What’s trending?

Chinese millennials and generation-Zs have found a new way to brag on social media by flaunting their wealth and pretending they do not even realize how expensive their actions are. This type of bragging has been termed “Versailles”, and has clocked up over 500 million views and 90,000 comments on Weibo. The hashtag offers a valuable insight into young people’s values and consumption habits.

What’s the story?

The term “Versailles” originates from a Japanese manga series called “The Rose of Versailles” which depicts the luxurious lifestyle of its female protagonist. The term really took off when a popular blogger, MengQiqi77, started using it when posting updates about her charmed life with her rich husband.

In a typical post she wrote; “Suddenly I felt that he (her husband) was being too frugal. For important occasions, he wore a Kiton suit worth more than 100,000 yuan, but he usually wore a Zegna cashmere mulberry silk suit for work, worth only 30,000 yuan…”

Casually dropping in how expensive her husband’s suit was while almost apologizing for how “cheap” it was makes for an effective “Versailles” boast.

Although “Versailles literature” has gained popularity recently because of MengQiqi77, it appears to have been created by another Chinese blogger, Little Milk Ball, who posted an instructional video on making “Versailles” humblebrags. She emphasized that to show off wisely, one needs to be self-depreciating rather than self-aggrandizing.

What are people saying online?

Chinese social media is now full of people making “Versailles” boasts, some more seriously than others.

In one popular post a user jokingly brags. “I always thought that Helena Rubinstein (premium skin care product) was a body lotion, but just found out it wasn’t today after using all over my body instead of my face for so many years.”

Some people have concentrated on the inventiveness needed to make a successful “Versailles” boast, with one person posting “Compared with straightforward showing off, Versailles literature involves a lot of humour.”