Xiaohongshu has found a different way in the fast-paced Internet to attract users with “slow” content. Its “slow” strategy is reflected in the push model, live streaming and event holding, such as Dong Jie and Zhang Yao’s slow live streaming, as well as activities such as the “Slow Man Festival”, aiming to meet young people’s yearning for a slow life. This strategy meets users’ needs for deep experience and emotional resonance, becoming a new growth code.
Short videos need to catch people in 3 seconds, live streaming should create a fast pace of “3, 2, 1 links”, and reading is becoming more and more fragmented……
In the Internet world, “fast” used to be the only rule of survival. Interestingly, just when all platforms were accelerating, Xiaohongshu took a “slow” path.
From the unhurried clothing explanations in Dong Jie and Zhang Yao’s live broadcast room, to the hot topics of #citywalk and #公园20分钟效应, to the holding of activities such as the “Slow Man Festival” – these seemingly “anti-Internet laws” content has broken the circle again and again.
Why can you be out of the circle frequently with “slow”? In the fast-paced era, why are young people willing to pay for “slow content”?Let’s take a look at it from the perspective of “Crowley”!
01 Fight fast with “slow”, why is slow content frequently out of the circle?
It can be found that Xiaohongshu’s genes are engraved with the code of “slow”.
In terms of push mode, it takes graphic and text recommendations as the core, and returns as many choices as possible to users, which slows down the user’s pace to a certain extent and unexpectedly becomes its moat.
In terms of content, there has also been a lot of “slow content” on Xiaohongshu in recent years.
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Taking Dong Jie, Zhang Yao and other slow-paced delivery as examples, they do not shout microphones or count down, but quietly explain the craftsmanship and brand story of a knitted sweater, or the design concept of a set of health tools.
Their unhurried live broadcast rhythm is more like chatting and sharing with everyone through the lens, just like netizens said: “There is a feeling of spending money to get respect in Dong Jie’s live broadcast room”, slow live broadcast provides another way to establish a deeper connection with users, so that everyone’s trust and return rate are higher in slow and quiet.
The picture comes from Xiaohongshu
The audience who entered the live broadcast room did not have a sense of urgency to stop buying, and the seemingly “inefficient” live broadcast caught valuable users in the slow but deep communication.
He is lying on the bed chatting and telling submission stories, while providing the audience with relaxation and decompression emotional value, he also increases the time the audience stays in the live broadcast room, improves the audience’s interaction rate, and also promotes the audience’s orders.
The picture comes from Xiaohongshu
In addition, counting the content trends and popular entries of many young people’s slow lives in recent years, such as #citywalk, #公园20分钟效应, etc., the hotbed that gave birth to their popularity is Xiaohongshu.
Some time ago, in the Slow People Festival held by Xiaohongshu, the setting of multiple theme points such as slow small theaters, slow people do not rush to the market, and slow people soul workshops further captured the user trend under the fast-paced life, realized the slow to fight fast, and also let more and more people see that “slow content” is becoming a new growth code.
02 The whole platform “slows down”, slow content becomes a new battlefield?
It is worth noting that this “slow motion” content trend is not limited to Xiaohongshu.
According to Crowley’s “2025 KOL Fan Analysis Research Report on the Five Platforms”, the creative trend of KOLs on various platforms in 2024 is gradually evolving to life-oriented, high-quality, and unique.
The picture comes from Crowley’s “2025 KOL Fan Analysis Research Report on the Five Major Platforms”
In addition to some Bilibili UP owners gaining many fans through long Vlogs recording daily life, Douyin Selection’s support for medium and long videos and high-quality “slow content” also shows that the platform is aware of the potential of slow life content.
More and more creators are beginning to try to make immersive, slow-paced videos, such as @李子柒 and other intangible cultural heritage creators record the handmade process, @米三汉 spend 450 minutes in-depth analysis of “Dream of Red Mansions” and so on.
According to the observation of “Crowley”, users’ requirements for like interaction are gradually increasing, and high-quality content that fits the trend of user attention can attract user interaction.
In addition, topics such as #公园20分钟效应, #citywalk, and #年轻人的广场舞 that pursue life-oriented and slow-paced issues have also become typical topics on the five major platforms in 2024, triggering a lot of discussion.
The picture comes from Crowley’s “2025 KOL Fan Analysis Research Report on the Five Major Platforms”
When young people advocate putting down their mobile phones temporarily and returning to life and nature and feeling themselves through the 20-minute effect in the park; When “lying flat vacation” replaces “special forces tourism” has become a way for young people to slow down and enjoy leisure. The popularity of these topics is precisely young people’s love for slow life and their exploration of new ways of socializing.
This kind of national love for slow life content may indicate that the content of “slow life and hitting the emotions of young people’s lives” is becoming a new choice for creators and platforms.
03 Who is paying for “slow”?
The change in the trend of the content market is never accidental, and it reflects the changes in user needs.
Interestingly, the main consumer group of slow content is often those young people who are the most “fast” in reality. The continuous emergence of “slow content” is actually an accurate manifestation of social emotions – those young people who are coerced by 996 are using their own stays again and again to vote for the life samples they desire.
In the process of pursuing slow content, they try to escape from the non-stop real life for a short time and gain emotional relief and healing. And the “slow content” out of the circle can touch the hearts of these young people, which triggers their deep-seated emotional needs:
1. “Alternative healing” to relieve anxiety
First, “slow content” can act as an “anxiety hedge”. The success code of the variety show “Farming”, which has been out of the circle in recent years, is here.
The program deliberately downplayed the common dramatic conflicts in variety shows, and instead used documentaries, long shots and other methods to record the real process of ten young people farming. When professionals who are caught up by KPIs watch them cheer after work because they have successfully grabbed time and reaped their own results, it is not only the pleasure of watching but also a kind of “alternative healing”.
As the audience said: “Watching them farm, there is an inexplicable sense of decompression and calmness” and “envy this life”. This wonderful psychological compensation is the core emotional value of slow content.
2. Provide in-depth experiences that stimulate emotional resonance
Secondly, slow content is also more emotionally resonant. Taking the recent Douyin creator @一口一團 as an example, his immersive video of his off-work life is very popular.
It can be found that @一口一个团 his video does not have a complex plot and special effects, nor does it have oral broadcasts and quick switching shots, but it just immerses himself in his daily life with a cat and a dog after get off work, but there are still many netizens who are willing to stay for him.
The picture comes from Douyin
It is this real, ordinary life that has allowed countless young people running around the city to find emotional resonance. In each video, many viewers can be seen leaving messages in the comment area, saying: “The life I dreamed of.” Users saw their ideal living conditions in the video, and their inner emotional resonance was unconsciously stimulated.
3. Create slow life scenarios to meet social needs
Finally, offline slow content is becoming a “utopia” for urbanites to heal their souls and rebuild their social interactions.
For example, Xiaohongshu’s “Slow People Festival” captures users’ spiritual desires for “healing”, “self-consistency” and “returning to the neighborhood”, and offline art exhibitions, food tasting, music festivals and other activities have built a series of slow life experiences to press the pause button for the high-pressure life of young people.
People who originally passed by in the fast-paced life also intersected because of a “slow activity”, doing handicrafts, listening to music, socializing, and even developing into friends offline, which not only healed the tired body and mind, but also re-established a warm and real connection between people.
04 Write at the end
In general, the so-called “slow” is essentially a return to the “real”. When Internet content becomes more and more like spiritual fast food, those platforms and creators who dare to slow down hit users with the most primitive life truth.
These successful cases such as Xiaohongshu also tell us that in this era of scarce attention, the most precious thing is not to rob users of time, but to help them find the texture of time.
