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Text |Stinging Institute, author |Summer.There has never been a generation of netizens who care about their mental health as much as they do today. From "netizens' mammary glands are also mammary glands" to "let go of personal qualities and enjoy a life without morality", Internet hot memes are not only an expression of the collective emotions of the younger generation, but also reflect the individual and social dilemmas faced by young people.
On the material level, young people are economically disadvantaged due to declining social mobility, negative population growth, and economic fluctuations brought about by the pandemic. On the spiritual level, as a generation with a far-reaching sense of self, young people gradually break away from their families and break into the torrent of the times as independent individuals, facing a stronger sense of loneliness and powerlessness. At the same time, the ever-changing trend of social thought has also made young people realize the dislocation and gap between them and the mainstream culture in the value system.
In the face of the imbalance between ideals and reality, young people not only express their emotions in the public field of the Internet, but also gradually try to link themselves with more specific things, and express themselves in a variety of forms to try to heal themselves. As a result, the "healing economy" manifested by decompression consumption, comfort consumption, surprise consumption, and loneliness economy is in full swing.
From all kinds of decompression, ** to online virtual products, emerging tufting, balcony cooking, to comfort food for comfort, the demand for self-healing is "decompressing" new economic vitality.
Global Health Institute's report, "The Global Health Economy: Beyond the Coronavirus"**The global healing economy will grow at a rate of about 10% per year, reaching $7 trillion by 2027. Bain, a well-known consulting firm, also mentioned in "Eight Models Affecting the Future Economy":Chinese consumers are actively seeking ways to access emotional support, alternative companionship and stress-relieving experiences to heal themselves.
Compared with the market potential tapped in the survey report, Chinese consumers have shown "forward-thinking" in the exploration of self-healing. In September 2023, "Einstein's Brain Slice" sold more than 20,000 copies on e-commerce platforms, and the product description claimed that "it will automatically grow into your brain after taking a picture", while the sales column shows that more than 70,000 products have been sold.
What's even more grasping is that in the voice of questioning, the buyers in the comment area have defended the seller, sincerely saying that the product is useful and "must be bought for college students' final exams". The truth is that what college students seek is an "emotional value", and the short-term test anxiety is the greatest value of this consumption.
Such virtual emotional products also include "emotional tree hole", "scolding the love brain", "generation quarrel", "lonely frog", focusing on a special emotional support. The most out-of-the-circle performance of this kind of product is that after the movie "Disappearing Her" was released, the monthly sales of the virtual service of "Awakening the Love Brain" exceeded 20,000 yuan.
Young people who are eager for "spiritual massage" are elevating healing to the C position. According to the data statistics of Xinzhan, Xinhong, and Xindou, the total number of related views of Station B exceeded 10 billion, the total number of views of Xiaohongshu "decompression" exceeded 100 billion, and the number of Douyin "decompression" related exceeded 130 billion.
Healing methods have also ushered in rapid iteration. In the past few years, the popular tea around the hearth, copying scriptures, and yoga in the social circle are no longer enough to attract likes, and through intracranial voice conduction, five senses**, etc., the singing bowl, aromatherapy, meditation and other novel conditioning methods and common social conversation points are used to release emotions to achieve the effect of decompression. And these trendy ways to decompress have another characteristic: they need to be consumed to obtain.
In Shanghai, use Meituan to search for "aromatherapy", "singing bowl" and "meditation", and a search result will appear on the first screen of the map. Among them, there are not only boutiques specializing in these projects, but also many yoga studios, spa shops, beauty salons, and psychological counseling rooms, and behind each store link, there are consumers who have relaxed their healing habits and consumption behaviors through these special projects.
Meituan data shows that in December 2023, the search volume of the keyword "healing" on the Meituan platform increased by 256%, and the search volume of "singing bowl healing" increased by 423%. To borrow from the description of Japanese scholar Masakazu Yamazaki in "The Birth of Flexible Individualism", we can see that behind this consumption behavior is people's desire to establish deep communication and interaction to achieve emotional decompression and release. "Consumption is the consumption and regeneration of goods as a superficial purpose, but in reality the pursuit of spending time to the fullest. ”
In addition to these trendy healing methods, young people have also unearthed "old Internet celebrity" products.
In 2023, religious and cultural attractions such as temples will gradually be favored by young people. Beijing's Lama Temple and Tanzhe Temple, Changsha's Kaifu Temple, Xixin Temple, Lushan Temple, Hangzhou's Lingyin Temple and Faxi Temple, temples have become a holy place for young people to check in, and Buddhist bead bracelets have also become a popular social topic.
*According to data from the ticketing platform, the number of ticket orders for temple-related scenic spots in 2023 will increase by nearly 50% year-on-year, of which the post-80s and post-90s generations account for more than 60%. Young people may not really believe in Buddhism, but in the face of the torture of reality, throwing problems to the bodhisattva seems to be the only solution. A temple is not just a temple, but also a sustenance for the soul of young people.
Another "old Internet celebrity" product that chooses metaphysics when you are undecided is astrology. In the offline market on weekends, the tarot card stalls are always overcrowded, consulting relationships, career studies, and even eight-character fortunes. The tarot card-related hits of station B abound with more than one million, and the highest click-through rate even exceeded 5 million. In addition, trendy fortune-telling methods such as "AI intelligent divination" and "AI intelligent face reading" have emerged in an endless stream, attracting everyone who feels confused about the future to find answers in small programs and apps in the Internet world.
Whether it's metaphysical divination or body, mind and spirit, stress relief or health preservation, well-designed consumer products are essentially selling spiritual needs and emotional values.
Wang Zhi, a post-00s therapist who has been practicing in Shanghai for two years, revealed to the Startling Research Institute that most of the customers who come to consult the healing course are post-85s and post-90sThey generally face various problems from the workplace, emotional relationships and family relationships of origin, and "internal friction", "insomnia", "sadness" and "depression" are high-frequency keywords mentioned in customer consultations.
Wang Zhi believes that the work of a therapist is different from the mental illness services provided by psychological counselors, which is to provide people with "spiritual massage" by improving negative emotions and stress. "Most people want to get a state of physical relaxation, and more importantly, improve their mood in a new environment and new experience. ”
Wang Zhi is full of confidence in the development of the industry, because behind the constantly tapped market potential is a group of accurate and high-quality target users. According to Wang Zhi, her healing studio will cooperate with some yoga studios, high-end hotels, homestays, etc., to provide some healing courses, some of which are paid according to the course, and sometimes provide customized additional courses to high-end customers, and the venue and the therapist will cooperate in the form of sharing.
With the growth of users' demand for healing services, the first-end market has also rapidly developed a diversified path. Sort out the current mainstream service forms in the healing industryAccording to the research institute, there are seven types: spiritual comfort, situational support, self-comfort, experiential comfort, pet healing, leisure comfort, and sports comfort.
Among them, in addition to the traditional art methods such as **, painting, film, **, etc., the spiritual comfort type of healing courses has also attracted the attention of many consumers recently, which is often used as a Buddhist and Hindu meditation tool. According to the Stunned Research Institute, usually, the mandala healer needs to choose a painting theme that suits the client's physical and mental condition, prepare basic tools, and guide the user to complete the healing process by painting a series of mysterious geometric structures.
Situational healing is more about stimulating people's five sensory functions, such as vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, to achieve the effect of physical and mental relaxation and **. Different categories of products such as scented candles, aromatherapy essential oils, and scented body lotions continue to emerge, and in the form of smell, another way to open up the healing economy has been found. According to Mood Media's scent market research,75% of the emotions produced by humans every day are caused by smell, and olfaction-related products can bring relaxation and healing, sleep and other functions to people.
Similar to smells is sound healing represented by singing bowls and ASMR. According to public information, sound healing originates from somatosensory vibration*** The basic principle is to effectively relax the muscles of adjacent parts through somatosensory vibration, regulate local blood flow, soothe emotions, and strengthen the "** emotional physiological response" pathway, thereby improving sub-health status.
As for self-soothing and experiential soothing healing, it can be simply understood as the consumption of various "self-pleasing" products, such as various snacks, alcohol, beverages, etc. Pet therapy includes outdoor pet activities, pet grooming, cat or dog house and other ways to release stress for pets. At present, the scale of pet families in China has exceeded 100 million, and the penetration rate of pet families has reached 22%. Although compared with the foreign pet industry, China's pets are still limited to the initial stage of ownership and companionship, but pets have been the primary choice for young people to alleviate loneliness.
Although the variety of healing modalities may only provide a temporary "spiritual massage", young people in the fast-paced world still do not hesitate to see these consumption behaviors as an outlet to relieve stress in order to ensure emotional well-being. From diversified categories to abundant products and services, from product-based consumption to experiential consumption, the "healing economy" is evolving into a way of life at a speed that is visible to the naked eye.
Today's people are increasingly willing to pay for service experiences and emotional value. That's why the physical, mental, and spiritual industries that focus on people's physical, mental, mental health and personal growth are so hot. However, with the rapid development of the healing industry, the supply side of the industry is also in a mixed state.
On the one hand, there is a huge gap between market demand and market **. Previously, according to China's mental health survey, only 20 people per million people in China can provide mental health services, while the United States is 1,000 people, a difference of 50 times. Some institutions estimate that China's mental health market will have more than 30 times the incremental space.
Between the extreme asymmetry of supply, there is also the problem of uneven development speed. Wang Zhi told the institute that a considerable number of the clients she has served are long-term clients who regularly come to her to improve their negative emotions. In their cognition, "spiritual maintenance" needs to be done regularly, just like ** maintenance. "Prevention is better than remediation. Wang Zhi said.
However, the optimism on the supply side and the market potential seen have not been conveyed to the eyes of the capital market. When consulting some investors in the consumer sector, the Institute found that they still have a wait-and-see attitude towards the landing products of the healing economy. And "low-frequency consumption, long-term business model is unclear" is their main concern.
In addition, Credit Karma, a credit management company in the United States, also pointed out in the latest survey that many young people's shopping behavior is often driven by emotions rather than logic. In fact, there are so many ways to achieve healing, and the preferences of users are changing rapidly. In other words, the entire healing economy market is in a state of rapid change, and the current development speed of healing methods may not be able to keep up with the iteration speed of market demand.
At the same time, it is worth noting that many healing services are significantly different from common forms of consumption, and are not medical services, which cannot achieve the purpose of ** disease, and medical services can only be provided by medical institutions. Therefore, the policy risks faced by the healing market are relatively high.
For example, if it is claimed in the advertisement that it can be insomnia and depression, there is a high probability that it will be suspected of medical false publicity, and as an emerging industry, the healing service lacks suitable legal supervision or industry-formulated standards, and it is difficult to guarantee the quality and effect of service. And in terms of industry talent standards and professional qualifications, there is also a lack of certain norms, which has constituted one of the main bottlenecks restricting the development of the industry for the healing economy with services as the main form.
The rapid development of the market, the rapidly changing supply and demand relationship, and the current situation of the healing economy seem to be the same as that of this generation of young people, shouting and lying down, one idea a day, but physically more than anyone else wants to live actively and embrace a better world. It's just that the current environment does not point out a wide enough channel for the healing economy.
Kafka expressed a kind of "unoptimistic hope" in many of his works, and he believed that the essence of the suffering of the world lies in the fact that human beings struggle in suffering, infinitely yearn for hope, become disillusioned in the pursuit of hope, and continue to pursue it in disillusionment. Contemporary young people choose to "challenge magic" with "magic" and fight despair with despair in the public space of the Internet, which does not delay them from trying to regain hope and win a better life through various ways.
In the future, the form of the healing economy may change, but the potential audience size may continue to grow, and it will definitely open up new markets in more segmented scenarios.
Wang Zhi is a pseudonym in the article