The Chinese dream of being collectively prosperous — and living lives with precocious children, luxe cars, and cozy homes — is dead, and Gen Z has the receipts to show for it.
To date, more than 300 million Chinese people have viewed a forum thread titled “My real savings at 26” on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. Insider saw hundreds of posts in which people shared screenshots of their bank statements, claiming to be 26 and flat broke.
At press time, more than 12,000 people had posted on the viral Weibo forum, which is akin to a subreddit.
One Weibo user in the southwestern Sichuan province confessed to having $0.14 in savings.