Who is having a “cyber blind date” in the Xiaohongshu live broadcast room?

Recently, the post-00s have started a new way of socializing - cyber dating, making friends through live broadcasts on social networks. What is it like? Let's take a look.

The post-2000s have adopted a new social method - cyber dating. A typical move is to make friends through live broadcasts on social networks.

For example, young people on the cyber blind date platform Xiaohongshu place more emphasis on personal traits and common interests rather than traditional family background and material conditions. Common topics include lifestyle, horoscopes, MBTI personality test, games, anime, etc., in search of "soulmates" and "like-minded people".

Of course, city coordinates, height, age and even weight are also key points they do not avoid.

Different live broadcast rooms also present different atmospheres, some are like live variety shows, and some are like exchanges with like-minded people. The common feature is that the traditional blind date model is often restrained and utilitarian, while in blind date live broadcast rooms like Xiaohongshu, they are more willing to open their hearts and show their true selves without fear of being judged.

What this reflects is the post-00s’ desire for self-expression and personality liberation.

You can think of this type of live broadcast room as a subset of "interest-based social networking", which includes attributes such as light social interaction, emotional connection, and emotional compensation.

To a large extent, this type of live broadcast room on Xiaohongshu has broadened the social motivations and social actions of contemporary young people - social networking based on interests, cyber blind dating, and finding people with similar interests.

The special thing is that while these young people are engaging in cyber blind dates, they are also truly presenting the collision of contemporary young people's views on marriage and friendship, population mobility and geographical concepts, circle culture and multiculturalism.

01‍‍‍ Three years of blind dating, five years of simulation

"Students, remember this! If he says he is 1.79 meters tall, how do you calculate it? Subtract 4 from 5! 1.75 meters!" As he said this, the Xiaohongshu blogger "Wangwang Cousin" grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote down the formula on the blackboard, and calculated seriously.

In the live broadcast room, Wangwang's cousin turned into a love mentor and used an "exaggerated" tone and "exaggerated" body movements to give a vivid "love lesson" to the netizens who were celebrating 520 in the live broadcast room.

Then, he summarized the keywords that are often used in male dating resumes, such as "occasionally smoking" and "occasionally drinking". "Students, what is the truth behind the frequency adverb 'occasionally'? Change occasionally to often!" He said, while changing "sometimes" to "often" on the blackboard.

Netizens in the comment section interacted with him frequently. He would throw out questions and the audience would rush to answer them. As for those who got the answers wrong, he would pretend to tease them in a teacher's tone: "If you still get it wrong after I've taught you so many times, you'll get it wrong in the next exam!"

After the small class ended, Wangwang's cousin started to connect with fans. In this session, Wangwang's cousin asked them to analyze a "blind date question" on the spot.

This is the live broadcast style of Wangwang’s cousin. He explains “three years of blind dating and five years of simulation” in the form of blackboard writing, summarizes “love skills” and provides suggestions on mate selection.

In addition to Wangwang's cousin, the recent Xiaohongshu 520 Cyber ​​Blind Date Conference also attracted active "emotional bloggers" on Xiaohongshu such as "Very Active in Literature and Art" and "Come for a Blind Date if You're Tired of Living" to participate.

Another interesting thing is that many vertical bloggers have brought live broadcasts of blind dates from different circles, such as the Internet circle, cross-border blind dates for game anchors, blind dates for North American international students, intellectual love in the financial circle, and even pet blind dates, etc.

Unlike traditional dating events such as the People's Park, Xiaohongshu's Cyber ​​Dating is not a job fair for exchanging resumes, but more like a personal gathering of people with similar interests. Nearly 10,000 people were online at the same time in this "Cyber ​​Dating" theme live broadcast, and more than 700,000 people watched everyone's live dating.

Similar live broadcasts are carried out almost every day. In particular, the post-00s have begun to become one of the protagonists. Boys and girls with distinctive personalities enter the anchor's live broadcast room through the live broadcast connection and chat freely under the anchor's guidance.

These post-00s pursue direct, authentic, and inclusive emotional expressions. Sometimes they share their life stories, sometimes show off their unique skills, and sometimes smile knowingly at each other. Off camera, comments scroll rapidly, netizens actively interact, cheer for their favorite guests, try to make connections, or after seeing the introduction of the guests, click on their personal homepages to start private messages to recommend themselves.

02‍‍‍ The “Third Space” of Urban Life

Different blind date hosts have different live broadcast styles.

Compared with the interactive talk show style of Wangwang's cousin, "Come for a blind date if you're tired of living" and "Very active in literature and art" are more like real-life variety shows where ordinary people go on blind dates and make friends.

The anchor "Tired of Living, Come to Blind Date", known as "Huo Teacher". Huo Teacher has been reported by the media before. She was a postgraduate entrance examination candidate. In order to urge herself to prepare for the exam, she started a live broadcast on Xiaohongshu to record the process of memorizing. This format must be familiar to many Xiaohongshu users who do not participate in blind date live broadcasts. Zhang Jingchu live broadcasts her usual study and postgraduate entrance examination process on Xiaohongshu.

Because Huo's way of reciting is quite interesting, it attracted many students who were also preparing for the exam to watch and connect with him. Unfortunately, Zhang Jingchu passed the exam, but Huo failed to pass the 2023 postgraduate entrance examination because of a score short of one point in a professional course. After failing the exam, he was depressed for a while.

However, she fulfilled her promise to fans and transformed the postgraduate entrance examination live broadcast room into a blind date live broadcast room "If you are tired of living, come to blind date". She is good at getting closer to the guests through praise and interaction, making full use of her professional expertise in broadcasting and hosting.

As the popularity of the live broadcast room increased, the postgraduate entrance examination group was transformed into a blind date community, and the former postgraduate entrance examination fans have become the backbone of the blind date live broadcast room today. She and her partner Lai Tumi cooperated, one was responsible for the front stage, and the other was responsible for the backstage operation.

Teacher Huo currently positions the live broadcast room as "emotional value" rather than utilitarian pursuit of the success rate of blind date matching. Of course, the traffic and popularity accumulated by the live broadcast room also brought her some opportunities to realize.

After watching the live broadcast of the 520 Cyber ​​Dating Conference by Huo Lao Shi, I was reminded again of the information we have interpreted from observing the Xiaohongshu community since 2019. "In the city of Xiaohongshu, a glimpse into the lifestyle of this era", "Why is Xiaohongshu the birthplace of "light social networking"?" The key words are city and light social networking.

The live broadcast room of Huo Lao Shi has attracted a large number of young people who are studying or working in other places. This in itself reflects the high mobility of the contemporary urban population and the reconstruction of the social network. The online community has integrated atomized individuals to a certain extent and has become a new "geo-regional" bond of the city.

The transformation from postgraduate entrance examination group to blind date group also partially illustrates that the small community under the big community of Xiaohongshu is not static. It can flexibly complete the transformation from function-oriented, interest-oriented to emotion-oriented.

The role of teachers in Xiaohongshu is similar to that of "opinion leaders" in traditional urban communities. They are well versed in community culture and good at mobilizing interpersonal interactions, which is of great significance to maintaining urban grassroots social networks and cultivating community identity.

The fans of Huo Laoshi on Xiaohongshu show a strong sense of identity and belonging to the live broadcast room, and are even willing to take the initiative to devote time and energy to maintain the community. This spontaneous public participation behavior is exactly the same as the autonomy and sense of participation of citizens in the real community. This shows that online communities are becoming an important extension of real communities.

The live broadcast room of "Literature and Art is Very Positive" also presents a cheerful picture: the guests take turns to go on stage to introduce their age, height, place of origin, occupation, interests and hobbies, etc., and compete to show their talents such as singing and crosstalk, providing richer and more three-dimensional personal information for finding the right person.

And at a time when Na Ying is once again at the peak of her popularity, teacher "Na Ying" has been invited as a special guest at the 520 Cyber ​​Dating Conference, which undoubtedly adds a "Yingzi flavor" to the live broadcast room.

As modern society becomes more mobile, the influence of traditional social ties such as kinship and geography is fading.

This change has caused many young people to face "social stagnation" and "family crisis", and has also put them into the social dilemma of "collective loneliness".

The existence of such cyber blind dates and interest-based social networking has created a kind of urban "third space" for young people, alleviating the sense of alienation from the fast-paced urban life while satisfying their emotional needs.

Psychosocial scientist Sherry Turkle argues that as people interact more with machines, we expect less and less from each other.

In the blind date live broadcast room, "Art is very active" and the guests jointly created a unique interactive mode and emotional atmosphere. Taking turns to perform, praising each other, and reveling together all have a certain "ritual-like" attribute, allowing real individuals to gain psychological satisfaction and a sense of belonging.

In addition, during the live broadcast of "Art is Very Positive", I noticed some interesting details: for example, a female guest brought her five cats to the blind date, which added a new direction to the "business" of the live broadcast room;

• A young man claimed that he looked very much like the celebrity Zhang Yunlong and was called "Zhang Yunlong" in the live broadcast room.
• A female guest named Li Jie who works in Japan revealed that she likes Takeshi Kaneshiro, but has age requirements.
• The male guest "Matcha Brother" likes girls with muscles, but it seems that he does not satisfy the female guests present.
• …

These expressions and feedback once again confirm that Xiaohongshu is a place where diverse cultures intersect, where different life concepts and different values ​​collide and merge.

The inclusiveness of the dating live broadcast room is a microcosm of the city's cultural diversity. The individual expressions of the participants reflect the cultural characteristics of modernity.

03‍‍‍ The product of the integration of technology, community and humanity

In addition to anchors who focus on the emotional field, there are also vertical bloggers from all walks of life who present different live broadcasts. Through this field, more topics diverging from blind dates and making friends can be discussed.

The blogger in the financial circle, "Elysia, whose name is super hard to pronounce", discussed the importance of appearance and inner qualities. Elysia believes that the ratio of appearance to inner qualities is about 3:7, with inner qualities taking the lead. She appreciates men who are interesting, childlike, and willing to learn. In terms of appearance, it is good to be comfortable to look at, and she does not pursue an invincible handsome man.

Someone in the comment section asked if she likes science and engineering men. Elysia laughed and said that she likes men who are intelligent and have inner qualities, and is an "intellectual lover."

Elysia presents an image of an independent, free-spirited, and opinionated modern urban woman. Her views represent the voices of many women in the financial industry - they are independent, confident, successful in their careers, and hope to find a like-minded partner who can appreciate and achieve each other.

Yomi, a product manager in the Internet industry, brought about a collision of "technology and emotion". She and the guests discussed some product design and operation topics of dating apps. For example, users may have psychological concerns about such apps and how to resolve them; how dating apps can acquire customers and how to leave a good first impression on users.

A guest shared an "AI" dating product they are working on. This product attempts to use AI to realize the role of "matchmaker" in traditional blind dates, such as helping users screen matching objects and providing dating advice. The main profit model is membership subscription.

Regarding this product, the guests also raised some concerns and suggestions on the technical implementation, such as how to control the content given by AI and how to achieve hierarchical display of content/functions.

It is worth mentioning that young people who grew up in different cultural backgrounds have also begun to try to break the barriers of region and circle through cyber blind dating. For example, some international students have launched a special "North American International Students Dating Bureau" in the hope of connecting people who are wandering overseas. They use English and multicultural perspectives to add an international touch to the live broadcast room.

When game anchors cross over to participate in dating shows, the boundary between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds becomes blurred. These seemingly niche cross-border interactions actually reflect the new changes in the emotional concepts and social methods of the younger generation.

In essence, Cyber ​​Dating is a product of the integration of technology, community and humanity in the Internet era. On the one hand, digital tools such as live broadcast and bullet screen have reshaped the way people interact, allowing strangers to quickly build trust and connections. On the other hand, it also carries the yearning of the post-00s for beautiful love, allowing more diverse young people's lives and real emotions to be seen by more people.

Of course, the Cyber ​​Dating Live Room is not a panacea. It may only alleviate the loneliness of young people to a certain extent. But it is undeniable that the rise of Cyber ​​Dating reflects the need of modern young people for emotional connection.

Each generation has its own dating corner, and different eras have different emotional appeals and social methods. For those born in the 1960s and 1970s, it might be People's Park, where parents matchmake and leave messages on the streets to find a date. They arrange blind dates for their children or seek true love and marriage for themselves. For those born in the 1980s and 1990s, QQ Space and Xiaonei.com were their "secret gardens" for finding confidants and romance.

Xiaohongshu’s cyber blind date live broadcast room has become the “People’s Park” for the post-00s generation - sharing real-life content and cross-circle communication and interaction.

To a large extent, cyber blind dating and the current stage characteristics of urban development also represent each other. It is a new picture of urban social life. It truly reflects the difficulties and needs faced by the post-00s in their emotional life, and also presents the different sides of the post-00s, both calm and passionate.