Liu Yexi has taken Douyin by storm. As of Nov 17. the virtual idol, who debuted (首次出现) on the social media platform on Oct 31. had only released two short videos but attracted over 5 million followers.

Different from other virtual idols, Liu is defined as a “virtual beauty vlogger”. In her first video, Liu is doing makeup with an eye brush while dressed in a traditional Chinese costume. When she turns around, the onlookers are terrified, except one boy. Then Liu slightly brushes the boy’s eyes, allowing him to see the fantasy world in her own eyes.

The internet users marveled at its storyline, science-fiction elements and special visual effects with cyberpunk style. Liang Zikang, the CEO of the production team, told China Newsweek that the team spent two months making the video.

Liu’s instant popularity online further reflects that the virtual idol industry in China has been booming. There are over 32, 400 virtual idols that have opened accounts on video-sharing platform Bilibili in the past year, seeing a year-on-year rise of 40 percent, Chen Rui, the CEO of Bilibili, said in a speech.

“Compared with real idols and stars, the virtual ones seem to be more approachable for fans,” Shine News noted. Additionally, these virtual web celebrities won’t have scandals.

As more young people are fascinated by these virtual figures, their commercial value has been on the rise. Generally, they earn money by endorsements, online concerts, livestreaming and related products.

Therefore, some people are wondering whether they will replace real humans. “These so-called virtual idols have real human teams to back them up and control them. They are not really virtual,” Ding Daoshi, an independent analyst in the internet sector, told the Global Times. The real virtual idol will come when artificial intelligence achieves a new level of self-learning and self-training and then interacts with others, he added.

TikTok has pushed a new safety update in November to its app that allows parents to take more control of their teenager's accounts, as social media companies come under increasing pressure to make their platforms safer for children.

The company said Tuesday that its “Family Pairing” feature now enables parents to turn off comments on their children's videos entirely or to limit them to friends only. Parents whose accounts are linked to their kids will also be able to set their accounts to private, turn off the search function for content, users or sounds, and limit who can see which videos their children have liked.

Launched (发布) in March, the Family Pairing tool lets parents see how long their children are spending on TikTok each day and limit the content they can see.

TikTok allows children to register and create an account if they're over the age of 13. All they need to do is provide their date of birth. However, because TikTok doesn't require registers to prove their identities, some children under 13 have registered by lying about their age，according to U. K. regulator Ofcom (英国通讯管理局).

Alexandra Evans, head of child safety public policy for TikTok in Europe, told CNBC that Family Pairing has “put itself in parents' shoes” since it was launched.

“If we're thinking about it as a toolbox, we wanted to offer more tools,” she said on a video call ahead of the announcement.

Ikigai, a Japanese philosophy, describes the act of seeking for a fulfilled life. And in Asia, there is no better place to find it than Osaka. In a recent survey of “liveability” in Asian cities (which include those in Oceania) by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Japan’s second largest city Osaka ranked first, together with Melbourne from Australia. With 7 cities in total making the top ten, Japan and Australia dominated the upper reaches of the index.

The EIU’s global index ranks living conditions in 172 cities across the world. The firm judges each city on a broad range of measures in five categories: culture and environment, education, health care, infrastructure (基础设施) and stability. On average, Asian cities achieved a score of 69 in 2022, compared with 91 for cities in Western Europe and 88 for North American ones. Sub-Saharan Africa is rated the least liveable region with an average score of just 50.

Many places across Asia lost ground to the West. In particular, countries with strict border controls have fallen behind when others are back to normal. For example, when the survey was conducted, New Zealand experienced another wave of Covid-19 and introduced new restrictions. As a result, Auckland, which topped the worldwide index in 2021, fell by 33 places.

The average score of the cities improved by about 4. 5 points on last year. The biggest gains were in the culture and environment category, thanks to the recovery of cultural and sporting activities that had been stopped by earlier Covid restrictions.