Is he just not that into me? Young people in China turn to online psychics for answers via astrology

“Why did he stop texting me? Why did he give me the cold shoulder? Are we compatible? Is he seeing other girls?”

Zhang asks various live-streaming psychics on the app, but the answers are inconsistent. Some say, “He’s interested in you, and he’ll text you in two weeks,” while others deliver bad news via star charts, concluding, in Zhang’s words, that “he’s p****d at you because you f****d around too much”.

There are more judgmental readings, too, upsetting her further: “You’re not his type. He’s looking for someone submissive. You’re too proactive. As a girl, you should play hard to get.”

‘People are looking for hope’: psychics in demand in Hong Kong

Distressed and confused, she questions her actions: “I shouldn’t have sent him gifts”; “I shouldn’t have dated casually”; “I shouldn’t have been an easy girl”; “It was my fault that he lost interest in me.”

Every time she spoke to a psychic, one question would lead to another, 10 minutes would become 60, sometimes 90. Looking back, she says, that was the darkest period of her life.

Calling in sick to work and cancelling social events, she isolated herself in her apartment. All she cared about was finding clarity in her relationship with Wang, and she sought that through psychic live streams.

Between February and March this year, she says she spent more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) on Cece.

With Beijing issuing ever more regulations on “superstitions”, Cece has positioned itself as a “live-streaming commu­nity for females” in app stores, and thrives under the guise of “counselling”.

Paul Thagard, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada, says those seeking psychic help are “reinforced by the psychic to do what brings you pleasure and relief. In this case, it’s booking more sessions with the psychic you believe is helping you”.

Thagard sees this as a form of cognitive bias. When people make decisions based on emotions and personal goals, such as when it comes to relationships and careers, those decisions tend to be made more from motivation than logical judgments.

He can see dead people: the ‘psychic’ reality TV show star

Zhang says, “Cece is famous among Chinese youth and it fulfils the psychological need for clarity. When there’s no other way to find out answers, people use Cece to peep into unpredictable situations.”

Founded in 2011, Cece is the biggest app in China to combine tarot reading, fortunetelling, astrology and counselling under “psychological counselling”.

The app’s opening gambit is a feature called “Ask a Question”, where visitors type or say something such as “When will I get married?” and receive answers from several psychics based on their payment plan.

Ten, 20 and 30 yuan generate answers from four, seven and 10 psychics respectively. Higher-level psychics charge 45, 65, 120 or even 200 yuan for three, five, 10 and 20 answers.

A few years ago, I got curious, too. Cece told me I am a Leo sun, Aries moon and Sagittarius rising, and that is about all it did. Before speaking with Zhang, I was not aware things had evolved so much.

So I downloaded the app again and clicked on the cheapest option: 10 yuan for answers from four psychics. The system automatically generates popular questions such as “When will I get married?”, “Does he have feelings for me?”, “Can I pass the final exam?” and “Does my ex have a new girlfriend/boyfriend?”.

I picked the last option. My ex and I had broken up a year earlier, and he has been in a newly committed relationship for seven months. It is a question to which I know the answer.

Within minutes, I received four voice messages. After the usual astrological terms such as “Mercury and Leo in the ninth house”, two psychics told me “it’s likely that he’s talking to other girls”, while the other two said, “He has a romantic interest, but he’s definitely not in a new relationship” and “Your ex is currently single. He hasn’t got over you. He will take action towards you soon.”

So there you go. For Zhang, too, the answers from Ask a Question were varied, but I started to think that the inconsistencies are what makes this feature a gateway drug, leading to the more addictive live streams, for which psychics can charge anywhere from 1.3 yuan to 23.3 yuan per minute.

“Mysticism is a form of psychology and Cece aims at psychological counselling,” Cece’s CEO, Ren Yongliang, told media site Sohu News in March last year. According to him, top psychics on Cece can earn nearly 2 million yuan a year. “We’re building a tech company that makes counselling accessible for everyone.”

This all began, arguably, with the advent of social-media platform Weibo in 2009 and accelerated with the short-video boom of Douyin that started in 2017.

Uncle Tongdao, a Weibo account created by freelance illustrator Cai Yuedong in 2014, dedicated to meme-like astrology cartoon posts, has gained a cultlike following, reaching 10 million followers within a year.

In 2016, Chinese investment firm Meisheng Holding Group acquired Uncle Tongdao for 210 million yuan and Cai cashed in 178 million yuan for his 72.5 per cent share.

The corporate takeover has put the name Uncle Tongdao on cafes, offline events and merchants. Taobaibai, meanwhile, could potentially earn 6 million yuan a month from his content, according to Sohu.

But the booming industry has also attracted scammers. In April 2022, a woman named Gai spent nearly 1.5 million yuan on WeChat for spiritual work to remove the “curses” placed on her ex.

Gai, seeking relationship advice on how to get back together with her ex on the discussion forum Baidu Tieba, was advised by a user to take psychic sessions with Lei, who also operated an online Thai amulet business with his wife.

The Leis convinced Gai that her ex was cursed and only spiritual work to remove the curses would rekindle their relationship. The couple said Gai was spiritually weak and persuaded her to ask for money from her parents.

From November 2020 to August 2021, Gai paid the couple more than 400 times.

Three months before Liu’s arrest, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) targeted online activities related to super­stition and mysticism in its 2023 clear-up campaign.

“Clearing up posts and videos that promote super­stition. Punishing service providers who offer fortunetelling sessions,” said the CAC in a post on its WeChat account in January.

Later, Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily announced the government was “reinforcing bans and regulations on online mysticism”.

On May 31, Xiaohongshu published an announcement about clearing up superstitious content, saying the platform would ban accounts related to tarot readings, fortunetelling, palm/face readings and sales of mystic products.

Since then, Xiaohongshu has censored 13,052 notes, banned 1,394 accounts and reset 829 accounts.

This woman says she can read dogs’ (and cockroaches’) minds

Cece wrote in an email that its services “are based on psychological counselling using positive psychology and narrative therapy. The incidents shared on social media are individual cases and we don’t acknowledge them”.

As for Liu, post-bust, he jokingly admits that if fortunetelling were real, he would have seen the police coming “and wouldn’t have been arrested”.

Since the government’s crackdown on mysticism, psychic bloggers and companies such as Cece have promoted themselves as “entertainment”. On Cece, before paying for Ask a Question and live streams, the app pops up notifications stipulating that “the upcoming content is for self-exploration through entertainment. It doesn’t adhere to the principle of value judging and has no instructive significance in real life […]

“Experts’ opinions are based on their own knowledge and life experience; therefore, individual differences exist among different experts. The platform doesn’t provide guarantee for the experts. Please be rational.”

It adds that “the platform bans superstitious content. If you engage in such activities with Cece experts, you’re responsible for the costs”.

Cece still vets counsellors through online exams. On the app Cece Daren, any verified user can sign up for exams to become a counsellor. After two fundamental exams on the platform’s rules and ethics, prospective psychics can take tests in specialised subjects such as tarot reading, birth charts and the Yi Jing (I Ching).

Aspirants are then required to film themselves using another device so examiners can check for any cheating. Despite the scrutiny, at some point the test banks for the online exams were leaked. On Xiaohongshu, posts and comments hinting at possession of “test banks for Cece” are common.

Once certified, counsellors can live-stream and answer questions from the Ask a Question section. The prerequisites for becoming a higher-level counsellor are accumulated consulting hours, number of clients and at least two live streams per month.

Jia is a level-three psychic on Cece. She has been live-streaming for four hours every night from her apartment in Beijing for the past three years. Most of her clients are young women seeking clarity in relationships, she says, acknowledging that the quality of the psychics on Cece varies.

“The platform vets psychics based solely on online exams, and there are loopholes,” she says. “Some psychics say baseless and misleading stuff during live streams to keep the time running. They just want to accumulate minutes to jump to the next level.”

In May, Zhang Qing, a 26-year-old woman from Zhejiang province who has spent nearly 100,000 yuan on Cece since 2020, recalled that some male psychic live-streamers made sexual jokes on a few occasions.

But, she tells me, she has never thought of quitting because tuning into live streams at night has become part of her routine.

Her current favourite question is, “When will he ask me out again?” The dates provided by the psychics, though varied and not always accurate, give her hope.

“After breaking up with my ex, I was very emotional,” she says. “Talking to the psychics on Cece has been a consolation. It’s impossible to spill to your friends all the time.

“Even if the answers from the live streams are inaccurate, I can still dump my negativity. It helps me cope with the situation.”

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kuqKzwLOgp52jZL2wv9NmpJqfka%2B2r7GOpaann12nsqKw0miYq6yZmLmme5Jram9pYW18qbGMo6ysrF2jvLV5zJ5koqScYq60t4ypqrKbmJ6wbsXOrqWgZaCavLG4xGaaoaGelnq1wdGnZJqrpKe8rbvGsmSaqKCoeqK5yJ1krqaTmr%2B1rcinq7I%3D