The American century — a phrase coined by Fortune founder Henry Luce — had a soundtrack. It was Chuck Berry on the radio and Coca-Cola in the cooler, Levi’s jeans, and Marlboro billboards stretching across Europe. American culture didn’t conquer the world through military force—it did it through desirability. People wanted to be American. That aspiration was a kind of geopolitical superpower that no missile silo could replicate.
Now something is shifting, at least online. On TikTok, a growing wave of Gen Z creators—American first, then European, then global—are declaring themselves to be in their “Chinese era.” They’re drinking hot water. They’re eating hotpot. They’re wearing slippers indoors and marveling at the electric buzz of Chinese city life. They’re calling it “Chinamaxxing.” And increasingly, they mean it as more than a joke.
