Chinamaxxing: Western Gen Z Live Like Chinese

A new meme word is taking over Western social feeds: Chinamaxxing. It captures a sudden, strange shift: young people are now mimicking Chinese daily life.

Some are drinking hot water, eating porridge, and wearing slippers. They're bingeing Chinese dramas, practicing qigong, and even declaring they've entered a 'China era.'

Take the White Rabbit candy wrapper. Born in 1959, it suddenly exploded on overseas social networks. In just three days, it racked up over 6 million views and 265,000 likes. Netizens called it 'this absolute masterstroke of graphic design.'

The White Rabbit wrapper, born in 1959, suddenly went viral. Netizens hailed it as a masterpiece of graphic design.

Then there's the 34-second AI-generated 'Chinese Heavenly Court' video. No dialogue. Just rolling seas of clouds, vast celestial stairways, flying eaves and jade towers floating among the clouds, and immortals with fluttering robes. It left countless people stunned.

No dialogue, just pure visual awe: the AI-generated 'Chinese Heavenly Court' video stunned overseas viewers.

And when 'Spider-Man 4' dropped a China-exclusive art poster, it reimagined a Western hero story with Eastern aesthetics. Foreign netizens were quick to praise: 'China never misses.'

Chinese aesthetics have truly gone viral overseas, all of a sudden.

But if you only scroll through mainland social platforms, a nagging question pops up: Are trends like Chinamaxxing, #becomingchinese, #iwannabeChinese, and #veryChinese actually sweeping the West? Or is this just another round of packaging a few overseas anecdotes as 'Chinese style conquering the world'?

This time, the answer is clear. This online phenomenon, at least, is not some fabrication by mainland media.

Where Did 'Chinamaxxing' Come From?

The term "Chinamaxxing" is born from the "maxxing" suffix, a staple of English internet slang.

You see it in words like "looksmaxxing". The idea is to push a trait or lifestyle to the extreme. Then someone applied that logic to different cultures and lifestyles. And "Chinamaxxing" was born.

Online sources trace the earliest usage to no later than 2025. By January 2026, it was spreading fast.

Know Your Meme now lists "Chinamaxxing" as an internet slang term and hashtag born on American TikTok. The site records the trend heating up from late 2025 into early 2026.

But here's the interesting part: it's not just Chinese media covering this.

CNA reported on February 25 that "Chinamaxxing" exploded in January. It noted that many Western Gen Z TikTok users were showcasing Chinese-style habits: drinking hot water, eating meals, foot soaking.

Drinking hot water? It's now a lifestyle experiment for Western youth.

That same month, US Business Insider jumped on the story. It listed activities like drinking hot water, eating congee, cooking apples, wearing house slippers, and practicing qigong.

By March, the UK's Guardian had weighed in. It described young people on TikTok and Instagram weaving Chinese cultural elements into their daily lives.

Then in April, the term landed in Know Your Meme's internet meme database.

Meme or Genuine Love for China?

Make no mistake: this wasn't Chinese Mainland cooking up an English buzzword and then announcing that 'Chinese style is sweeping the globe.'

The term genuinely took off in Western online spaces first. Only later did Chinese media sit up and take notice.

However: does Chinamaxxing mean Westerners actually like China now? Or is it just another internet meme rush?

The answer? Probably both.

The earliest viral content was strikingly lifestyle-oriented: drinking hot water, eating congee, cooking apples. Wearing slippers, soaking feet, practicing qigong. Watching Chinese dramas.

Cooking apples with goji berries and red dates: health-preserving diets are hitting daily menus.

All of it came wrapped in Chinese music, Spring Festival elements, or Chinese-style clothing.

Some TikTok videos even drop lines like 'You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.' Roughly translated, that means 'you met me when I was in the most Chinese period of my life.'

From Hot Water to Hot Pot: The Content Expands

Sure, these videos have a meme-like quality. But here’s what’s so interesting about it: Western Gen Z is truly mimicking the everyday lifestyle habits that Chinese people have long taken for granted.

Hot water. Slippers. Congee. Foot baths. The most ordinary things imaginable. Suddenly, they've become the 'Chinese lifestyle' on TikTok.

Business Insider picked up the trend in February this year. It noted that non-Chinese American creators were posting these videos, some racking up over a million views.

CNA also pointed out that the trend is spreading mainly among Western Gen Z TikTok users.

And the trend didn't stop at the punchline of 'drinking hot water'.

The content has ballooned. It now spans Chinese cuisine, Chinese film and TV, tai chi, qigong, Chinese cityscapes, Chinese tech products, and even travel to China.

Tai chi and qigong are pulling foreign tourists into urban parks for real-life practice.

When Spain's El País reported on 'Chinamaxxing' from Beijing on June 20, it drew a direct line to foreign young people's interest in Chinese tai chi, hot pot, traditional Chinese medicine, and technology.

The Offline Shift: When Memes Become Travel Plans

By August, Chinamaxxing had jumped from the screen to the street. On August 5, mainland media reported that overseas travel bloggers were sharing their China trips on platforms like Xiaohongshu, linking the trend with deep immersion into Chinese life.

The content had expanded far beyond hot water, congee, and qigong. Now it was riding high-speed trains, using mobile payments, strolling through city neighborhoods, tasting local cuisine, and visiting museums and art galleries. In short, a TikTok meme had morphed into a real-world travel experience for some foreign tourists 'entering Chinese life.'

A country's cultural elements start being imitated, consumed, and repackaged by another society. That's no longer just 'someone joking around online.'

The real story isn't how many Americans suddenly switch to hot water. It's the subtle shift in how young Westerners see China.

For a long time, the Western cultural current flowed one way. American movies, European fashion, Japanese anime, Korean pop music, and more swept the globe.

Young people elsewhere learned, imitated, and even idolized them.

China, meanwhile, more often appeared in Western news as the 'world's factory,' an 'export powerhouse,' or a 'geopolitical rival.'

The Bigger Picture: China's Cultural Position Shifts

But the tide is turning. Chinese brands, short videos, internet culture, films, and city life are becoming raw material for Western youth to watch, imitate, and consume.

On August 11, the Beijing Daily's new media account 'Chang’anjie Zhishi' weighed in. The biggest backdrop, it argued, is China's hard power surge. As China moves to the center of the world stage, the world feels its charm intuitively, from high-speed rail and EVs to robots, from complete infrastructure and refined social governance to inclusive livelihood security.

The Western perspective on the East is becoming more equal. It's no longer a condescending curiosity; it's a natural appreciation.

At its core, the chase for Chinese aesthetics and lifestyle is an instinctive pursuit of stability, health, and spiritual richness. "It is not about being deified overseas; it is inherently 'divine'".

Social media poured fuel on the fire. In January 2025, as the U.S. TikTok ban loomed, American users flooded into Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). For the first time, many Americans saw the daily lives of ordinary Chinese netizens directly. Compared with the old way of 'seeing China' through Western media, this direct cross-platform contact sparks cultural collisions at the life level.

That's the soil in which 'Chinamaxxing' took root. Western media are now framing it as a soft power play in the Sino-American rivalry.

On July 19, The Guardian even ran the headline "the world isn’t Chinamaxxing, it’s America-avoidant". The paper argued that the growing interest in China is tied to America's declining image.

It cited a Pew Research Center survey showing that in most of the 36 countries surveyed, China and President Xi Jinping enjoyed higher favorability than the United States and its president.

Soft Power and the America-Avoidant Factor

The shift is clear: China is no longer just a subject for Western study and commentary. Some Western young people are now imitating it.

Chinamaxxing is, at its heart, a meme. Some people genuinely love it. Others are just playing with the trend. And plenty simply find Chinese elements novel and fun.

Some videos even deliberately exaggerate Chinese customs. But that doesn't erase the cultural significance.

Can a lifestyle be imitated? Can a cuisine become a trend? Can a country's cityscapes, brands, films, and daily habits inspire content from foreign youth? All of that is cultural influence.

But what's being imitated this time isn't some polished, high-end image China deliberately crafted. It's the most ordinary daily life.

Western young people are suddenly discovering a different world. Hot water, drunk this way. Slippers, worn indoors. Porridge as breakfast as. Hot pot as a ritual. And China's slick urban transit and tech gadgets? They become social media novelties.

Cultural output rooted in daily life seeps into ordinary lives far more effectively than any grand national image campaign.

The Real Takeaway

Forget proving that Americans finally love China. The real takeaway from Chinamaxxing is far more practical. China is gradually shifting from a distant object of Western observation into a cultural source that some Western young people can directly use, imitate, and consume.

Sure, some people drink a few cups of hot water, slip on some slippers, and declare they've entered their 'China era.' How many of them truly understand China? That's a different question entirely.

But here's what matters: Chinese culture is now being played with, learned from, filmed, and even adopted as a lifestyle by Western young people. That shift alone is worth watching.

Mao Paishou

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

Outside 1515 Broadway in Times Square, the usual line mostly leads upstairs to the theater where The Lion King musical has been running for twenty years. But on September 19 local time, this line turned the corner, stretched all the way to the next intersection, and seemed endless.

The Line That Stopped Times Square

The source of the line was not the premiere of a new Broadway show, but a newly opened Chinese camera store.

The store opening that day was the first US flagship store of Chinese imaging brand Insta360. It was also the brand's first directly operated store outside Asia.

Insta360 was founded in Shenzhen in 2015. It first made its name with a camera designed for shooting panoramic footage. Its main products are panoramic and action cameras that do not require cumbersome equipment and can be shared directly after shooting.

In June 2025, it listed on the Shanghai STAR Market. Its market value once exceeded 70 billion yuan, about 76 billion Hong Kong dollars. Industry insiders have called it the world's first listed smart imaging company. Overseas markets contribute about 70 percent of its overall revenue.

The store was originally scheduled to open at noon, but the number of people lining up far exceeded expectations. According to US imaging media outlet PetaPixel, the crowd on the scene that day may have exceeded 1,000 people. The first customer arrived at 2:30 a.m. and waited nearly 10 hours.

One American netizen uploaded footage to social platform X. She described the line as a massive procession that turned two corners. She jogged while high-fiving people in line, and it took her a full 61 seconds to reach the end.

Insta360's New York flagship opening drew massive launch-day crowds.

The young man at the front of the line wants to become a YouTuber. He headed straight to the site after finishing work and queued overnight, becoming the day's 'number one fan.' He received a limited-edition new gimbal camera with an exclusive gold logo.

When asked why he was so enthusiastic about a Chinese brand, his answer captured a recent shift in the US imaging market. He said he used to ride his bike near Central Park a lot. Back then everyone was using GoPro, but now almost everyone has switched to Insta360.

In the line there was also a race car driver who flew nearly 10,000 kilometers from Egypt specifically for this. Egypt still has no Insta360 dealer, and he had tried many places without being able to buy one. So he simply flew directly to New York.

There was also an American father who specially brought his 10-year-old son to New York so they could experience Insta360's latest camera together as a birthday gift.

Coincidentally, Tim Cook, who has stepped down as Apple's chief executive officer and now serves as chairman of the executive board, also posted on Weibo on September 20.

He said every time he sees customers experiencing Apple's new products at Apple Store retail locations in China, it is especially uplifting.  The accompanying photo showed customers waiting outside the store in long, multi-layered lines.

It so happened that on September 18 this year, Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series also went on sale in many places around the world. That triggered a fair amount of queuing as well.

But the mindset behind the two types of lines is completely different. Most people buying an iPhone have a hard need to upgrade and see it as routine. People who queued overnight to buy a Chinese camera were actively pursuing an emerging category that was previously unheard of.

The difference is also why outsiders are paying attention to Insta360's opening.

GoPro Fades as Chinese Brands Take Over

To understand the weight of that New York line, you first need to understand the global imaging industry's power map over the past few decades. Japanese camera brands long monopolized the industry's discourse. The American brand GoPro defined the action camera category and was once synonymous with the product type. But market research data shows the landscape has reversed in recent years.

In 2022, GoPro still held about 84% of the global action camera market. That was an absolute monopoly. Within just a few years, its share collapsed. By the first three quarters of 2025 it had fallen to about 18%. In the same market, GoPro went from roughly eight out of ten cameras to fewer than two in ten.

In August this year, GoPro submitted documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that included the blunt warning "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern." A company that once defined an entire industry now has to admit operating difficulties in public filings.

It has even agreed to merge with an American company in the artificial intelligence optics business. The deal is valued at $285 million, about HK$2.22 billion. Original shareholders would keep only about 10% of the merged company's equity.

In name it is a merger. In substance it is close to being swallowed.

Meanwhile, DJI and Insta360 together account for about 87% of the global handheld smart camera market. This queue is not just one Chinese brand selling well. It is an industry reshuffle. The American company that once set industry standards has been pushed to the margins by Chinese brands in just a few years.

DJI and Insta360 now control about 87% of the global handheld smart camera market.

The shift in Japan is even more telling. Japan has long been seen as the birthplace of the global imaging industry. Local consumers are fiercely loyal to camera brands. On July 2 this year, Insta360 held a launch event for a new gimbal camera in Shibuya, Tokyo.

By 6 a.m. consumers had already arrived to line up. The longest wait reached 9 hours. The organizer temporarily distributed 450 admission tickets, and they were all claimed within half an hour. The white version sold out online in just 5 minutes.

Retail data makes the point even sharper. Japanese research firm BCN reports that in 2025, a Chinese brand won the annual sales crown in the action camera category for the first time. DJI and Insta360 together took about 78% of the Japanese market. GoPro's share collapsed from 34.3% the previous year to 18.9%.

In other words, even in Japan, widely regarded as the birthplace of global imaging technology standards, local consumers would rather queue overnight to buy Chinese cameras.

Chinese brands now lead Japan, overtaking long-time giant GoPro.

What the Queues Really Mean

Back in New York, that flagship store means far more to Insta360 than an opening ceremony. On opening day, Insta360 also announced cumulative global camera shipments had passed 10 million units. That is more than 10 million cameras sold over ten years.

The opening event drew Casey Neistat, a North American imaging creator with more than 10 million followers, along with die-hard users who have followed the brand for years. One of them, Anthony Quintano, was first in line at 3 a.m. for Insta360's first new-product pop-up in New York last year. He became the first person in the world to buy that new model.

Another was Kevin, a cycling community leader. He and 100 local riders in bright yellow jerseys rode through New York landmarks on opening day. They recorded the journey on Insta360 cameras the whole way.

From top influencers and veteran loyalists to ordinary citizens, three seemingly unrelated stories map Insta360's ten-year localization effort in the United States. This Chinese company did not simply move a store into another country. It cultivated local creator circles and vertical communities, embedding itself in local life.

Top creators and local cyclists joined the store ribbon-cutting.

Around Times Square, Insta360's store sits not far from a cluster of Chinese brands that have already entered the US market: Pop Mart, Miniso, and Heytea. But compared with these 'Chinese neighbors' opening stores in New York, Insta360 has cultivated the US market for a full decade. It started out unknown, and now it draws a thousand people to queue overnight at the world's crossroads.

From Tokyo's Shibuya to New York's Times Square, Chinese camera brands are not riding a one-city viral moment. They are on a structural upward trajectory that spans regions and is backed by data.

Going overseas has never meant copying a store into a foreign country. It means making yourself part of local life. That may be the real strength of Chinese brands that has been most easily underestimated in recent years.