China recorded 6.106 million marriage registrations in 2024, a 20.5% year-on-year decrease, according to Xinhua and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, with a national marriage rate of just 4.3 per 1,000 people. The first to combat these worrying stats are reportedly parents who will stop at nothing to convince their children to get married and start a family.
According to multiple media reports, Chinese video-sharing platforms like Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and Weibo are being flooded with AI-generated videos featuring aging protagonists expressing regret at not having listened to their parents and started a family when they were young.
In one viral video, a 58-year-old AI-generated woman can be seen by heself during hospital visits, while other patients in neighboring beds are being cared for by family members. In another clip, a 56-year-old character expresses regret for ignoring her parents’ advice to start a family. Even though most clips are tagged as ‘AI-generated’, they still go viral after being shared millions of times.
The growing trend has been dubbed a “cyber siege” by worried parents to convince their offspring to start a family. Critics warn that such tactics will only deepen social divisions between the married and unmarried, but parents worried about their children’s future don’t seem to care too much about that.
“We need more of these videos. Let us see who still insists on staying single,” one person commented on Weibo.
“Everyone, spread these clips and let these young people watch,” someone else wrote.
The feedback has been generally negative, though, especially among young people who actually seem to find the videos and the entire trend hilarious.
“It’s quite funny that they used AI, because they couldn’t find a real person to cry and urge people to get married,” one person wrote, while others added that the videos will only make single people more frustrated with their parents and make them want to stay single just to spite them.
The post Parents Are Using AI-Generated “Regret Videos” to Pressure Children into Marriage first appeared on Oddity Central - Collecting Oddities.
