Bad Haircut? A Hot Chinese App Is Giving Americans Blunt Advice
Young Americans, fed up with U.S. social media and its fake compliments and flagrant insults, are looking for something revolutionary: honest but civil feedback. And they’re turning to a Chinese app for it.
No, not TikTok. Xiaohongshu is a mix of Instagram and Reddit, a lifestyle bible for over 300 million monthly users seeking beauty, shopping, travel and life advice. In China, anyone looking for a restaurant review, a how-to guide or a trip itinerary is likely to fire up the app.
But U.S. teens and 20-somethings are downloading it to get in on a new beauty trend. Users clutching a sign with the Chinese characters “tingquan," meaning “listening to advice," invite others to weigh in on how to improve their appearance.
Commenters can write in tips, but they also post images of hairdos or fashions. Sometimes they even edit advice seekers’ photos to show how they will look with the improved styles. Unlike most alternatives, especially in the West, feedback can be unsettlingly direct but tends to be more constructive than hurtful.
The hashtag #tingquan has attracted more than 500 million views, in China and beyond. “People are so politically correct these days that they are afraid to speak what’s on their mind in fear of being socially canceled," said Candise Lin, who makes explainer videos about the newest Chinese social-media trends for her nearly two million followers on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. In China, people are more straightforward, sometimes even brutally honest, but they mean well, said Lin, who emigrated from China to California two decades ago.
She thinks people on U.S. social media can be excessively complimentary. That’s why young users who want real talk about their appearance and personal style are now
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