Rise in emotional economy: China ‘love-brained’ youth seek strangers’ scolding for guidance

2026-02-11 - 01:08

On a popular social media live-stream a young girl pours her heart out to a stranger. She is highly educated, comes from a wealthy family, but has fallen head over heels for a man 10 years her senior who is poor and does not love her. The live-streaming influencer, Taozai, responds not with sympathy, but with something far more jarring: “Not only do you have a ‘love brain’, you also subconsciously discriminate against people with lower education and the poor. You discriminate against others, and...