Users of instant-messaging platforms are becoming increasingly annoyed by frequent messages canvassing online support for children in competitions, as Tang Yue reports.

In China, there are usually two reasons people receive messages from friends and relatives from whom they haven't heard for a while.

The first revolves around New Year greetings, which are always welcome. The second reason is often less palatable, however; people are increasingly contacting long-lost friends, or even casual acquaintances, and urging them to cast online votes for their children or grandchildren in competitions.

The practice, which has been growing rapidly, has now reached the point where people are becoming jaded, frustrated and annoyed. In short, they are sick and tired of voting.

The results of a recent survey conducted by the Jinhua Evening News in East China's Zhejiang province show that 94 percent of 384 respondents had been asked by friends or relatives to cast votes online for their children.

The contests range from the "cutest baby" to dancing competitions, but in many cases the people receiving the messages haven't heard from the sender for a long time and have never met the child involved.

'Canvassing parents'

Li Liang is what is known as a "canvassing parent". Two weeks before Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, which fell on Feb 8, Li's wife entered their 4-year-old daughter in a "New Year's Kid" contest for children age 14 or younger in Dalian, a city in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Like most of these contests, the child's ranking was based entirely on the number of online votes they received. As a reward, photos of the top 10 children were printed in the Dalian Evening News on Chinese New Year's Day.

Li, who also has a 1-year-old son, was too shy to bother his friends by messaging them individually. Instead, he posted a message on the homepage of his public account on WeChat, a popular instant-messaging and social-networking platform.

"To be honest, I don't like this kind of activity. The organizers are taking advantage of the parents' love for their children for commercial purposes. But still, I hope you can spend a minute checking the photo of my daughter and voting for her," Li wrote, when he posted the link to the voting site.

To vote, people usually have to first subscribe to the organizer's public WeChat account, which quickly results in a flood of unsolicited messages and ads.

In the case of Li's daughter, nicknamed "Little Pomegranate", the competition involved two rounds.

The preliminary round was sponsored by a children's art school, while the final was sponsored by a company that provides consultations and services for parents.

Thanks to the efforts of Li and his wife, Little Pomegranate attracted 266 votes in the first round and was ranked 13th. After the preliminary round, her grandparents joined the canvassing team in a bid to ensure that she made the top 10 in the final.

"They contacted almost every single person they've ever known, all over China, and asked them to vote for their granddaughter," said Li, who works for a shipping company.

The girl eventually received 1,268 votes, well beyond Li's expectations, but her ranking remained the same as during the first round so Little Pomegranate's photo wasn't printed in the newspaper, much to her disappointment.

Adverse affects?

Although the competitions may appear to be harmless fun, some education professionals are concerned that they could have an adverse effect on children.

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, voiced concerns about the long-term impact.

"It actually sends a message to children that what really counts is not who you are or how hard you work, but how many social-networking resources your parents have," he said.

Moreover, helping children to win titles they don't really deserve is also likely to give them an unhealthy self-image: "Placing an artificial halo around a child's head will put too much pressure on him or her, and could prevent a child from discovering their own self and fully realizing their potential."

Safety concerns

Similar concerns were expressed in March, during this year's meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.

Tang Sulan, a member of the CPPCC's National Committee, proposed a ban on online competitions featuring minors to prevent future psychological issues.

She was also concerned that public disclosure of a child's personal information and publication of photos poses a potential risk to the child's safety.

Li Hongyan, the mother of an 11-year-old girl and an 18-month-old boy in Beijing, said she has never canvassed on behalf of her children.

Although on the surface the children are competing among themselves via their parents' social networks, the competitions are also about parents seeking a "sense of victory" for themselves, she said.

"It feels as though parents are using their babies as tools to win glory for themselves, rather than truly respecting their kids' dignity and nature."

However, despite her antipathy to the contests, she has twice voted for the babies of close friends because "it would be embarrassing to say no".

The frustration and annoyance generated by the constant stream of requests have led some people to post jokes online mocking the practice.

One of the best-known goes like this:

"Please vote for my baby. No 157."

"OK. I've voted. No 175."

"No, it's No 157."

"I voted for 175 on purpose because No 157 is not cute at all."

When friends asked Li Kang to vote for their child's work in a drawing competition, he agreed to help. The graphic designer from Cangzhou, Hebei province, who has studied art since childhood, opened the link and reviewed the entrants' work.

In his opinion, the top-ranked painting was not very good, but it garnered more than 2,000 votes, while a child he regarded as "very talented" gained just 24 votes.

"I was worried that the boy would feel bad about himself. It is too cruel," he said.

The following day, Li Kang phoned the kindergarten the child attended, and pretended to be his uncle so he could speak with him.

"I said 'I just want to tell you that the spaceship you drew was really good'. The cute kid giggled and replied, 'Actually it was a whale," Li Kang said.

According to the Jinhua Evening News survey, while 70 percent of respondents didn't agree with parents canvassing for their children, 26 percent said they would vote if asked, and 60 percent said they would consider voting, depending on their relationship with the child's parents.

Of those who have voted, 8 percent did so because they thought the children were "really great", while 66 percent voted to "give face" to friends. A further 21 percent ticked the box to facilitate an exchange of votes.

"Every parent thinks their baby is very cute, probably the cutest in the world, so I don't see the point of selecting the cutest one at all," said Lin Xiangzhen, the mother of a 2-year-old girl in Haikou, Hainan province.

"I am especially annoyed by people who offer hong bao - red envelopes that contain electronic money - on WeChat groups while canvassing for their babies. I always think, 'are you buying my votes for your baby?'" said the vocational school English teacher.

'Acquaintance society'

Yang Yiyin, a social psychology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said canvassing for minors among friends and relatives is in line with China's traditional "acquaintance society", in which behavior is guided by kinship and emotion rather than reason and law.

"Compared with the West, respect for the rules and the spirit of an agreement are not deep-rooted in China. People feel it's natural to help their friends and relatives, regardless of the legitimacy, especially when it only takes a minute. If you don't vote, you are considered stubborn," she said.

Not all the votes are the result of the acquaintance society, though. Hundreds of independent vendors on Taobao, China's major online-shopping platform, offer voting services at about 0.5 yuan (8 cents) per vote.

Li Liang said professional voters were probably involved in the final round of the "New Year Kid" contest in which Little Pomegranate took part.

"I just ate breakfast, and then discovered that one kid had already gained another 500 votes. I don't believe any parent can convince so many people in such a short time," he said.

His family held a meeting and decided that they wouldn't employ professional voters.

"It is not that we can't afford it, because it's not a lot of money," said Li Liang. "Chinese parents will do anything for their children, but this has definitely gone too far. I know that if we did that (employ professional voting services), we would probably consider the same means next time, and that would have a very bad impact on the children.

"I really regret taking part in these activities and feel sorry for inconvenience I caused my friends. I will never put my child in a contest like that again."

Contact the writer at tangyue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/13/2016 page6)