Chinese youths want to show their peers — TikTok by TikTok — how glorious it is to live alone

• Young TikTokers in China say they're bucking the trend of chasing houses, marriage, and cars.
• Hundreds of content creators on Douyin are posting video diaries that glorify living quietly alone.
• Some say that living alone helps them save more, while others focus their videos on cooking.

At 36, TikToker Xiang Xiaoyu says she's lived alone in her apartment for seven years and doesn't plan to marry.

And that's just the way she wants her life to be, Xiang says in one of her videos, in which she's seen making her bed, cooking meals, and eating alone in her 1,000-square-foot home.

"Other people might think I'm lonely, but I love this happiness that I can call my own," said Xiang, who has 21,000 followers.

It's a sentiment that's trending on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, where hundreds of content creators are posting video diaries of themselves living alone.

In modern China, where one is expected to own a home, get married, and buy a car before 30, these youths — mostly born in the 1990s — say they're perfectly content with renting apartments and ignoring society's prescribed life goals.

The immense pressure to secure high-paying jobs and work long hours has pushed many young people in China to resort to "lying flat" — quitting the rat race and doing the bare minimum. But if their videos are to be believed, the TikTokers who've signed up for solo living are thriving while subverting traditional Chinese expectations.

Zheng Xiangwang, a TikToker with 69,000 followers, posted a video in March that sums up the idea.

"You can live by yourself in a 28 square-meter duplex apartment. When you're home, the whole space is yours," he narrates over a montage of his life at home.

Zheng says it's the little wins that count. He boasts that he gets to play loud music whenever he wants, cook whatever he wants to eat, and can leave the bathroom door open when he poops. 

"Who wouldn't want to try my blessed solo life?" he adds.

Many videos also feature young women cooking at home. Lai Xiaofei, who has 878,000 followers, posts videos of herself coming home, settling down, and whipping up meals like cheesy mashed potatoes mixed with instant ramen.

She describes herself as a "girl born in 1998" and tells viewers to "never give up your interests and independence for other people."

Many household products often feature prominently in these home videos, like a portable bathtub and a heated water dispenser.

Other young TikTokers say living alone has helped them save money.

"I make 8,000 yuan a month, my rent is 1,800 yuan, my living expenses are 2,000 a month," says a TikToker who goes by "Mao Xiao's Diary" and breaks down her daily food and travel expenses for viewers. The TikToker's 8,000 yuan salary is worth around $1,115.

She avoids luxury brands, never goes to clubs, and writes articles as a side hustle, the Tiktoker said.

Another TikToker, "Nong Xiao A Hao," claims to have saved 60,000 yuan, or around $8,600, over six years while renting an apartment and earning $1,300 a month. The average salary in China is around $1,390, according to Hong Kong-based data analytics firm CEIC.

"If your clothes and shoes are still wearable, then that's fine," Nong Xiao A Hao tells viewers. "Luxury goods, never buy them."

Not everyone on Douyin is convinced. One TikToker with 10,000 followers posted a video on April 14 that mocked the trend, comparing online versions of living alone — where a man cooks a sumptuous meal with cleverly designed household items, with reality — where the man simply goes home and eats cup noodles.

"The reality of living alone is turning on the computer at home and ordering takeaway once you get off work," one Douyin user wrote in a top comment on this video.