Why are China’s Most-followed Lifestyle Influencers Continuing to Disappear?

The shift became visible online in 2024. Several of China’s most-followed lifestyle influencers, whose content centred on displaying personal wealth, had their accounts closed across the major platforms. Wang Hongquanxing, who had built more than 4 million Douyin followers around his designer wardrobe, was among them. He openly claimed to own 7 luxury properties worth $110 million. So were Bo Gongzi, known for filming his sports cars and Hermès bags for 2.9 million followers, and Baoyu Jiajie, who showed 2.3 million people her lavish meals and homes. The removals followed a campaign by the Cyberspace Administration of China against accounts built on flaunting wealth to attract attention and traffic. The campaign also fits into Beijing’s broader “Common Prosperity” agenda, which has encouraged a more restrained public conversation around wealth and inequality in recent years. While luxury consumption itself remains accepted, the public celebration of excess has become less comfortable territory.