Many people ask this question on Quora: Why do Chinese tend not to use photos of themselves as their social network image?

Why do Westerners tend to use real personal photos as profile images, while Chinese tend to use cartoons or animal images instead?

Most answers mentioned privacy and modesty.

Chinese people take privacy seriously. Also, a Chinese person may think they look ugly even though they don’t. Westerners often think they look beautiful even when they don’t.

Most of the time, Chinese people also take their WeChat profile pictures to be a chance to make a statement of how they want to be perceived.

If you aren’t getting that, just think about why people wear luxury brands. It’s conceptually the same.

Quora user Ellen Sassani sees it as a way to put into focus the contents of her posts, rather than her looks.

“I’m not ashamed of my face, but I’m not a huge fan of it, either. On Quora, I’d like people to know me by my words,” she posted.

“They can speak best for me if they’re not competing for attention with my age, gender, race, appearance, etc. Like it or not, those things get noticed first all the time. Let me give the words a chance to go first.”

When the internet first gained widespread public use, it was conventional for people to use nicknames.

This practice largely persists on the Chinese internet because there was never a big “real name trend” in China like what Facebook spearheaded in the West.

Or rather, China’s own Facebook counterpart — Renren — never retained its prominence in the long term as Facebook did.

People have different choices for different social media platforms.

On platforms where people voice their opinions, such as Sina Weibo, Twitter, Zhihu and Quora, non-photo images are a mainstream choice, although Westerners are still more likely to use their real photos than Chinese users.

The trend of using non-photo images is more manifest on platforms for hobby groups like Douban and Reddit, as on streaming sites such as Bilibili and YouTube.

On professional network LinkedIn and dating networks, however, more people tend to use their real photos, a trend noticed both in China and elsewhere.

美国知乎Quora上也有不少人有相同的疑问：为什么中国人在社交媒体上不倾向于使用自己的照片作为头像？

为什么西方人喜欢用真人照片作头像，而中国人喜欢用卡通图片或者动物图片作头像？

很多回答提到了隐私、谦逊。

中国人重视隐私。而且，中国人是即便长得好看也觉得自己长得不好看，西方人可能是自己长得一般也会觉得自己长得好看。

大多数时候，中国人把微信头像作为传递自我形象的机会 —— 希望别人感受到这种个性表达。

如果你不明白这一点，那就想想人们为什么穿奢侈品牌吧，概念上是一样的。

答主Ellen Sassani表示这样做是为了让内容说话，不要让脸模糊焦点。

她说：“我不觉得我的长相给我丢脸了，但我也没觉得很自豪。在Quora上，我希望人们记住的是我的文字。”

“文字是我的绝佳代言，只要我的年纪、性别、族裔、长相不跟文字争夺人们的注意力的话。不管你承不承认，人们常常首先注意到上述这些要素。但我想给我的文字一次获得关注的机会。”

当互联网刚开始流行的时候，使用昵称是惯例。

这种做法在中国互联网上基本上一直延续至今， Facebook在西方引领了“真名趋势”，而这种情形在中国从来没有过。

或者更确切地说，中国自己的Facebook对应平台——人人网 —— 没能像Facebook那样一直流行下来。

另外，在不同的平台，人们会有不一样的操作。

意见广场如微博和Twitter、知乎与Quora可能以非真人头像为主（外国真人头像仍稍多）。

兴趣爱好平台如豆瓣和Reddit则更是非真人头像为主流，视频网站B站和YouTube也是类似的情况。

但是在职业平台LinkedIn和婚恋交友平台，中外使用真人头像的比例都有增加。

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【惯例的】guànlì de conventional based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed

【引领潮流】yǐnlǐng cháoliú spearhead lead something such as an attack or a course of action(chinadaily.com.cn)