听劝tīng quàn

听 is “to listen” and 劝 is “advice” or “to urge someone”. A person who is 听劝 listens when others try to talk them into something.

A typical post has a plain photo, a question and the tag: why am I still single, what should I change before my trip, how do I fix this room. Commenters answer, and the poster often comes back later to show the result.

It is common for travel plans, decorating, makeup and clothes. The Paper also found it in posts about parents and children and about marriage.

In speech, 我很听劝 is a light way to say you will follow someone’s suggestion. It sounds friendly, a little self-mocking.

The Paper says 听劝 began as a joke about stubborn people who never listen. Where the tag started is unclear. CBNData says it cannot be traced, and names as the earliest well-known case a man on Xiaohongshu who, in December 2021, posted a full-length photo and asked how to improve his look.

In 2023 it became a trend. CBNData reported more than 900 million views for 听劝 topics on Xiaohongshu that year, and searches more than 51 times higher than the year before. Jiemian wrote that posts with the tag grew from a few hundred to more than ten thousand, and that Xiaohongshu ran a topic called 改妆我听劝, “fix my makeup, I’ll listen”.