A single promotional poster has set the NGA forums ablaze — Zenless Zone Zero's official Xiaohongshu (China's Instagram-meets-Pinterest platform, nicknamed 'Little Red Book') account recently promoted a 'Taitai Cup' (Master Cup) fan art competition hosted on LOFTER, and the community is absolutely livid.
From the original screenshot, ZZZ's official account posted promotional content for this 'Taitai Cup' event on Xiaohongshu. The competition itself is organized by LOFTER — NetEase's fan fiction and fan art platform, which skews heavily female in its user base. On the surface, it looks like a standard fan art contest. But eagle-eyed players quickly spotted something eyebrow-raising.
The co-organizer list included Onmyoji and Wangchuan Fenghua Lu — both NetEase titles. Since LOFTER is a NetEase product, teaming up with sister games makes sense. But ZZZ, a HoYoverse title, sticking out like a sore thumb among a lineup of NetEase games, left many players scratching their heads. Commenters didn't hold back: 'So THIS is where our gacha money goes? Lucky us ZZZ players!' and 'Money squeezed out of otaku bros, handed to Xiaohongshu girls — nice move, little ZZZ.' The frustration was palpable.
However, some players pushed back, arguing that tailoring campaigns to platform demographics is basic marketing sense: 'If you pitched a fan art contest on Bilibili, the bros there would just spam "nice nice nice" in the comments' — implying that Xiaohongshu's user base naturally calls for a different approach.
Another faction zeroed in on the event details. Some pointed out that ZZZ barely has any male characters worth speaking of, making a contest clearly aimed at the female-oriented fan community feel tone-deaf. Others noted that one competition category includes 'CP stories,' sparking fears of an incoming turf war between player subcommunities.
Beyond the event itself, the comment section unexpectedly devolved into an all-out etymology war over the word 'taitai' (太太). The original poster seemed to interpret 'Taitai Cup' as a gendered term, which drew mockery from veteran internet users.
One commenter explained: 'Back in the day, anyone who created fan works — regardless of gender — was called "taitai" (master).' They clarified that 'taitai' essentially means 'one level above "dada" (大大, big shot)' — similar to calling someone a 'legend' or 'beast,' with no inherent gendered implication. An old-school fan creator from the Tieba (Baidu Forums) era lamented: 'Seeing the OP and top comments immediately defaulting to the gender wars playbook... I can only laugh. The generational gap really is deeper than the Mariana Trench.'
But the counterarguments were equally fierce. One commenter fired back: 'Everyone knows exactly who they're recruiting. "Your fave," "your bias," "your OC" — these terms are dripping with a very specific flavor. Are these really words ZZZ players would use?' Yet another user methodically deconstructed each term: '推' comes from Japanese 'oshi,' 'OC' originates from the Western fandom scene, and only '担' (from Korean idol culture) carries any gendered baggage — though even that's debatable. The level of linguistic forensics in this thread rivals an academic symposium.
As of now, ZZZ's official team has not responded to the controversy. This entire meltdown, sparked by a single Xiaohongshu poster, ultimately exposes a long-simmering tension in the gacha gaming community: when the primary spenders ('otaku bros') and the fan creation community ('the taitais') have fundamentally different expectations, who should the devs prioritize? And with ZZZ awkwardly shoehorned into a lineup of NetEase games, this saga likely has more chapters to come.
评论 (0)
暂无评论，来说两句吧！ 🍉