Young Westerners, facing narratives of economic decline, are drawn to Chinese content that depicts functionality, stability, and affordable pleasures. This imagery offers a compelling alternative to their perception of the struggling American dream.
A growing number of Chinese creators are uploading content to YouTube, motivated by the potential for direct ad revenue from a global audience. This trend, inspired by pioneers like Li Ziqi, marks a deliberate strategy to tap into overseas markets.
The popular online vision of China is highly curated. Content showing poverty or social ills is not created or promoted on Chinese platforms. This censorship, combined with the nature of short-form video, projects a distorted, uniformly positive image to the West.
Within China, 'Nei Yu' (domestic entertainment) is often a pejorative term. It refers to an insular, tightly controlled industry with unwritten patriotic rules that stifle artistic expression, making it unattractive for ambitious and globally-minded creators.
The online portrayal of China has fundamentally changed. A decade ago, it was dominated by content from Western expatriates. Post-COVID, this has been largely replaced by content from Chinese nationals, shifting the perspective and control of the narrative to local creators.
Online, there is 'Cool China'—a futuristic, creative nation—and 'Real China,' which includes youth unemployment and economic struggles. Western audiences overwhelmingly consume the former, filtering out the grim realities that circulate within China's own internet.
The "Chinamaxxing" cultural trend has two distinct streams: the consumption of authentic short-form videos from China showing daily life, and Western-produced content where creators parody or adopt these Chinese aesthetics, like Tai Chi or drinking Qingdao beer.
Chinese artists can achieve massive success without breaking into the U.S. market. The domestic market is so large that chasing American fame is often a poor investment compared to building a brand at home, thus limiting the creation of Western-tailored content.
The online relationship between the US and China involves mutual caricature. Chinese users see a US defined by crime and homelessness, while US users see a hyper-modern, problem-free China. Both sides are consuming and obsessed with highly skewed imagery of the other.
China's cultural influence spreads mainly through 'lowbrow' short-form content, not prestige films. Unlike movies with long production cycles, short videos can be created and distributed in minutes, enabling rapid, trend-responsive cultural transmission that high art cannot match.