“The A4 Waist is out of fashion, now the Heart-Shaped Boob challenge is popular,” – a sentence that is buzzing around Weibo these days. Is this indeed the next bizarre challenge to go viral on Chinese social media?

Update August 11: This challenge has now been completely removed from Sina Weibo. The hashtag no longer shows any results.

Every now and then a new ‘challenge’ pops up on Chinese social media that allows netizens to show off their bodies. There’s been the A4 Waist Challenge, the iPhone6 Legs, or the One Finger Selfie hype. Now a new challenge is making its rounds on Weibo, originating from one of China’s live-streaming apps.

For the ‘Heart Symbol Boob challenge’ (桃心胸挑战), female netizens try to make a heart shape out of their breasts. The latest challenge is a risky one, because “obscene” (yinhui) or “pornographic” (seqing) images are officially not allowed on Chinese social media. Many of the images posted by netizens have already been removed.

People started talking about the ‘heart-shaped boob’ earlier this week, with many Weibo users saying: “The A4 Waist is out of fashion, now the Heart-Shaped Boob Challenge is popular!”

Their claims might be more about wishful thinking than that the challenge itself is actually a major hype just yet: the ‘Heart-Shaped Boob Challenge’ is more talked about than actually taken on. With 1.4 million views of the topic #HeartShapedBoob (#桃心胸#) on Weibo in a few days time, there were only some dozen women who actually posted photos of their heart shaped breasts.

The ‘hype’ seems to have started with a live-streamer by the name of Ayi Xi Tai Lǜ (@阿姨洗太绿). (The name’s characters literally translate as “Aunty Washes Too Green” in Chinese, but the sound of the name resembles the Japanese ‘Ai Shiteiru’ (愛している), which means ‘I love you.’)

Ayi Xi Tai Lǜ is one of the thousands of girls who entertain their – mostly male – audiences from one of China’s 200-or-so live-broadcasting platforms. Popular ones that focus on girls broadcasting for male viewers include Huya, 9xiu, or Woxiu.

According to SupChina, it is common to see more seductive and racy content on these live-broadcasting platforms after midnight. Live-streamers can earn money from viewers purchasing virtual items for them, anything from ‘lollipops’ to ‘love.’

For Chinese authorities, these platforms are a source of concern because of, amongst others, their ‘obscenities.’ Over the past six months, they have already closed 73 illegal live streaming platforms and imposed life bans on 1,879 live streamers for providing pornographic content.

An image of Ayi Xi Tai Lǜ turning her breast in a heart shape for viewers to see was shared on several Chinese message boards in July. It might have been this image that has inspired others to try and do the same.

“The A4 waist and so on are just over. The heart-shaped boob will be the next viral hit,”, some netizens say.

The A4 waist was a major online trend in March 2016, when hundreds of women posted pictures with an A4-size paper covering their waist to prove they were slimmer than a piece of paper. The trend received criticism for promoting an unhealthy body image.

Although it is said that the ‘A4 Waist’ challenge is out of fashion, the A4 photos are also still circulating on Weibo. Earlier this month, popular Chinese actress and model Zhang Tianai (张天爱) posted a photo of her tiny waist with the hashtag “I have an A4 Waist” (#我有A4腰# ). The photo received over 230.000 likes and 23.000 shares within a few days.

Not all people are happy with the alleged upcoming hype of the ‘Heart-Shaped Boob Challenge.’ Weibo user @Haoyyao noted: “If you try with small breasts, you won’t even be able to make a triangle.”

But there were also male netizens who tried to participate in the challenge anyway. Others jokingly proved that some men also have breasts and can join the challenge without any problems.

“I’ll be able to do this – with the fat on my stomach,” one commenter said.

Despite all claims, it is not probable that this challenge will actually truly go viral. At the time of writing, the topic ‘Heart-Shaped Boob’ was receiving thousands of new views per minute (nearing 1.5 million views), but as netizens try to post their own challenge photos, they show up as (censored) empty images.

As much as people say this challenge is the next big hit, it is very likely that online censors will not allow it to be – unlike A4 waists, heart-shaped breasts don’t seem to be their cup of tea.

By Manya Koetse

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