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Caroline Lin

Wearing a black mariner’s cap and with a wall-to-wall bookshelf as a backdrop, Cambridge University professor Alan Macfarlane greets his social media audience with a soft ni hao – “Hello” in Chinese.
In his latest video, Macfarlane follows this signature opening by thoughtfully answering a question pulled from the comments: why has making genuine friends become so difficult?
Few would have expected an 84-year-old British anthropologist and historian from Cambridge University to become a social media heartthrob in China – yet Macfarlane has done exactly that.
Young Chinese affectionately call him “Grandpa Cute” or “Dumbledore”, after the beloved Harry Potter character, while his gentle, jargon-free reflections on education, purpose, anxiety, relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) and cultural understanding resonate deeply in a fast-paced, high-pressure society.
Through an intimate Q&A format, Macfarlane has amassed more than 2.4 million followers in roughly one year since launching on the Chinese social media platform RedNote in 2025, with videos often gaining millions of views.

His channels on Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – and Bilibili, another major video-sharing platform, have also attracted about 170,000 and 540,000 followers, respectively.
Beyond answering personal questions, Macfarlane addresses timely topics, ranging from discussions about football during the World Cup to rituals around China’s tomb-sweeping day.
Macfarlane, who originally started sharing his ideas on YouTube, expanded his online outreach to China, which he has visited 20 times and where he taught as a visiting professor, at the suggestion of his editor at Cam Rivers Publishing.
Driven by his long-standing vision to bridge academia and the public, Macfarlane launched his social media presence in China with the aim of communicating with the Chinese public and learning more about the country.
According to Macfarlane, his deep familiarity with China, built through these connections alongside his extensive research on the country, has been a cornerstone of his rapid social media growth, enabling him to relate his answers to his Chinese audience.
“I can speak to them as people whose culture and history I know something about, and I think that makes them feel that I’m not a stranger,” Macfarlane said in an interview.
For instance, when addressing questions about China’s national higher education entrance examination, or gaokao, he drew on his knowledge of Chinese educational history, Macfarlane said.
Understanding the exam’s role as a critical ladder for social advancement allowed him to empathise with the intense pressure students faced from parents and teachers, helping them to navigate their anxieties with genuine insights.
Macfarlane’s anthropological and historical perspectives offer comfort to China’s young generation by framing their personal struggles within a broader historical and spatial context.


Many of his audience said they found relief in realising that their private worries were shared by peers across different times and cultures, allowing them to learn from how others navigated similar challenges.
Yang Zhongcheng, a 20-year-old student at Beijing University of Technology, has rarely missed an update since he started following Macfarlane on RedNote in 2025. “This helped me jump out of the well and view myself from a broader, more compassionate perspective,” he said.
Surrounded by peers locked in fierce academic competition and facing the rapid advance of AI, Yang felt disoriented by the overwhelming pace of society but had learned to let go of his perfectionism and focus on the present through Macfarlane’s content.
Yang added that he particularly appreciated Macfarlane’s non-patronising approach. “[He] makes me feel we are totally equal, and that he’s keeping us company rather than lecturing us.”
Echoing this sentiment, Macfarlane observed that a lot of Chinese education and family life was hierarchical. While young people were accustomed to being told what was right or wrong, they often harboured a quiet resistance to top-down lecturing, he said.
Macfarlane also attributed his appeal to his Cambridge background and distinct delivery characterised by a refined accent, clear language and a measured pace.
According to Macfarlane, the questions he receives cover themes spanning jobs to relationships and technology changes, yet nearly all boil down to how to cope with a rapidly shifting world.
“Is there really no future for humanities majors?” one user wrote in the comments section of Macfarlane’s RedNote channel. “How can an ordinary person lead a fulfilling life?” another asked, while a third wondered, “Why do humans never seem to learn from historical lessons?”

Macfarlane said the questions were not surprising “because China has gone through the biggest economic, social, political and ideological change of any civilisation in history in the fastest time”.
He noted that such a swift and dramatic transformation had a profound impact on people’s psychology, attitudes and feelings, with the younger generation of Chinese bearing the brunt.
Unable to draw on the experiences of their elders, who grew up in an entirely different era, young Chinese were left to question almost everything. Into this void stepped Macfarlane, offering an empathetic listening ear and a broader perspective.
Beyond personal solace, the channel has also fostered cross-cultural understanding. Instead of traditional top-down lectures, these digital interactions encourage young viewers to ask questions and discuss ideas openly in the comments.
Li Lin, a 19-year-old student whose desire to explore Western culture was sparked by the videos, said Macfarlane’s content “inspires young people to grasp the differences between East and West, while actively exploring diverse cultures and the depth of civilisations”.
Driven by the professor’s insights, fellow viewer Yang was even inspired to spend a few weeks visiting Cambridge.
While Macfarlane clearly knows China well, some of his audience feel that his advice occasionally misses the mark because of the inherent limits of viewing the country through a Western lens.
For Li, Macfarlane’s different viewpoint is a benefit. “Eastern and Western thoughts are neither right nor wrong; they are simply distinct perspectives shaped by different historical and social backgrounds,” she said.
“And this very difference is precisely the bridge for us to learn from and understand one another.”
Cultural exchange is largely one-way
Macfarlane acknowledged that the cultural exchange generated by his videos remained largely one-way, with Chinese audiences making far more effort to understand the West than vice versa.
Yet he noted that the reach of his videos extended beyond China, drawing in “TikTok refugees” who migrated to RedNote when a ban of the platform in the United States seemed imminent last January.
Against this backdrop, Macfarlane said he hoped his channel would serve as a bridge to the wider world, sparking curiosity about China among non-Chinese audiences and gradually dispelling deeply rooted mistrust.
He also aimed to foster a deeper realisation of China as one of the world’s “greatest, most ancient, and most sophisticated civilisations” – one with immense wisdom to share, especially after having made such great efforts to absorb the best of the West, he added.


However, Macfarlane stressed that such mutual dialogue remained hindered by prejudice in the West, even as language barriers had gradually faded with AI translation technologies.
Western perceptions of China were often decades out of date and compounded by geopolitical anxiety, he argued. China’s rise challenged long-held assumptions in the West about its superiority in political governance, free-market capitalism, innovation and religious faith.
“Our economies have stalled and inequality is growing hugely in the West. And then we look at China – China is still growing reasonably and it has, to a considerable extent, made that wealth available across [society],” Macfarlane said.
He also pointed to a subconscious Western fear of retaliation stemming from a history of imperialist aggression against China, which has fuelled political and media distrust.
Despite these geopolitical headwinds, Macfarlane remains convinced that the solution lies in sustained, grass roots engagement.
“The deep answer is more exchange – more Chinese coming here, more of our Western people going to China, working with and becoming friends with Chinese,” he said. “And then we might have a chance of living in a more peaceful world.”


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To some of his 2.4 million followers, he is Grandpa Cute. Meet Alan Macfarlane, the gentle academic soothing China’s anxious generation


To some of his 2.4 million followers, he is Grandpa Cute. Meet Alan Macfarlane, the gentle academic soothing China’s anxious generation.


Britain

Douyin

Bilibili

Why Chinese youth are turning to an 84-year-old Cambridge professor for support

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}To some of his 2.4 million followers, he is Grandpa Cute. Meet Alan Macfarlane, the gentle academic soothing China’s anxious generation

To some of his 2.4 million followers, he is Grandpa Cute. Meet Alan Macfarlane, the gentle academic soothing China’s anxious generation