China Power | Society | East Asia

China’s Male Matchmakers and the End of ‘Marrying Up’

A new wave of matchmaking influencers explicitly treats marriage as a business transaction – and they brutally judge clients’ prospects accordingly.

Screenshots of online matchmakers (from left) Tianshu, Aoye, and Dachao.

In early 2024, a grandmotherly figure known as “Wang Po”（王婆）became a national sensation in China for her folksy matchmaking performances in Kaifeng. Less than two years later, the country’s online matchmaking scene has undergone an unexpected gender reversal. A new generation of male matchmaking influencers, including Aoye（鳌烨）, Wukong（悟空）, Dachao（大超）, and Tianshu（天书）, has taken over the spotlight.

These men have little in common with the traditional image of the matchmaker. Often dressed in business attire and speaking in the language of markets, they assess participants’ appearance, education, family background, income, and assets before telling them what kind of partner they can realistically expect.

The male matchmakers’ appeal may partly come from the authority they claim through a language of competition, income, and hierarchy that has traditionally been coded as masculine. But their rise reveals something deeper than a new social media trend: a growing anxiety about marriage itself.

For years, China’s most prominent relationship gurus were predominantly women. Figures such as Ayawawa taught female audiences how to make themselves more desirable, manage relationships, and potentially “marry up.” The underlying message was aspirational: improve yourself, learn the rules, and you might move upward in the marriage market.

The new male matchmakers offer a colder perspective. Their signature question is simple: What do you actually have to offer?

Scoring systems have become a staple of their livestreams. Participants may be rated from one to 10 based on their appearance and overall qualifications. The terms A8, A9, and A10 are used as shorthand to refer to increasing levels of wealth, with A8 generally indicating tens of millions of yuan ($1.4-1.5 million or more) in assets, A9 hundreds of millions, and A10 billions. Even celebrities can become benchmarks. 

Ordinary participants who expect to “marry up” may receive a rating of four or five, followed by a blunt explanation of why their expectations are unrealistic. Chinese coverage of the trend has documented some of these exchanges in detail.

The spectacle works because humiliation and reassurance coexist: viewers are shown how harsh the marriage market can be, while being promised that someone........

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