CCTV Puts a “Happiness” Halo on Food Delivery Riders, Netizens Furious

CCTV of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ostentatiously placed a “happiness” halo on food delivery riders. (Video screenshot)

[People News] At a time when university graduates cannot find jobs, and master’s and doctoral degree holders, engineers, and middle-aged unemployed people are forced to join the ranks of food delivery riders, rushing about in wind and rain just to make ends meet—dust and sweat mixed together smeared across their faces, their bodies exhausted, unable to see a future and often falling into despair—CCP Central Television (CCTV) suddenly turned its cameras on them. Through glossy images, it loudly crowned food delivery riders with a “happiness” halo. However, this move by CCTV angered large numbers of netizens. Some criticized it, saying, “The severe exploitation of delivery riders, etc.—they see nothing and hear nothing!?” Such behavior was called “the CCP bandits’ hypocrisy to the point of not daring to face the current economic crisis.”

On November 28, CCP CCTV jointly released a short video with Meituan. In the clip, a white-collar worker engaged in graphic design quits her job, wanting to switch careers to deliver food. She says to the camera: food delivery brings me not only a job, but also the freedom to enjoy the scenery along the way at any time, and an identity that can be switched at will—portraying delivery work as a great undertaking in pursuit of dreams.

According to a report by Radio Free Asia, after CCTV released the short video, the comment section exploded, with netizens speaking in unison in a wave of mockery. Some immediately edited a comparison video, placing side by side the “happy delivery riders” shown in CCTV’s footage with real-life scenes of riders delivering in the rain, eating instant noodles, and still riding to take orders late at night.

Amid unemployment and waves of strikes, is CCTV still fabricating a fairy tale about food delivery? As workers in many parts of the country take to the streets, taxis go on strike, and hospital medical staff demand back pay, China’s CCTV, on camera, places a halo on “delivery riders,” triggering widespread ridicule online. When more and more people in a country make a living by delivering food and by striking to defend their rights, where does the problem lie? Is it that there are more riders, or fewer opportunities? Are the people running, or is the system standing still?

X user “Freeman8964” commented in a reply: “She (the graphic designer) may be happy, but the problem revealed behind this is not whether she is happy, but that a graphic designer became unemployed and went to deliver food—showing just how bad the economic situation is. CCTV, this house slave, accidentally exposed the underpants.”

According to QuestMobile data from September 2025, the number of food delivery riders in China has exceeded 14 million. A 2024 report by the China New Employment Forms Research Center shows that their average monthly income is about 7,496 yuan. More and more young people’s first job after graduation is no longer an office job, but work on food delivery platforms. Reuters reported that in July 2025, the unemployment rate among China’s young population once rose to 17.8%.

According to reports on the X platform yesterday, since entering November, multiple strikes have occurred across the country: on December 8, in Shenzhen Yilisheng, 3,000 workers went on strike collectively; on December 6, sanitation workers in Hancheng, Shaanxi, went on strike for two consecutive days due to nine months of unpaid wages; in late November, thousands of taxis in Northeast China collectively suspended operations; on November 20, doctors and nurses in Heilongjiang went on strike to demand pay. The growing number of unemployed people has also caused the ranks of delivery riders to expand endlessly—this is not a choice, but a retreat.

Still fresh in memory is the incident in Hangzhou last August when a delivery rider knelt. A delivery rider stepped on a residential compound’s fence while delivering food and was demanded 200 yuan in compensation by security guards. Because he had no money, he was insulted and forced to kneel by the guards. The incident triggered a collective protest by hundreds of delivery riders, demanding an apology from those involved.

Yet in the eyes of official media, these people struggling to survive are whitewashed as “heroes of the era.” One netizen said that CCTV’s approach is “the CCP bandits’ hypocrisy to the point of not daring to face the current economic crisis.” △