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| Influencer Who Looks Like Crystal Liu Yifei Sparks Debate After Name Change |
Chinese social media has found itself another talking point – a 23-year-old influencer whose looks bear a striking resemblance to actress Crystal Liu (Liu Yifei), best known internationally for Disney’s Mulan.
But unlike the big-screen star, this Liu Yifei is actually Lin Xiaotang, a journalism graduate turned livestreamer who’s been juggling admiration, criticism, and the tricky game of online identity.
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Lin Xiaotang’s story is nothing like a fairytale start.
Fresh out of Guizhou University, she interned in Shenzhen in 2024, making just 2,000 yuan a month – below legal minimum wage in the city.
Friends encouraged her to try livestreaming, and after more than a year of low-key broadcasts, things flipped overnight.
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Clips of her profile – which reminded netizens of the actress Liu Yifei – started spreading like wildfire.
Within three days, she gained over 200,000 new followers and shot onto Weibo’s trending charts.
Unlike many influencers who dodge comparisons, Lin didn’t pretend otherwise.
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She openly admitted she picked the stage name “Liu Yifei” to ride on the actress’s popularity.
“I’m not selling anything. I just enjoy livestreaming,” she explained during one of her broadcasts.
She also made it clear she had no ambitions to enter showbiz, denied ever undergoing cosmetic surgery, and even showed childhood photos to back up her claim that her features have always been the same.
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Of course, with fame comes fire.
While some netizens praised her honesty – “If you’ve got the looks, why not use them?” – others were harsher, arguing she looked nothing like the real Liu Yifei and accusing her of clout-chasing.
The criticism reached a point where Lin Xiaotang decided to drop the borrowed name.
C-netz comments:
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She announced on 21 September that she would now go by “Lin Xiaotang” – her real name – in hopes of calming the storm.
Ironically, the new name had once been used by trolls to spread rumours about her, but she flipped it around, adopting it as her own.
“If people keep scolding me, I might even change it back,” she half-joked in a livestream.
For Lin Xiaotang, the choice was simple survival. With little money and limited prospects, using a name linked to an A-list actress gave her a foothold in a ruthless digital economy.