A Chinese socialite recently generated a lot of buzz in cyberspace when she spent over $140,000 becoming an “android.” Popular Douyin, China’s equivalent of social app TikTok, personality Dalaotian, a 30-year-old, underwent a lot of transformation in becoming a robotic, cyberpunk-inspired face and looks.
Her transformation involves a stylized artificial face, a short, modern wig, and a robotic physique that transforms her into an anime character in real life. But it wasn’t just her new, striking looks that buzzed—revisiting her rural Sichuan province birthplace and reuniting with her simple village life won everyone over in terms of heart.
Dalaotian’s journey towards becoming an “android” took no mean feat. Most of her $140,000 investment, according to reports, went towards altering her face shape and enhancing her figure, most particularly her breasts. Her new looks have a futuristic, cyberpunk-inspired beauty and anime-inspired looks, a beauty and technology reflection in cyberspace times.
While she hasn’t revealed precisely what operations she received, her looks pay tribute to new cyberculture, in which humans become nonhuman in looks through prosthetics, body mod, and high-tech makeovers.
Her motivation for such a transformation is not revealed, but most speculate that she sees her unconventional looks as a deliberate move to generate controversy in social networks and become a follower in China’s community of influencers.
Upon returning to village, Dalaotian encountered a mixture of disbelief, curiosity, and shock. Villagers were confused about her robotic state and real-life-but-not-real face. Villagers touched her arm to confirm whether she actually existed, and then approached her cautiously afterwards
In a trending clip documenting her return, citizens bombarded her with questions such as:
“What’s your job?”
“How much do you earn per month?” “Are you even human?”
One of them, most memorable, happened when a resident asked about her dating life. After an older female, in a teasing manner, showed a native male to her as a suitor, Dalaotian, who had been clinging onto her android character, couldn’t resist and began laughing out loud.
Her story gained in a big manner in cyberspace, most noticeably in Douyin, whose more than 750,000 likes for her return video could not cease. Videos of her robotic actions, including a clip in which she mechanically cleaned dishes and kept acting in character, fueled speculations about her transformation.
Her viral success is a reflection of a growing blur between social media fame and extreme body transformation. There are many who admire her dedication to character, but most criticize the repercussions of such extreme makeovers.
Dalaotian’s transformation is part of a larger trend towards futuristic appearances for social personalities in an overcrowded social environment in a quest for differentiation. Cyperpunky appearances, transhumanism, and over-plasticity become ever more prevalent, and most prominently in Asia, with beauty trends tracking closely with technology and cyberspace.
This phenomenon raises with it apprehensions regarding new definitions of beauty and reality in a social media era. With social media platforms appreciating individuality and socialization, to what level will humans go in altering their appearances for web fame? To become a web sensation, is it taking them towards increasingly extreme forms of body modification?
