A little bit of warmth is better than nothing.
Across China's cities, a generation of young adults raised on economic promise but met with emotional austerity has turned to an unlikely source of comfort: strangers on the internet who speak to them as parents never did. Content creators offering warmth, affirmation, and unconditional acceptance have amassed millions of followers, not because they offer anything new, but because they offer something old that was never given. The phenomenon reveals a quiet reckoning unfolding in post-boom China, where the costs of a particular kind of love — demanding, critical, conditional — are finally being named.
- A generation that grew up during China's economic rise now faces stalled careers, relentless parental pressure, and an emotional vocabulary their families never learned to speak.
- Virtual parent creators on Douyin have accumulated millions of followers by doing something radical in its simplicity: telling young people they are already enough.
- The hunger is so widespread it has produced viral memes, therapy waiting lists, and muted family group chats — small acts of self-preservation against a love that feels like correction.
- State media have pushed back with appeals to filial piety, but young people are not rejecting their parents so much as mourning the warmth those parents could not give.
- The creators themselves know the comfort they offer is commodified and scaled, and their audiences know it too — yet both sides keep showing up, because a little warmth, however manufactured, still works.
Vincent Zhang, a tech worker in Shanghai, has built a quiet ritual around his lunch break: watching videos of a middle-aged couple who speak to the camera with the tenderness his own parents never offered. Nearly two million people follow Pan Huqian and Zhang Xiuping on Douyin, drawn by the same hunger — for unconditional affirmation, for the simple acknowledgment that they are already enough.
Vincent's actual parents call weekly. The conversations leave him drained. They question his career, press him about relationships, and treat every choice as something to be corrected. What the virtual parents offer instead is a reprieve — no judgment, no hidden agenda, just warmth. Pan himself grew up without a single word of encouragement from his own parents, and when his daughter was born, he made a deliberate choice to break that cycle. Now he and his wife extend that same tenderness to strangers, and it resonates.
The young people drawn to these creators belong to a specific historical moment. Their parents' generation witnessed China's transformation into an economic powerhouse and absorbed its ethos of sacrifice and striving. But the boom has flattened. Youth unemployment has lingered above fifteen percent, burnout is openly discussed, and the future that once seemed assured no longer does. A viral skit about a bowl of soup — a son blamed for ingratitude when he politely declines, then blamed again when he falls ill — has become shorthand for something many recognize in their own families.
Some, like twenty-eight-year-old Zhao Xuan, have muted family group chats and learned to treat parental criticism as background noise. Others have tried therapy. State media urge patience and filial understanding, but Vincent is not persuaded. He can acknowledge his parents' hardships, he says, while still naming his own.
He is not naive about what he consumes. He knows the warmth is commodified, that Pan and Zhang are now signed with companies and producing content at scale. He understands that comforting virtual children is easier than navigating real family relationships. And yet he defends it. A little warmth, he says, is better than nothing — a small pocket of validation in a world that has grown increasingly indifferent to whether he is happy.
Vincent Zhang sits at his desk in Shanghai, phone in hand, scrolling through videos during lunch. The tech worker has developed a ritual: checking in on his "virtual parents," a middle-aged couple who appear on screen to offer him something his actual parents never do. "Are you tired from work and study lately?" they ask the camera, their voices warm and measured. "Don't push yourself too hard. Mum and Dad know that you have endured a lot." Nearly two million people follow Pan Huqian and Zhang Xiuping on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, and they are part of a growing phenomenon: content creators who have positioned themselves as emotional surrogates for young Chinese adults feeling squeezed between impossible expectations and insufficient support.
Vincent's own parents call weekly, and the conversations leave him drained. They criticize his choice to work in tech rather than pursue a government job, which they see as more stable. They ask when he will bring a girlfriend home. "From the moment the phone call begins, all my actions and choices are wrong, and something to be corrected by them," he says. What he craves instead is what the virtual parents offer: unconditional affirmation, the simple acknowledgment that he is already enough. Pan and Zhang understand this hunger because they have lived it. Pan left home at fourteen to support his family after his mother became paralyzed. For thirty-three years, he says, his parents never offered him a word of encouragement. When his own daughter was born, he made a deliberate choice to break that cycle, telling her constantly that he loved her. Now he and his wife extend that same tenderness to strangers online, and it resonates with a generation that has never known it.
The young people drawn to these creators belong to a particular moment in Chinese history. Their grandparents endured the famine of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution's violent purges. Their parents grew up as the country emerged from those shadows and opened to the world. But Vincent's generation—now in their twenties and thirties—came of age during an economic boom, enjoying stability and prosperity their ancestors could not have imagined. China became the world's second-largest economy. The future seemed assured. Then the trajectory flattened. Youth unemployment has hovered above fifteen percent for years, a figure the government has tried to downplay even as it worries officials. The pandemic accelerated the slowdown. Young people talk openly now about burnout, about the futility of the rat race, about feeling bruised by their parents' version of tough love.
The tension has become so visible that it has spawned viral memes. One particularly resonant skit, called "gourd soup literature," shows a son politely refusing a bowl of soup from his mother, only to be blamed for being ill-tempered when he falls ill. For many young people, the scene captures something true about their own families: their wishes ignored, their autonomy questioned, all supposedly for their own good. Zhao Xuan, twenty-eight, received so much of this kind of "advice" from her parents that she muted her family group chat. She tried therapy, but realized that crying would not change her mother's behavior. Instead, she has learned to treat her parents' words as a joke, a way of protecting herself through distance and humor. State media have attempted to redirect the conversation toward traditional concepts of filial piety, urging young people to be more understanding of their parents' struggles. But Vincent is skeptical. "I can understand my parents' difficulties," he says, "but I have my own generational trauma too."
What Vincent finds in the videos of Pan and Zhang is not a solution but a reprieve. He watches them visit a supermarket, and he is transported to childhood, to a time when he went grocery shopping with his parents before the Spring Festival, when conversation carried no weight, no judgment, no hidden agenda. "We have not had this kind of conversation, which comes with no social pressure, for a long, long time," he reflects. He is not naive about what he is consuming. He knows that Pan and Zhang are likely mass-producing content now, signed with companies, that the warmth is commodified and scaled. He understands that offering comfort to virtual children is far easier than navigating the messy reality of actual family relationships. And yet he finds something in it worth defending. "I believe that a little bit of warmth is better than nothing," he says. The trend raises an uncomfortable question about modern life in China: when families cannot provide what young people need, what does it mean that strangers on the internet can? The answer, for now, is that it means survival—a small pocket of validation in a world that feels increasingly indifferent to whether they are happy.
Notable Quotes
My parents are never the ones who tell me not to drive myself too hard or that I am already good enough. But virtual parents will ask me whether I am happy today.— Vincent Zhang
I can understand my parents' difficulties, but I have my own generational trauma too.— Vincent Zhang
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why do you think these virtual parents caught on so suddenly? There must have been loneliness before.
There was. But the economy changed. When things are booming, you can tell yourself the pressure is worth it. When things slow down, you start asking why you're sacrificing so much for a future that might not come. That's when you notice what you've been missing.
And the parents—Pan especially—he's not just performing. He's working through something real.
Exactly. He spent thirty-three years without a kind word from his own parents. Now he's giving it away for free to millions of people. It's not cynical. It's almost like he's trying to heal something that can't be healed by doing the opposite of what was done to him.
But Vincent knows it's not real. He knows these are strangers, that it's commodified. So why does it still matter?
Because sometimes the realness isn't in whether the person actually cares about you. It's in whether they're willing to say the thing you need to hear. His parents won't say it. These strangers will. That gap is real, even if the relationship isn't.
Do you think this fixes anything, or does it just make the actual problem easier to ignore?
It does both. It makes the pain manageable so you don't break. But it also means the real conversation—the one with your actual parents—might never happen. Vincent's okay with that trade-off. He's not waiting for his parents to change anymore.