Chinese People Changing Their SNS Profile Pictures to 'Ma Dong-seok'... "Life Becomes Easier"

"Changed the photo, service became more polite"
Also selected as exclusive model for Chinese e-commerce

Photos of South Korean actor Ma Dong-seok are gaining popularity among Chinese netizens. Some are changing their social media profile pictures to Ma Dong-seok, and others even use his photo when filing complaints.

Recently, the British media outlet The Guardian highlighted the "Ma Dong-seok craze" happening online in China. Chinese netizens have been using "Don Lee" (Ma Dong-seok's real name) as their profile name and replacing their photos with Ma Dong-seok's image.

Netizens unanimously said that life became easier when they used Ma Dong-seok's photo. One netizen claimed, "When I used a photo of a young girl, the customer service ignored me," adding, "After changing the photo to Ma Dong-seok, the service became much more polite. They even adjusted the price difference."

The Ma Dong-seok craze is believed to have started on 'Xiaohongshu,' the Chinese version of Instagram combined with an online shopping mall.

A "Ma Dong-seok fever" is sweeping among Chinese netizens. [Image source=Chinese SNS]

Recently, a user on a website posted on SNS, "The administrator ignored my request until I changed my profile picture from actress Liu Yifei to Ma Dong-seok," and said, "After changing the photo, the problem was solved within minutes with just two sentences."

This story spread to other Chinese SNS platforms like WeChat and Weibo, and soon changing one's profile to Ma Dong-seok became popular. It was also reported that famous Chinese actor Li Xian changed his game profile picture to Ma Dong-seok, attracting attention.

In fact, in South Korea, rumors had already circulated that changing one's photo to Ma Dong-seok sped up service complaint processing or reduced spam messages. Especially, tips about Ma Dong-seok's photo being useful when using overseas direct purchase sites spread widely.

Early last year, the Chinese e-commerce platform AliExpress, which officially entered the domestic market, capitalized on this popularity by selecting Ma Dong-seok as its first exclusive model.

In the advertisement released at the time, Ma Dong-seok clenched his fist and said, "Does just changing your profile picture solve everything? For direct purchases, I’ll change everything for you," which received favorable reviews.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.