From group livestream

We discussed the rise of group livestreams on the platform and how they take a leaf out of the idol group playbook. However, the “wild west” growth of group livestreams has raised many concerns for platforms, including not paying employees properly or having risqué content. For this reason, Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, has announced new regulations and summoned several group streaming agencies for talks. Some commentators see this as a return to form for livestreams, like in the mid-2010s when it was all about dancers and livestream sales were in their infancy.

Against this backdrop of viral popularity and closer platform scrutiny, the next dance craze on Chinese social media was born out of group livestreams. A group called “Xiyue-X” (喜悦-X, lit. Joy-X), first debuted the later-nicknamed “leg sweep” dance in a 7-hour livestream in collaboration with another influencer. The dance is set to music by K-pop star Rain, and the moves also bear some resemblance. However, with a low-angle and slow action of sweeping their feet on the floor, the Xiyue-X version is clearly designed to show off the boy band members’ long and slender legs. The livestream had 11.99 million views in total, with peak simultaneous viewers reaching 300,000.

Via celebs

The mesmerising dance, like many group livestream dance moves, was designed to capture the “female gaze”, which other group streamers quickly caught on to. The dance quickly moved beyond the group streaming niche into the mainstream streaming world. Mainstream top streamers such as the “Cantonese Husband and Wife” team (广东夫妇) also performed a version of this dance.

But what followed really pushed the dance from its livestreaming roots into the “real mainstream”. Actor Ding Yuxi posted a video of himself, accompanied by four other equally tall and handsome backing dancers, performing the dance in a red-themed, professionally lit studio, adding atmosphere to the video and making it look once again, like a dance sequence from a music video. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “Ding Yuxi leg sweep dance” (#丁禹兮扫腿舞#) ranked number 4 on the Hot Search list with 49.94 million views.

The video propelled the dance to become a fad that every celeb must try, like the “peel-apart” film earlier this year. From former EXO singer Lu Han (鹿晗), to Ding Chengxin (丁程鑫) of TNT (时代少年团, Teens in Times) and actor Xia Zhiguang (夏之光), all the way to Korean K-pop veteran Kim Jae-joong, all have performed the dance in recent days.

To brands

With the dance firmly established in mainstream pop culture, brands are moving in to leverage its viral popularity. Taobao started with a male model in a Tao Xiaobao, the Taobao mascot, mask, performing the leg sweep dance, with a twist where his shirt unbuttons as the light switches to red. What followed were brand mascots, especially those trying to build their own IPs, such as Snow King from Mixue, Lucky from Luckin Coffee and his new bride, Duo from Duolingo, all tried their hands, or rather, legs, at the dance.

But unlike the pure physical appeal of the original dance, the often short-legged cartoon mascots mostly show humour with their clumsy attempts at the boy band moves. Lucky’s slightly “greasy” (油腻) dance also draws jokey pokes at the “taste of married men”. Duo promptly came out to support his new groom (Globally, Duo is referred to with male pronouns).

The trend is similar to how Snow King launched the “swing over a lake” viral trend, which was followed by nearly every brand mascot active on social media.

Pundits believe this reflects how brands are now leveraging the “crazy” and “abstract” humour that plays on the surreal and post-modern. This content style tends to resonate widely among younger generations in China and also brings official accounts closer to users. While for higher-positioned brands it might seem like they’re simply following a trend, brands meant for everyday use, such as e-commerce platforms and coffee shops, joining the fun might be the way to become “one of us” among the post-00 generation.

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• Douyin brings both an offline market and online livestreams to China’s “Porcelain Capital”, Jingdezhen.
• Focusing on “guochao” and traditional crafts, the market and livestream also feature hanfu, tea, jewellery and more.
• An omnichannel experience, Douyin integrates cultural travel and e-commerce through the festival IP.

From mid-July to early August, Douyin, the Chinese sister app of TikTok, launched an online and offline event called the “Stroll Festival” (officially Liuda&Jie, 溜达节). Hosted in Jingdezhen, Douyin Mall, the platform’s e-commerce arm, coordinated hundreds of merchants, streamers and influencers to bring the event online.

Jingdezhen (景德镇), a small city in Jiangxi Province in southern China, has long been known as the “Porcelain Capital”. In recent years, with the rise of “Guochao 3.0” and “New Chinese Style”, its products have been refreshed frequently, gaining popularity among younger audiences. With the rise of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and cultural travel, Jingdezhen has become a popular destination. This past May Day holiday, many young professionals chose the city for its markets, culture, and sights.

Citywalk, Chinese style

For the offline aspect, Douyin hosted a market with over 300 merchants in Jingdezhen. Many of the participating vendors operate in the “Guochao” or traditional culture sphere, from hanfu brands to “Chinese-style tea” brands such as CHAGEE. Traditional crafts also featured heavily at the festival, not just local ceramics artisans, but also brass craft and figures like Nezha from the film Ne Zha 2.

The market was spread across five tourist attractions around Jingdezhen, with other merchants offering tea sets, ICH chinaware, jade, gold and jewellery, as well as flowers, local delicacies and even cultural and creative IPs, covering both traditional and innovative creations.

As with any creative market today, food, beverages and activities were not amiss at the Stroll Festival. For offline visitors, there were performances such as an evening drone show and a porcelain band playing ceramic-tuned percussive instruments.

Cloud market

For a Douyin-hosted event livestreamed online, this was the main attraction. Unlike usual studio livestreams, merchants and the “Stroll Festival” streamed from the outdoor markets, providing immersive experiences for viewers who couldn’t attend the offline market.

Douyin organised 12 of the biggest merchants into the “12 Shichen of Jingdezhen” (a shichen, 时辰, is a traditional Chinese timekeeping unit equivalent to two hours). Rather than a continuous 24-hour event, the talks and craft showcases were livestreamed across 10 days at different times. Piececool, a “guochao” 3D metal model kit brand, brought its wearable Phoenix Coronet model to the “12 shichen” livestream. Meanwhile, the Jingdezhen China Ceramics Museum hosted a “night at the museum” livestream, showcasing its collection, including the (in)famous “Speechless Buddha”.

While livestreamers took viewers on a tour of the booths, some merchants also visited others, especially food stalls, while streaming. This interactivity created a festive atmosphere. Brands also innovated with their streams: the hanfu brand Guzhuo not only hosted a mini fashion show featuring Jingdezhen china, but paired it with a tea ceremony to complement the traditional lifestyle. The livestream reached the top 5 on Douyin’s ICH livestream category.

By the people

There is a new buzzword in marketing, advertising, and generally anything business-related in China, “活人感” (lit. sense of the living). It is a mix of brand personality and a pushback against the “dead internet theory”. The idea is that people can feel there is a real person behind the campaigns and sales events, not just a bot or a corporate machine. Douyin’s “Stroll Festival” is an inspired example of that.

All the buzzwords of the past year, emotional consumption, experience economy and cultural marketing, all point to the fatigue with transactional shopping that lacks a human touch. Douyin brings the usual backstage artisanship to the forefront, creating content for seeding, while offering a “cloud shopping” experience through livestreams of the offline market. Themed livestreams bring an overarching omnichannel layer to users. Not only can viewers buy from the channels, but offline visitors can also scan the code to buy directly from the livestream channels.

The “Stroll Festival” or Liuda&Jie is set to arrive in more cities beyond Jingdezhen in the future. This new IP is likely Douyin’s next step in social commerce, uniting the content-seeding-transaction into one ecosystem. This, in Douyin’s own way, challenges the “interest community” that Rednote is building. It would seem that the social-turned-ecommerce platforms are now finding the next phase of the market, while traditional e-commerce platforms are now locked in a war of attrition in the “local life” services.

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Named “奇美拉” (lit. Chimaera), the platform is reportedly in an invite-only closed testing phase and is currently free to use. The report also says that it is expected to enter public testing by the end of the month. Developed by ByteDance’s smart generative digital human team, it leverages technological support, primarily AI large language models (LLMs) from Volcengine, to provide digital humans, outfit changes via image and video translation services, etc. Prices will be based on usage and the length of videos generated. However, ByteDance has not yet responded to the claims.

Volcengine has been actively expanding its presence in the digital human sector since 2022, when it received a license for digital humans from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). In April 2023, the platform launched its digital human products described as “good at listening”, “able to speak,” and “capable of thinking”. It has since released multiple solutions for finance, livestream and marketing. In February, ByteDance unveiled its latest end-to-end multimodal AI digital human, the Ominihuman, which can turn single images into life-like moving visuals that can speak, sing and move naturally.

During the recent 618 Shopping Festival, Baidu debuted its digital human avatar of top streamer and entrepreneur Luo Yonghao. Luo’s digital doppelgänger spoke and moved naturally to an AI-generated script. During the 7-hour stream, over 1.3 million people tuned in, and the gross merchandise value (GMV) reached 5.5 million RMB (766,443.70 USD). With Volcengine’s Doubao LLM (豆包大模型) expanding its services across sectors, the new digital human platform will likely serve as another piece of the puzzle in monetising LLMs for ByteDance.

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Group livestream is, as the name suggests, a livestream featuring groups of people. However, in this context ‘groups’ is closer in meaning to idol groups, i.e. boy bands and girl groups. This type of livestream was born from the ashes of “low-quality” dance livestreams, but with “high quality”: streamers with stronger dancing skills, better choreography and higher production value. They don’t just dance either, as many participate in their own variety streams so viewers can get to know them better. There is also a range of genres, from traditional Chinese style to “erciyuan” ACGN or cosplayers. But they still monetise through the usual “tip” or “gift” systems during the stream.

Unlike the flirty content typical of the “low-quality” livestream era, group livestreams take a leaf from the idol playbook, allowing viewers to follow the members’ growth in their careers. For many, it is also a replacement for idol variety shows that were popular a couple of years ago. Viewers support the streamers like they do idols, and the streamers dance and participate like in variety shows. There are also former idols who join group livestreams for the new market. Another big difference is that women are becoming a major demographic consuming group livestream of both boy and girl groups in China. Some pundits believe this is because women have long been the target audience for idol groups, K-pop and related variety shows.

Meanwhile, as competition in the job market becomes more intense, many people see group livestreaming as an opportunity to earn quick money, both for agencies and streamers. However, “earning over 1 million RMB (139,421.40 USD) a month” is not a reality for everyone. Many are still struggling, as the market becomes increasingly saturated. In late June, a hashtag went viral on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, called “almost forgot what I used to do since I started group streaming”. From aspiring singers and actors to news anchors, on-screen reporters, and even doctors and nurses, many share old photos of themselves in the workplace, in contrast with how they look today. Hopefully, in this time of economic uncertainty, group livestreams can generate enough work for streamers and provide entertainment for their viewers.

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JD.com, the platform that started the 618 Shopping Festival 18 years ago, saw the number of users who made purchases grow by over 100%. The combined number of orders on JD.com online and offline, as well as takeaway, surpassed 2.2 billion. The JD.com app saw record-breaking users. Livestream orders grew 210% from last year, while JD Video also saw its orders increase by 251%. Meanwhile, Tmall from Alibaba reported that 453 brands reached over 100 million RMB (13.93 million USD) in transactions, up 24% YoY.

Subsidies and fatigue

The state-backed consumer subsidies for electrical appliances, consumer electronics and homeware were one of the main contributors to the 618 Shopping Festival this year. On the one hand, it is part of the reason JD.com, a platform with roots in appliances and electronics, thrived with quarterly revenue up 13.4% and 16% YoY in Q1 and Q2. But on the other hand, the subsidies introduced at the beginning of this year have led many consumers in the market for new subsidised goods to make their purchases already.

Partly due to the subsidies and partly due to a strategic shift, we have been seeing consistently low prices all year round in various categories and on different platforms. There have also been anecdotal reports that some items enjoyed less discount than the International Women’s Day (IWD) sales in March. The long sales period also desensitised people, making the event less exciting.

Top streamers: exit?

This year, we are seeing two interpretations regarding top streamers. Commentators in China have been calling for an end to top streamers. But this year, the opinion is divided on whether they’ve started phasing out or simply changed the way they operate.

First of all, many big names participated in the 618 livestream sales, such as Xinba (辛巴), Austin Li Jiaqi (李佳琦) and Dong Yuhui (董宇辉) of Walking with Hui (与辉同行). Many of them significantly reduced their presence on their channel, especially Xinba and Dong Yuhui. Xinba only appeared on 2 streams in May, and Dong appeared on 9 livestreams over the course of the festival, while Li Jiaqi appeared on 6 in June. However, Xinba sold a whopping 4 billion RMB (556.44 million USD) on his first stream, while Li Jiaqi earned between 2.5 and 3.5 billion RMB (347.78 and 486.89 million USD) and Dong, 176 million RMB (24.48 million USD).

Top Streamers: pursued by AI?

Meanwhile, the top streamers are growing their team to make up for their reduced presence. Xinba’s apprentice Dandan (蛋蛋) earned an impressive 1 billion RMB (139.11 million USD) on her first stream this 618, proving that it is doable. However, Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) of Be Friends (交个朋友) took a different path.

On 15 June, Luo appeared on Baidu’s livestream sales channel. But despite his natural interaction with his co-host, he only knew minute details about the products and his facial expressions were slightly off. It turns out that Luo did not personally appear on the stream, but rather his digital human doppelgänger. The co-host was also a digital human. A 97,000-word script and the 8,300 movements were all created by AI, uncanny to Luo’s style and mannerisms. He later posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, that he was stunned by the result. The stream attracted 1.3 million views, and the GMV reached 55 million RMB (765,110.94 USD). The stunt proved another way to replace top streamers in 2025.

But a less dramatic use of AI was also impressive this year. AIGC tools, such as Taobao’s image-to-video generation tool, helped many apparel merchants create modelling videos from photoshoots. Alimama, the marketing wing of Alibaba, also provided store management tools for merchants to find the right audience, including the creation of marketing assets.

Other trends this year included more microdramas being deployed for sales, and food delivery platform Meituan joined the festival with its “instant retail” arm. Also, multi-channel network (MCN) agencies are doubling down on launching their own brands, such as Li Jiaqi’s Mei One, expanding its Mei One Selection range, while East Buy is launching its own brand of sanitary pads.

Rednote did not participate in the 618 sales at all, but soft-launched its new social commerce feature, the “friendly market” in June to showcase what its e-commerce future will look like. As many pundits commented, the focus this year is on people, and how to reach the right audience. This is shown in how Rednote parted ways with the festival, as well as Alibaba providing AI tools for its merchants. Perhaps we’ll see a different 618 next year or a more diverse sales strategy that is not anchored to large-scale festivals.

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The event marked POP MART’s first-ever livestream sale outside China and featured a limited edition LABUBU. POP MART also brought on American actress and YouTuber Teala Dunn to stream live from its theme park, POPLAND, in Beijing for a special event. Dunn also noted that all her friends had installed AliExpress especially for the stream.

On the day of the sale, more than 240,000 people from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand viewed the stream with live comments from different continents and languages, greeting each other. More than a dozen listings from popular IPs such as LABUBU quickly sold out. AliExpress has expressed intentions of holding a second livestream sale for overseas consumers after restocking.

The livestream also attracted many Chinese students studying abroad, despite POP MART branches being in those countries, such as the UK. It is, of course, mostly due to the lower prices offered by the cross-border platform and because of the rare editions included in the event.

POP MART entered AliExpress as early as 2020, and with the recent LABUBU boom, helped to propel designer toys to become the most searched for terms on AliExpress, with GMV growing 300% year-on-year in H1 2025. The “Overseas 618” on AliExpress will last till 26 June.

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On the previous day, Alimama, Alibaba’s digital marketing branch, announced a 3 billion RMB (411.63 million USD) subsidy for merchants in the form of “red envelopes”. This would make Alibaba’s total subsidies for the 618 Festival this year 5 billion RMB (686.09 million USD). At the same event, Alimama also announced that its AI services will be available for merchants this 618. From image-to-video AIGC to AI-powered search features, Alimama provides AI services for both content and merchandise.

Meanwhile, JD.com, the arch-rival of Alibaba, renewed its partnership with BiliBili for another 618 to combine “seeding” (种草) content and e-commerce to keep up with Taobao’s livestream content ecosystem. Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, has also begun to drum up interest for its 618 campaign with promotional livestreams to recruit merchants. Rednote, on the other hand, released a guide for merchants and streamers to prepare for the annual shopping fest.

Commentators observe that this year, preparations for 618 from major platforms started about 10 days earlier than last year. The “hardest” 618 in 2024 saw 742.8 billion RMB (101.93 billion USD) sold across platforms in total, down 7% year-on-year, and was the first ever 618 to see a decline in sales. It is little wonder that platforms have started planning earlier, and it’s worth continued monitoring to see how the new strategies will work.

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Their clients range from the NBA and many of its stars to Will Smith and the American band OneRepublic, whose recent appearances on the BiliBili New Year’s Eve Gala and the CMG Spring Festival Gala wowed Chinese audiences.

• #甲亢哥来华的幕后推手The people behind IShowSpeed’s China trip: 15.09 million views on Weibo, ranking number 2 on the Hot Search list
• #对话甲亢哥中国行幕后操盘团队 Dialogue with the team behind IShowSpeed’s China trip: 7.41 million views on Weibo, ranking number 14 on the Hot Search list

While East Goes Global arranged Speed’s itinerary, another big part of the success of IShowSpeed in China is his social presence in the country. A Chinese company called 88rising manages Speed’s Chinese social media accounts. East Goes Global said in an interview that “authenticity” was what made the IShowSpeed trip so successful, the “real China” and the genuine responses from Speed and those around him were what captured the eyes and imagination of Chinese and global netizens.

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By now, you have probably heard of the “Unc” or “Uncle” (卤鹅哥, lit. Braised Goose Bro) who started off following Speed across 5 cities, feeding him braised goose from his hometown, Rongchang, Chongqing and ended up sitting next to Speed at the final banquet in Changsha. The man who began his journey in Chongqing, wearing the “Dongbei Dahua” floral print.

There has been footage circulating of Weng videobombing Speed, screaming “Changsha” in Wenheyou and then trying to move Unc, who’s sitting beside Speed, by telling him “I’m boss” [sic] and trying to take the seat next to the American streamer.

Netizens feel that the “green guy” showed little respect to the people present, including IShowSpeed. And those following Speed’s streams have already developed a soft spot for Unc and won’t tolerate this behaviour from a stranger. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, the topic “Wenheyou boss videobombing IShowSpeed stream sparks controversy” (#甲亢哥直播文和友老板抢镜引争议#) reached number 5 on the Hot Search list with 38.42 million views.

Weng was later found out to be not actually the “boss” of the restaurant chain but a co-founder and board member. However, another co-founder of Wenheyou doesn’t seem to be concerned about the backlash and said it’s not necessary to respond to the situation.

While Unc receives a reward of 100,000 RMB (13,605.35 RMB) from his hometown for promoting its braised goose, the Changsha branch of Wenheyou has been flooded with thousands of negative reviews for the behaviour of its co-founder. It would seem that the righteous indignation from netizens has finally been vindicated.

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On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, the topic “IShowSpeed Changsha” (#甲亢哥长沙#) reached number 4 on the Hot Search list with 50.22 million views. From admiring nature in the Yuelu Mountain to walking down the historical Taiping Street, all the way to experiencing the 80s-themed multi-storey restaurant space Super Wenheyou, IshowSpeed’s Changsha itinerary seems less internet-centric but closer to a bog-standard package tour of the city. Although moments of people trying to get their 15 minutes of fame still occurred, everything seemed less chaotic and much better planned.

The collaboration with Da Zhang Wei took place in the Hunan TV studio (or Mango TV as they’re known online), a channel popular for its variety shows. From Zhang and Speed’s first meeting to the pair’s performance of “Sunshine, Rainbow, White Pony”, every moment was captured on stream. Although the variety show has not yet aired, people who have seen the stream already pushed the topic “Mango cringe” to the top of the Hot Search list with 22.48 million views. The hashtag is mostly about the TV station’s tight grip on Speed’s itinerary and shameless plugs of itself, potentially ruining the historic moment between the originator and disseminator of the “neige” meme.

A lively banquet was hosted with customary meetings with local ethnic minorities (Miao people this time), like any foreign VIP, with Da Zhang Wei helping an ever so slightly out of element IShowSpeed with the timing of toasts. The Changsha tour, which happened after China Central Television (CCTV) aired an 8-minute special on Speed. Carrying on the Situationist theme with our exclusive opinion piece, it is a great recuperation of the grassroots meme hero’s “abstract” journey to the East.

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