Kris Jenner's image spreads in Chinese social media good luck trend

Social media users in China are reportedly sharing images of US reality TV star Kris Jenner as part of a trend wishing for luck and fortune on platforms such as Weibo and RedNote. Hundreds of thousands of posts have been shared on Chinese social media in the past three days as users hope for prosperity for themselves, often humorously, including changing their profile pictures to Jenner. Jenner, mother of Kim, Khloé, Kourtney and Rob Kardashian, as well as Kendall and Kylie Jenner, appears in reality TV shows which follow the family in everyday life. As the so-called "momager" behind the family's media empire, Jenner is thought to have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. TikTok creator Marcelo Wang, who teaches viewers how to say popular phrases and slang in Mandarin, alerted many to the "super random" trend in a post on Friday. He told viewers the trend had grown "because Kris Jenner is one of the hardest working businesswomen in the US, and Chinese people really respect hard work". "Cosplaying Kris Jenner is like a Gen Z funny way to manifest success," he added. Jenner herself took to the comments of a video posted by Wang on Sunday, writing "you're ALL doing amazing, sweetie!!!!" - referencing her well-known, much-memed quote from an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Regional reporting of the trend has included screenshots from social media sites including RedNote - known as Xiaohongshu and used by millions of people in China - showing edited images of Jenner in a range of workwear, from "lawyer Kris" to "teacher Kris". Business Insider estimates 99,000 posts using Jenner have been posted on the platform and viewed 52.9m times. Last year it was estimated RedNote had a user base of around 300m, including an exodus of people from TikTok, which was under threat of a ban in the US at the time. The phenomenon has also spread to Douyin, China's version of TikTok, both in videos using Jenner's image, as well as videos explaining the use of Jenner's image and which have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in the past two days. Although the trend has yet to spread to western social media in large numbers, it has appeared on X. One person claimed they passed an exam thanks to having used Jenner's picture on their profile. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.