To fend off creepy guys online, Chinese women gather around ‘baby solid food’
Xiaohongshu was a women-centered lifestyle app before it made a concerted effort to attract more men. As a result, women users have had to come up with innovative means to keep their content from drawing unwanted attention.
For a long time, Emma Fan’s inbox on Xiaohongshu was dominated by two types of messages: cheesy pick-up lines and skeevy comments about her appearance. A full-time wedding photographer during the day and a part-time fitness influencer by passion, Fan, 29, regularly posts selfies from the gym and isn’t shy about showing off her physique. She sees it as a form of self-love, but for some guys who slide into her DMs on the lifestyle app, “It’s like an invitation for harassment or judgment,” she told The China Project.
Then at one point in March, Fan discovered what she described as a “magical tool” to ward off unsolicited online flirting, which — according to her estimate — has reduced the number of creepy come-ons in her Xiaohongshu conversations by nearly 80 percent.
It’s not an advanced feature introduced by the app or a third-party service specializing in tackling cyber abuse. Rather, it’s a simple hashtag called “宝宝辅食” (bǎobǎo fǔshí) — “baby solid food.”
A “whisper network”
Traditionally reserved for Chinese parents looking for suggestions on how to feed their babies, the hashtag has seen an uptick in usage among childfree Chinese women in recent months. For new adopters like Fan, #BabySolidFood works like an algorithm hack: Because of the topic’s association with parenting and toddler diets, social media platforms built on recommendation systems tend to display posts containing the hashtag mainly to women, a demographic considered to be the primary consumers of baby-related content.
On Xiaohongshu, a tour of #BabySolidFood encompasses an extensive variety of content, ranging from make-up tutorials and shopping videos to pop culture memes and casual selfies. Although a healthy amount of baby-related posts is still in the mix, people who are actually interested in such content seem to have migrated to the #SolidFood community. Meanwhile, with more than 2.5 billion views, #BabySolidFood has been taken over by Xiaohongshu users like Fan, who wish to avoid unwanted attention from men.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that #BabySolidFood took off among non-parents. The way Qin, 19, stumbled upon the hashtag was “completely random,” she told The China Project. The college student from Anhui, who requested to have her full name withheld, said that she first encountered the hashtag on a video by a Xiaohongshu food influencer reviewing a trendy restaurant. Initially seeing it as a cute self-description — “like how some women like to refer to themselves as babies when they want to be affectionate with their boyfriends,” she said — Qin became increasingly confused as the hashtag appeared more frequently on her feed. Hoping to gain clarity, in early April, Qin asked for an explanation under a selfie tagged #BabySolidFood. A content creator replied to her that it was a tactic to weed out “creepy reply guys.”
“I was late to the party, but once my confusion was cleared up, I started adding the hashtag to basically everything I post online,” Qin said, adding that although she wasn’t entirely sure if the method works for everyone, she “personally witnessed a decline” in uncomfortable remarks directed at her, especially in posts where she shows her face.
“I used to get mean comments when I posted innocuous selfies on Xiaohongshu,” Qin said. “I am aware that dealing with trolls is just part of the reality I have to face as a woman on the internet, and the best way to handle it is to ignore those creeps, but sometimes I still felt compelled to put them on blast and hit back at them.”
For Fan, beyond its practical function, #BabySolidFood also gave her a sense of comfort and belonging. “I feel like I’m part of this in-the-know crowd and a whisper network exclusive to women,” she said. Since she started using the hashtag, Fan noticed a surge in female Xiaohongshu users commenting on her posts and asking about her workout routines. “It’s like we built this quiet rapport that my page is a safe space for women to talk about how to get fit without men intruding and scrutinizing,” she said.
Countering a culture of cyberbullying
The evolution of #BabySolidFood didn’t happen out of nowhere. A 2015 report on cyber violence released by the United Nations estimated that 73% of women have suffered from cyber violence, and that women are 27 times more likely than men to be harassed online.
In China, where sexism runs deep in society and aggressive online behavior is especially rampant, the situation is particularly dire for women, who can get attacked for their appearance, accounts of dating, family matters, and alleged attempts to seek attention, whereas their male counterparts are more likely to be judged for their morality and opinions about public matters, according to a study published last month by a team of researchers from Fudan University.
In January, a 23-year-old university student named Zhèng Línghuá 郑灵华 took her own life after enduring relentless trolling for six months. The smear campaign against Zheng stemmed from a post of her sporting pink hair while visiting her bedridden grandfather.
In the same Fudan study that identified different patterns for men and women in cases of cyberbullying, researchers also found that most of China’s social media platforms fail to properly protect their users, routinely ignoring complaints about harassment and lacking effective tools to moderate derogatory remarks.
Posting under #BabySolidFood, as described by Qin, is her way to take matters into her own hands. She goes out of her way to make sure the hashtag is included on Xiaohongshu, which “has rapidly become a toxic place for women in its own making,” she said.
The changing nature of Xiaohongshu
Fan, a longtime user of the Xiaohongshu, said that when she joined the app in 2018, she was drawn by its predominantly female user base and how it allowed her to freely express herself. “But that’s no longer the case,” she said. “Creepy men are all over the app now.”
Founded in 2013, Xiaohongshu initially attracted women in disproportionate numbers with its focus on fashion and lifestyle. As of January 2021, the app boasted more than 100 million active monthly users, with 90 percent of them being women. Xiaohongshu reportedly has raised $917 million in funding over seven rounds, with its most recent valuation standing at $20 billion.
However, since 2020, in an effort to diversify its user base, the app has been on a mission to expand its male audience through a slew of measures, such as promoting content by male creators and bringing in influential voices on topics typically of interest to men, including fitness and cars. On Hupu, a Chinese sports-focused website mainly used by men, Xiaohongshu once advertised itself as a place “full of beautiful ladies and free entertainment.” Another ad, posted on the Reddit-like site Baidu Tieba, read: “Sexy, pretty car models and elegant beauties are waiting for you.”
The campaign has narrowed the gender parity. By August 2021, an analysis of the company revealed that the share of its male users had hit 30 percent. But on the flip side, the growing male population also “contaminated the feminized space,” Fan said, adding that she had thought about quitting the app multiple times in the past year due to what she called “an influx of disgusting messages.”
“The app is doing nothing to protect us, so we have to invent our own ways to ward off internet creeps,” Fan said.
However, she is aware that #BabySolidFood is just a “tentative fix.” She added, “I’m ready to move on to #BabyOutfits or even #BabyDiapers if it’s what it takes to stay away from them.”
