Zero identity.
Infinite opinions.

On Chinese platforms like Douban and Xiaohongshu, signing in through WeChat without handing over your real profile used to leave you with a placeholder identity: the username “momo”, paired with a round pink cartoon dinosaur for an avatar. Almost everyone renamed themselves within minutes of signing up. Some didn't.

Keeping the default turned out to be useful. When thousands of accounts share the exact same name and the exact same face, no single one of them stands out — which means you can say what you actually think without it being traceable back to you specifically. The habit started in fandom circles, trading gossip about celebrities without getting targeted by rival fan groups. From there it spread to heavier subjects: workplace complaints, feminism, the job market, politics — anywhere people wanted to talk freely without being tracked down and remembered.

Today there are reportedly hundreds of thousands of “momo”s scattered across Chinese social platforms, informally known as the momo army (momo 大军). Comment sections full of identical pink dinosaurs, arguing with each other under the same name.

Worth being precise about what this actually does: blending into a crowd of identical usernames is camouflage from other people on the same platform. It's a social trick, not a technical one — it never touched what the platform itself, or anyone with server access, could see.