BEIJING: AI-generated “sob-story boys” have recently taken Chinese short-video platforms by storm, allegedly using emotional manipulation to cheat elderly viewers out of their savings.
Known collectively as “Xiaohai”, these digital avatars typically appear as teenage boys in school uniforms or plain white shirts, tearfully describing their poverty-stricken lives on camera.
In one video, a Xiaohai avatar holds a steamed bun and laments to viewers, whom he addresses as “aunties and mothers”: “All my classmates went to lunch. I’m hiding in the classroom to eat this.”
In another, he is shown being “bullied” in the rain over unpaid tuition. He begs viewers to buy buckwheat cereal so he can meet his sales target and avoid being ridiculed.
Xiaohai avatars also promote health supplements and household goods, claiming they need to support their single fathers. The products often carry steep mark-ups: one bottle of cooking oil sold by Xiaohai for 99 yuan (US$15) reportedly costs just 60 yuan elsewhere.
With commissions as high as 55 per cent, operators can make substantial profits. An industry insider told The Beijing News that creators who use publicly available AI prompts to produce Xiaohai videos can earn 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a day.
The trend has surged across Chinese short-video platforms, where topics related to Xiaohai have attracted more than 600 million views.
Most followers are middle-aged or elderly users who fill comment sections with expressions of maternal affection.
“Why are you only eating buns? Auntie-mummy’s heart breaks for you,” read one voice comment.
After placing an order, another user wrote: “Darling son, mummy ordered four items. Love you forever.”
Some elderly fans have gone to extreme lengths. In May, police in Urumqi intercepted a 79-year-old illiterate woman travelling alone by train.
She insisted she was going to Shanxi province in northern China to meet Xiaohai, who had invited her during a live-stream to eat mushrooms and admire flowers.
Officers contacted her family and sent her home after explaining that the boy was fake.
Legal experts warn that deliberately fabricating stories to drive e-commerce sales may constitute fraud.
Meanwhile, Peking University professor Ma Liang points to a deeper social crisis.
“Many elderly people face extreme loneliness offline. They turn to digital consumption to fill an emotional void,” Ma told China Newsweek.
At the time of writing, no details of the alleged fraud’s total value had been disclosed. Most Xiaohai-related videos on mainland Chinese short-video platforms had been taken down.
In response, some tech-savvy netizens are using AI to create “Evil Xiaohai” videos to warn their parents and bring them back to reality.
In these parodies, Xiaohai appears in prison attire, apologising to fans, or dressed in luxury clothes and smoking as he boasts about exploiting “aunties and mothers”.
But the underlying issue runs deeper, as one online comment observed: “Some lonely elders know it is fake; they just prefer to believe it is real.” - South China Morning Post
