Smart, Polished, and Online: The Rise of College Student Influencers in China

Constant buzz and notifications on phone broke into Zhao Ziyi’s quiet summer vacation. She had casually posted a blog to memorize her high school life on Red Note, a trending Chinese social media platform, and went to sleep. By morning, she surprisingly found her blog went viral, attracting over 2,000 likes.

That was the beginning of Zhao’s journey as an influencer on Red Note. One year later, as a freshman in college, she posts polished contents like an old hand and has accumulated over 5,000 fans.

Zhao is not alone. Simply a swap on Red Note, users can find various of college student influencers. Among 47.63 million Chinese college students, 86.6% of them would use social media to share their diverse lives, while 12.37% would carefully manage their account and try to become an influencer, according to research by China Youth Daily in 2024.

In the highly competitive industry, student influencers must find their niche, or “track”, to stand out. Beauty, fashion, travelling, eating and even romantic relationship…… They perform as models for those who hope to follow in her footsteps.

As a student in Renmin University, which admits only the top 0.1% of high school students, Zhao quickly found her niche in the learning tips track on Red Note.

The triumph in college entrance examination is her selling point. She shares behind-the-scenes stories from college lectures, offers time management advice, and posts revision hacks for high school students who eager to score high marks like her.

“This account is my way of exploring the future career,” Zhao says. “And I found it can be really profitable.” With 5,000 fans, she already earns around 250 yuan ($28) for each advertisement.

At the top of the pyramid, some student influencers with more than 500,000 followers can earn 50,000 yuan ($6964) per month, achieving what is often called “wealth freedom” at an early age.

The appeal is obvious: make money by “simply” posting photos and videos. As a result, more and more students are joining the race.

When searching “how to start an account…” on Red Note, over posts 1.26 million pop up, teaching you everything from how to put on several personas, make appealing covers and titles, attract traffic and even respond to comments.

“It may look easy to get started, but it takes a lot if you want to stand out,” Zhao says.

She spends hours each day managing her account. Even when she is busy with her own schoolwork at school, she has to squeeze time to respond patiently to high school students’ questions.

Her classmate Chen Chang, who also runs an account with around 2,000 followers, showed me the memo app on her phone. It was packed with carefully organized ideas for future content, most of them related to how to study subjects like history in high school.

Even most of their posts’ covers follow a strict visual formula: an eye-catching infographic (e.g., “How to Study History”), a snapshot of her college entrance exam scores, and a carefully selected beautiful portrait of herself in a Renmin University T-shirt.

Profile of Chen and Zhao’s Red Note Account

“I didn’t want to show my face at first,” both of them admits. “But faceless influencers cannot build trust with strangers.”

Overcoming their fear of showing face was not easy, but they followed suit as nearly all the posts about account-starting strategies told them to do so.

Since then, their follower engagement has grown, but so has the downside.

Clicking into any similar influencer’s profile, users can find a wealth of personal details: appearance, school, major, hometown, and even more. Sharing that much personal information opens the door not only to praise, but to criticism and even harassment.

“I’ve definitely received more negative comments and creepy private messages since I started posting selfies,” Chen says. “Almost every pretty female creator I know gets random private messages from strange men asking them out.”

Some of the messages she received were from male PhD students at her own university. “There’s really nothing I can do except ignore them,” she adds. “There are also people who randomly insult me under my posts. I think they’re just jealous.”

In the comment section of similar student influencers, satiric words like “poser” and “fake” appear frequently. In Chen’s latest post, the second most-liked comment read, “You cannot even find a job after graduation,” mocking her choice to major in law.

Indeed, online hate often comes at zero cost for the attacker. Anonymous users can leave a cruel comment and forget it seconds later.

“Some people just treat student influencers as imaginary targets onto which they can project their frustrations,” says Dong Chenyu, a journalism professor at Renmin University.

For many, it’s hard to reconcile these glamorous personas’ two identities: the quiet, hardworking top student and the polished social media influencer. In traditional Chinese values, a top student is expected to stay buried in books, while influencers are often seen as superficial and fame-hungry. When the two roles overlap, the dissonance triggers strong reactions.

“It’s like you are not allowed to be both pretty and smart, or both ambitious and online,” Chen says. “At first, I even considered quitting. But that is the only way to grow an account.”

Despite the downsides, she has no plans to stop. “This is the age of self-media,” she says. “Of course I’ll keep growing the account.”

“College students becoming influencers reflects how young people are embracing the spirit of the times,” commented Yangcheng Evening News, a major Chinese media outlet. “We hope society will offer them more trust and tolerance, so they can thrive both professionally and in the public sphere.” (End)