I do not enjoy the rat race, but I want to try reaching overseas

Recently, I began trying to create an AI virtual character. Next, I want to make a series of videos with her, and try sharing them on overseas platforms.

Friends who have known me longer may find this a little surprising. Over these years, I have not put particularly intense effort even into my accounts in China. Why am I suddenly thinking about audiences abroad?

After reading Liu Run's September 5 daily essay from Brazil, I happened to feel like talking about this. He said that Chinese companies expanding overseas should go to places "Chinese people cannot go."

Of course, he did not mean places they literally cannot reach. Some places are complicated enough that many people decide they are too much trouble and give up at the thought. Someone willing to spend time understanding them may instead find an opportunity.

He was talking about companies. I thought of my own choices over the years.

I have never particularly enjoyed competing just to keep up.

Those who do not know me well may not know that my freelance work began on Sina Weibo. WeChat Moments did not exist yet, so I used Weibo in much the same way. I liked painting, and liked sharing what I painted and what I noticed in daily life.

I did not start with a plan for what kind of account to build or what business to make from it. I simply kept sharing, and gradually gained followers. People saw what I made, liked it, and happened to need it too. Later, courses emerged naturally, and I made my first substantial earnings.

Looking back, I did benefit from the moment. There were plenty of people who could paint, but not many around me were sharing seriously on Weibo yet. I enjoyed using it and was willing to share, so I found a little space of my own.

Later, more and more artists began running their own media accounts and making short videos. People could see more good work and more good teachers. With more choice, their expectations of me naturally changed too.

I could feel that change. But my response at the time was to withdraw from the internet a little.

During that period, I chose further study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, art study trips around the world, and time experiencing life in different places around China. Painting, looking at paintings, and wandering around were things I wanted to do anyway. I did not especially want to pack my days more tightly just to catch up with someone.

That is more or less how I have lived these years. Wherever interest takes me, I go a few steps further. I now pay a little more attention to the market, wanting to know what people actually need in their lives and work. But whether I want to do something myself still carries a great deal of weight.

I used to call this "competing with myself." Wanting to paint better, understand a new tool, or keep revising something I was not happy with.

But according to Liu Run's daily essay, effort that creates additional value does not count as the kind of self-defeating competition he was discussing. Seen that way, all my experimenting is probably my own curiosity and inner drive. I am quite willing to spend time on them.

Creating this virtual character is the same. She is an original character I made with AI. I want to gradually bring the Shanghai life I enjoy, and observations from watercolor and photography, into her videos, trying different stories and ways to express them.

You should gradually see her appearing in my videos. This article is also a way of explaining, in advance, why I want to do this.

"I am curious about what would happen if these familiar things I love were seen by people with another language and another background."

That is where the thought of trying overseas platforms came from.

I know some people are already doing very well, and have seen others begin to build a presence on Instagram. How much opportunity remains overseas, I cannot say yet. Registering an account does not mean people will see you. How to express things, why anyone would want to watch, and what needs adjusting can only be learned by actually doing it.

But these things I have not yet understood do not make me particularly want to retreat. If anything, I feel they are worth spending some time trying.

Over the past half year of following Liu Run, I have often agreed with the idea of "doing what is difficult and right." I believe in long-term accumulation, and think some barriers really can create a little distance from others once you cross them.

Looking back, posting on Weibo then hardly felt like hardship. I simply liked sharing. I posted a lot, posted frequently, and continued for quite a long time.

"Continuing may itself be a difficult thing."

Some people need positive feedback before something feels meaningful. After working at it for a while without much response, they no longer want to continue.

I do not seem to work quite that way. If I want to do something, I generally do it. A temporary lack of response does not usually make me feel it has no meaning.

Of course, I can also be very on-and-off. I do not achieve something every single day. Sometimes I pause because I want to stop, or because I want to do something else. But if I still want to do something, a lack of response is unlikely to make me abandon it. In that respect, I think I am a little different.

Today, I am probably looking for a similar way in. Some things are unfamiliar at first and need learning and patience. If the process helps me grow an ability, while offering a chance for someone else to like or need what I make, that is a difficulty I am willing to try.

I do not think competition will disappear just because I change platforms. But if I stay only in familiar places, it is hard to know who else might like my work.

At the moment, I cannot claim experience in reaching overseas audiences. I have simply made some new attempts, want to keep going, and would like to show them a little farther away.

Alongside the videos, I also want to gradually write about the interesting parts of these attempts and the feedback I actually receive.

"If you have made content for overseas audiences too, I would love to hear in the comments: what did you post, and on which platform? What unexpected responses did you receive? I would like to hear both what went smoothly and where you took a detour."

The views, experiences, and final judgments in this article are the author's. AI assisted with organizing the text. The discussion of reaching overseas audiences draws on Liu Run's daily essay of September 5, 2026.