Fans in China were left shocked when a live-stream glitch showed that online superstar Your Highness Qiao Biluo is a middle-aged woman and not the glamorous young vlogger she had been fronting as.

When it comes to social media and how we portray ourselves online, we’re all guilty of laying on a filter or two.

Whether it’s to brighten the dull British clouds in the backdrop, to smooth over facial blemishes or cut the crowds from a near-perfect photo… we’ve all been there.

In the modern world of online and social media marketing, a light touch up with an airbrush or cheeky tweak to the figure is nothing new – and it doesn’t matter if your’e an average Joe or Instagram super-model.

However, a vlogger in China has been caught taking her masquerade to the extreme after a glitch during her online live-stream showed that she was a middle-aged woman and not a glamorous young vlogger like her audience had been tricked into believing.

And they said you can trust your eyes…

Who is Your Highness Qiao Biluo?

Your Highness is a famous Chinese online personality who uses China-based online network called Douyu.

As the Chinese government censor their country’s online space, popular social media websites such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are all blocked by the ‘Great Firewall’ of China.

Douyu is one of the non-censored and most popular live-streaming websites, where people can share everything from video gaming to make-up tutorials, much like YouTube.

Qiao Biluo has over 100,000 followers on the space and has been described by China’s Global Times as a “cute goddess” and that she is “worshipped” on the platform.

What did Your Highness do wrong?

On July 25th, Qiao Bilo’s live stream suffered a technical glitch while she was sharing a video with another user, Qingzi.

Here, Qiao appeared in her true form, as a middle-aged woman plonked by the computer with a headset on.

To her followers, she had always appeared on screen as a fresh-faced teenager with a much younger overall image. Cleary, she had been conning hundreds of thousands of people with a filter.

In real life, she is 58 years old… on Douyu she appeared in her young 20s.

This content could not be loaded internet was not kind after that pic.twitter.com/zUcXq54h6p — n✮ (@nichstarr) July 30, 2019

How did the Chinese vlogger do it?

The Douyu platform is renown for a range of filters available as you live record, much like Snapchat.

According to the BBC, China has more than 425 million live-streamers and the use of face filters is very common. Reports in China have condemned “ignorant” men for believing in the filtered appearance of Your Highness Qiao Bilo in the first place.

An outpour of controversy

The story has become a huge talking point in China with over 50,000 hashtags on the incident and reports that have been read 600 million times in total.

This is because Qiao Bilo was using the platform to make money. Her popularity meant that she was able to receive huge cash gifts for her performances, with the largest reported donation to be 40,000 yuan (£4,780) – and that was just in one live stream.

Since the news surfaced, however, her account has been suspended. Ionically, Qiao’s page has now grown to over 650,000 followers with all of the publicity.

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