In China, while in the West the debate still revolves around the idea of whether or not artificial intelligence can replace a psychologist, Gen Z has already chosen a third way. It’s not traditional therapy. It’s not a chatbot. It is something more human, faster, more surprising. They are called instant response specialistsin Chinese meow hui shiand represent the emotional version of call centers: immediate, textual, personalized responses. Always available. Quick. Virtually instantaneous.
A model that intercepts a profound need: to be listened to at the exact moment in which anxiety emerges, without mediation, without emotional bureaucracy, without the symbolic weight of “therapy” as an institution.
Who are the “miao hui shi” and where are they found?
The instant response specialists they operate in the digital spaces most familiar to Chinese Gen Z: marketplaces integrated into social media, gig platforms, hybrid environments where work, identity and intimacy overlap seamlessly. For just a few yuan and without appointments, you can start a private conversation with someone who responds within seconds.
These are not clinical consultations or structured paths. The service is simple, almost disarming: listening, empathy, presence. A space where you can let off steam, talk about a bad day, an unsustainable work pressure, a relationship that doesn’t work, the loneliness of a studio apartment in a megalopolis. Often at night. Often when there is no one else to write to.
The promise is not to heal, but to be there. And for a generation raised in hyper-connection but poor in authentic human contact, this promise is worth a lot.
An emotional response to urban solitude
The success of meow hui shi it describes contemporary China better than many sociological analyses. It tells of young adults who live alone, work too much, move cities quickly, build fragile and temporary relationships. It tells of a society that has accelerated everything — career, mobility, expectations — except the ability to stop and listen.
Traditional therapy, for many, appears distant: expensive, slow, institutional, often associated with a stigma that is still present. The instant response specialists they get around all of this. No diagnosis. No sofa. No medical records. Just an immediate conversation that restores, even if just for a few minutes, the feeling of meaning something to someone.
In this sense, the phenomenon is not a passing fad, but a functional response to a structural void.
The economic side: empathy as a job
From an economic point of view, the model fits perfectly into the logic of the new Chinese digital work. Rates are flexible, often based on time or demand. Earnings can reach around RMB 10,000 per month — a significant amount, especially for college students, stay-at-home parents or young workers looking for alternative income.
The person offering the service is not necessarily an “expert” in the classic sense. He is someone who monetizes emotional availability, listening skills, empathetic language. A fluid professionalism, not certified, but perfectly consistent with an economy in which everything – even attention – becomes a resource.
This is where the question becomes more complex: when listening becomes work, and comfort a micro-transaction, what happens to the very concept of care?
Because they are not (and do not want to be) therapists
The comparison with psychotherapy is inevitable, but risks being misleading. The instant response specialists they do not promise healing or clinical tools. They don’t talk about traumas, diagnoses or long-term paths. They offer something different: immediate relief, an emotional pause, a continuous and potentially unlimited presence.
Twenty-four hours a day. Without geographical borders. Without waiting lists. In a China where millions of young people live far from their families and where informal emotional support has dwindled, this permanent availability has enormous value.
But it is precisely this absence of borders that generates the first cracks.
The risks of an unregulated sector
The very rapid growth of the phenomenon raises serious questions about the quality and safety of the support offered. The instant response specialists they have no clinical training and are not required to comply with codes of ethics. This means they may not recognize situations of serious distress, provide inadequate advice or find themselves unprepared for complex ethical dilemmas.
China strengthened user safety regulations at the end of 2025, particularly regarding chatbots and digital services. But the human territory of the instant reply providers it remains largely a gray area, where innovation outpaces regulation.
The risk is not only individual, but systemic: delegating emotional well-being to informal figures can become a dangerous shortcut if it completely replaces access to professional support.
A signal that goes beyond China
To dismiss the phenomenon as improvised or superficial would be a mistake. The instant response specialists they are a symptom, not an anomaly. They describe a global transformation: mental health as an immediate service, relationships as fragmented experiences, listening as performances.
It is a model that was born in China, but speaks to all the hyper-performative societies of the present. Where the need to be heard runs faster than the institutions called to respond. Where time is scarce, but anxiety is constant.
Maybe they’re not therapists. But they tell, with almost cruel precision, what happens when empathy becomes a parallel infrastructure. And when comfort, instead of being a right, is transformed into an on-demand service.
