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An 18-year-old Shanghai woman, Xu Yunting, dresses up as a male video game character and rents herself out to female fans for “cosplay” dates that set the hearts of young Chinese women aflutter.
This high school student has found this rather unusual way to make pocket money. A growing trend in Shanghai, China’s economic capital.
With makeup, contact lenses to enlarge his eyes, and a bright orange boyish wig, Xu Yunting adjusts his artifice to transform himself into “Jesse”, a tall and sensitive musician, an essential character in the game “Light and Night”.
Launched in 2021 by internet giant Tencent, this interactive role-playing game allows you to create an avatar in order to form virtual romantic relationships with characters.
Since its release in China, it has enjoyed immense success with a female audience fascinated by the realism of the characters, whose voices are played by professional actors, and their psychology.
Feng Xinyu, a 19-year-old Chinese girl, is one of those fans who prefers the gaming world to her real-life life.
“No boyfriend”
“I don’t have a boyfriend because I’m not interested in 3D men“, says the Internet employee, using an expression that refers to real people.
“For me, animated characters are much more attractive.“, like Jesse,” she told AFP.
Regulars of the game “Light and night” like Feng Xinyu have formed very strong emotional bonds with the characters.
It is therefore not surprising that the young woman wanted to push the immersion to the next level, by hiring the services of a larger-than-life Jesse – played by the Shanghainese Xu Yunting.
“She is exactly like the character in the game“, enthuses Feng Xinyu, who paid around 65 euros for this meeting, the third with Xu Yunting because “we get on really well”.
The “couple” meets at a metro station for a busy schedule: romantic tea, cake decorating workshop, romantic walk hand in hand, not to mention a tête-à-tête meal around a Chinese fondue.
According to experts who study the phenomenon of “cosplay” dating, their success is based on the ability to present an ideal relationship on paper. It is artificial but much easier to build than in reality.
“Men of quality”
The character “conveys emotions,” the most important thing in the eyes of customers, says Tian Qian, who teaches psychology at Fudan University. It is an “emotional support.”
“There is no conflict in this relationship. I just have to pay and I can confide my feelings“, sums up the 40-year-old professor, who receives AFP in her office.
These “cosplay” meetings allow women “to have their voice fully respected by the opposite sex“, assures Zhou Zixing, another academic.
During the cake decorating workshop, Feng Xinyu watches with tenderness as her boyfriend of a day sprinkles icing sugar on a sponge cake. Like a gentleman, Jesse then helps her delicately remove her apron.
“These video game characters are all quality men“, assures Xu Yunting, in the role of Jesse. Thanks to these meetings, “Female clients raise their expectations of real-life men and will be less tempted to settle for mediocre men“, says the young cosplayer.
Her mother Fang Xiuqing does not hide the fact that she was initially surprised by her daughter’s activity. Before taking a step back and now seeing things philosophically.
“It’s not a job but rather a hobby“, she emphasizes. “(My daughter) gets pleasure from it and she brings joy to others“.