exotic cultures.

The agarwood culture of the Middle East frequently appears in her videos, and @Ｓaudi Meat Sister’s husband is also a person who “likes to collect various agarwoods and perfumes”.

Therefore, the establishment 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 @乔治肉姐 was promoting Syrian ancient soap, she gave 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 are helping to solve the problem."

Although it seems absurd, there are quite a few orders. One of the ancient soap links shows sales 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 constant controversies, @税务肉姐 has indeed made money by promoting products.

According to the data from Chanmama, @ＳaudiMama has conducted 104 live broadcasts this year, including 54 with merchandise, with a total GMV of over 100 million.

Other matrix accounts mainly use "videos to bring goods", with the total GMV of a single account ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions. REVANNA Agarwood even ranked TOP2 on Douyin's online incense praise list, and the store "REVANNA Agarwood Garden Party" sold over 100,000 units.

Although @辣辣 does not have a personal brand in Saudi Arabia, her sales path is exactly the same as @加州肉姐, which is "matrix account + main account live streaming sales + matrix account slice sales".

Currently, the categories of products that @辣辣 sells 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 Sino-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 sales have reached 50 million to 75 million yuan since January 1, 2024.

However, the brands promoted by @妮宝一家 are mainly regular mass-market brands of beauty and skin care products such as Baramei and Shiseido, as well as daily necessities, clothing and underwear, etc., and do not have 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.

03 Netizens collectively agree that the transnational blogger couple is a cyber scam?

Although the transnational couple bloggers take advantage of the information gap to create dreams, the difficulty of background checking also makes them a hotbed for anti-counterfeiting by netizens.

As more and more transnational couple bloggers appear, netizens are no longer immersed in the created beautiful fantasy, but begin to actively disenchant it.

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 against counterfeiting.

Previously, it was rumored that the boy was the son of Estee Lauder and had British royal blood, but netizens revealed that "the boy is not a noble at all, and his father is just a mid-to-high-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, is also embroiled in controversy over her "personality", with people believing that the girl's so-called scholarly family background is just a packaging. She was also accused of "selling fakes", saying that the so-called Australian goods are not Australian at all. In fact, the core of netizens' doubts is the packaging of the personality, that is, the so-called sweet story is just a fake script written by MCN.

Although there is no clear sign of collapse of other suspected bloggers except @Alife's Angel, the associated MCNs behind them also indicate the existence of packaging to some extent. For example, @AriaAndBrandon and @TJandClaire are both talents of Xianzi Culture, and @Alife's Angel, whose reputation has collapsed, is a talent of Erka Media, which holds 20% of Xianzi Culture's shares.

In other words, behind these top transnational couple bloggers are the same group of manipulators.

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 traders cannot serve as direct evidence for netizens to fight against counterfeiting, it is undeniable that the content finally presented has been professionally packaged and designed, but to different degrees.

"My friend's account started recording from the dating stage, and he began cooperating with MCN when he only had a few thousand fans," revealed a netizen.

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, comparing @加州肉姐 and @辣辣在乔治, 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 people in the video have some relationship with the perfume industry.

Even netizens often can’t tell the difference, “Are Saudi Roujie and La La the same person in Saudi Arabia?”

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.