What is the 'flaunt your wealth' challenge sweeping Chinese social media?

A bizarre new lifestyle trend known as the ‘flaunt your wealth’ challenge is going viral on Chinese social media.

More than a million posts of people taking part in the challenge have appeared on the platform Weibo in the last two weeks, the Telegraph reports.

The trend sees participants posing as if they have just fallen head first out of a luxury vehicle and spilled their expensive possessions around them on the pavement.

Commentators say a whole host of social media influencers are now taking part in the phenomenon as a way to show off their increasing wealth.

According to ABC news, the trend which translates as the ‘flaunt your wealth’ challenge in Mandarin, actually started in Russia in the summer after a DJ posted a photo of himself pretending to fall out of a private jet on Instagram.

Since then, more than 100,000 Instagram posts with hashtags such as #fallingstars and #fallingstars2018 have been posted around the world.

But taking part in the challenge doesn’t come without risk.

One video, viewed more than 50,000 times, shows a woman lying beside her car on a pedestrian crossing in Taizhou, Zhejiang province surrounded by her belongings including scattered high heels, make up and a handbag.

She was later issued with a fine for by authorities for disrupting the traffic.

As a sort of rebellion to the displays of wealth, the challenge has also spawned a series of satirical memes poking fun at the Insta-rich with workers and students posting their own images posing face down surrounded by tools and books.

The falling stars challenge comes on the heels of another viral challenge, the Kiki Challenge which sees people dancing to the opening lines of the Drake song.

Meanwhile the Matilda Challenge, inspired by the 1996 family comedy starring Mara Wilson, sees participants attempting to recreate the scene in the movie where Matilda uses her powers to make things move around the room.

Less appealing was the ‘A4 waist challenge’ which kicked off in China in 2016 and saw women uploading photos of themselves comparing their waist measurements to an upright piece of A4 paper.

The controversial trend sparked debate over whether it sets unrealistic ‘fitness’ and ‘health’ goals for women to achieve a waist size the same or narrower than the width of the paper which measures just 21cm.

And earlier this year a mum issued a warning to parents about the dangers of ‘The Deodorant Challenge’ after the new playground craze left her daughter with second-degree burns.

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