QQ, the grandaddy of China’s social media scene, gains new life by appealing to Generation Z
In China’s fast-changing technology space where new options pop up almost every day, the ability of platforms to maintain a loyal following can often mean life or death
Eighteen-year old David Liu wasn’t even born when QQ, the messaging tool developed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, was first launched in 1999. Its winking penguin icon went on to become a ubiquitous feature of online life in China, dominating the messaging market amid explosive growth in internet use.
A fall occurred as netizens shifted to mobile and new social platforms, but QQ is fighting back with a legion of youthful fans such as Liu, a freshman at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.
“I do not want to be monitored by my parents [who are WeChat rather than QQ friends] when I start my university life. It is a major reason why I use QQ,” said Liu, explaining his allegiance to the 19 year-old messaging service.
Liu’s feelings about QQ, which in recent times has added a raft of features aimed at appealing to the country’s mercurial Generation Z, were echoed by other users.
“All these entertaining tools make QQ very attractive to me … Communicating in QQ is a lot of fun. I can swap cartoon faces and can change the voice into words when having a video talk with friends,” said 15 year-old QQ user William Yi. “But QQ is certainly not my sole entertainment tool, I also watch a lot of Douyin short videos.”
Douyin is a short video app offered by Tencent rival Beijing ByteDance Technology, which also operates the popular news aggregation app Jinri Toutiao.