A new dating trend is making the rounds in China: women are paying cosplayers to dress up as their virtual sweethearts and go on dates with them.
Note: The cover image is an icon image.
What’s the trend? As Stern reports, women in China are paying money to go on dates with their favorite video game characters. They hire cosplayers who dress up accordingly.
What’s behind it? A certain type of dating sims, so-called “Otome Games” are currently enjoying great popularity among Chinese women. In these games, you take on the role of a female protagonist and pursue romantic relationships with one or more male characters.
The possible romantic options are often diverse, so that there is something for every taste: from the quiet glasses wearer to the short-tempered hothead to the friendly sunny boy or the cool guy with a mysterious past.
The genre usually falls into the visual novel realm, meaning it’s mostly text-based. The Asian video game market is notorious for mobile games with aggressive monetization, so it’s no surprise that many of the otome games offer in-app purchases to boost virtual relationships.
According to Stern, many women spend a lot of money on their digital darlings. If that’s not enough, you can go a step further and hire a cosplayer for dates.
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affection as a commodity
How did that happen? A precursor to the phenomenon was already apparent in 2019: Chinese women paid for “virtual boyfriends” in order to exchange messages or make phone calls with them. However, real meetings were not among the services offered.
The lockdowns during the corona pandemic have probably led to an increase in the number of users of such otome games on the one hand and increased the desire for a virtual relationship on the other.
“People have figured out how to commodify affection,” says Chris KK Tan, a professor at Nanjing University who studies the phenomenon (via Stern).
How does that go? That’s different now: Mostly young, single and financially independent women post ads on the Internet with which they are looking for dates. In the advertisements, they specify what the costume should look like, what the payment is, and whether physical affection, such as kissing, is desired.
However, these services should not have a sexual nature. Rather, the customers long for a sympathetic ear, a flirt or emotional support. This also means that some women prefer female cosplayers who morph into male characters: they would feel more secure with them.
Women, on the other hand, often feel disappointed by “real” men and prefer their virtual friends. They pay the cosplayers between 100 and 200 yuan, the equivalent of between 13 and 26 euros, per hour for the dates.
In addition, they cover the cost of meals or activities together. Some women are even willing to offer cosplayers large sums of money to stop dating other women as “their” sweetheart.
The virtual relationship trend is not limited to China. In Japan, a man famously married a hologram of virtual singer Hatsune Miku, the mascot of the singing software of the same name. Artificial intelligence now offers completely new possibilities for digital love affairs.
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