China has been a weird inventor of many trends and challenges, from the “A4 waist challenge” where one is determined to be skinny if their waist cannot be seen when a piece of A4 paper is held in portrait mode in front of their torso, to the “fish into collarbone challenge” where one is considered to be skinny if they are able to fill their collarbone with water and have a little fish swimming in it.
Yes, I know it’s quite crazy.
But they’re back with another trend, and this time it involves wrapping earphones around one’s waist to show off how thin they are.
In case you think I’m joking, I wish I was, but I’m not.
“I’m Thin”
Many ladies have been uploading photos of themselves baring their waists onto Chinese social media platform Weibo with what seems to be the Apple Earpods with Lightning connector around their waists.
The earphones and its wire measures about 1.4 metres in length (yeah, I know some of you are thinking of cheating by buying with longer wire), and while there seem to be no rules about this challenge, everyone is bent on using these earphones.
The Weibo post also listed the series of Internet trends in China previously, with this being the latest one.
Despite medical experts outside of China criticising the emergence of such trends because it only strengthens their society’s standards of beauty – you must be ridiculously thin to be considered beautiful – many women still continue to portray and exhibit such harmful behaviour.
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The Women’s Foundation Research and Advocacy manager Lisa Moore said to South China Morning Post, “The pressure for women to conform to a thinness ideal pervades all parts of the developed world and China is no exception to the rule. Media has played a significant role in transmitting thinness norms and values, which has shown links to increased body image dissatisfaction, eating disorders and lowered self-esteem among women.”
While some of them may be this thin due to genes, photos like these may be interpreted wrongly by others, especially by younger, impressionable girls.
It is devastating that these trends only reinforce unrealistic and potentially harmful beauty ideals.
And seriously, girls: who the heck still uses wired earphones?
