Online influencers' posts Photo: Sina Weibo

Wearing leggings and sporting a designer brand bag while sitting inside a supermarket trolley in front of US wholesale supermarket Costco's Shanghai location has become a hot trend promoted by some Chinese influencers, but criticized by netizens as "vain" and "superficial."

Due to hashtags such as "pretending to be in LA" and "photo-taking guide," the US shop Costco in Shanghai has become a hot spot that has attracted many influencers to visit and post photos on China's popular lifestyle-sharing platforms such as Little Red Book. 

The few rules that such influencers have introduced include ensuring the photo framing shows the big Costco logo, giving off a "West Coast vibe" - wearing sexy high cropped T-shirts, luxury accessories and baseball caps next to expensive cars - and to pose sexy and cool. 

One Costco photo collection posted by an influencer on Little Red Book in late September has earned more than 1,500 likes by people, with some commenters saying it had the "best ambience" since she stuck a fake Washington state license plate on her car. 

While some have praised the emerging trend, some netizens have criticized it for being "superficial," saying that these influencers are fawning too much over foreign culture. 

"It is 2021, I can't believe there are people who still have this type of 'American Dream' like those who lived in the 1970s and the 1980s," said a netizen on Chinese media review site Douban.  

Some others commented that these photos originated in a particular lifestyle celebrated by young generations worldwide under the influence of today's globalized culture. 

"Yes, a lot of us are really into what people called the 'Western style.' I don't see the problem with it, because I like US TV dramas and am a Cardi-B type of girl and just want to live a similar lifestyle that many young people live there," Shala, a blogger who says she aspires to LA culture, told the Global Times. 

"What is behind these photos are influencers promoting a particular value system that is mostly celebrated by younger generations - indulging in material enjoyment, aspiring to unstrained lifestyles and being rich… such things are embedded in cultural productions, especially reality TV shows, that make viewers overseas believe what they see is common and real," Xiao, a cultural researcher, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

This is not the first time that the Costco location has become a hot topic on the internet. After Costco opened the location on August 27, 2019, the supermarket had to close down early that day due to the gridlock caused by an overload of customers. 

"Even though the portions of the meals are so huge I can't finish them, I still go shopping there because they have many things that are interesting to me," added Shala.