False: Nine-layer bed was made for a satirical video, not for a real student dormitory in China
A picture of eight people squeezed into a multi-layered bunk bed has been widely shared on social media.
An NTDTV news anchor, for example, shared the image on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption, “Is this a student dormitory in China? I can’t believe it, I thought it was a prison for implementing torture!” along with the hashtag #EndCCP.
Other social media posts (here, here and here) said the setup shows a common school dormitory in China, likening it to commercial bakery racks. These posts garnered over 440 shares and more than 1,500 likes at the time of writing.
However, the claim is false.
Using some users’ comments as hints, Annie Lab found a comedy video uploaded to Douyin on Sept. 23, titled “数数我们床一共有几根脚趾头” or “Count how many toes there are on our beds” when translated in English.
The viral image is a screenshot of a frame in this clip.
This video was created by popular influencer Wang Zhixin and posted on her Douyin channel, “Qi Ke Xingxing” (七颗猩猩), where it gained 2.7 million likes.
The same video was also shared on Bilibili on the same day and garnered almost 10 million views.
This satirical video is about the “chaotic” experiences of Wang after she moved into a crowded nine-people university dormitory room. Notably, this video is a sequel to another video released on Sept. 12.
The creator also indicated that the nine-layered bunk bed was a custom-built prop for the video, showing a message she received from a furniture maker in the comment section.
Wang has over 3 billion likes and 10.4 million followers on Douyin. Her Bilibili and Weibo accounts are also highly popular.
Previous videos showed that Wang lives in a four-people dormitory room which contains four bunk beds with desks underneath.
Wang said in her blog in 2021 that she was a journalism student at Hubei University in central China.
Since 2020, she and her friends have been creating content revolving around their college life and dormitory experiences, including living in a crowded room.
Documenting communal lifestyles in cramped university dormitories has been a popular trend on China’s social media platforms (for example, here and here).
