Glycine fiends: how the internet made an obscure Chinese company into a sensation

A community of ardent internet users in the West has turned a niche product, and a Chinese company that makes it, into a viral phenomenon

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Donghua Jinlong, an obscure chemicals company in northern China, has become the subject of a series of viral internet memes after the company launched online advertisements for its glycine. Photo: SCMPost

Ralph JenningsandDanielle Popov

Published: 7:00pm, 31 Aug 2024Updated: 9:15am, 3 Sep 2024

It was April, and TikTok had no clue what was coming.

At some point along the endless scroll through the kinds of short videos one would expect to drive traffic on the social media platform – recipes, animals, political invective – users began to latch onto an unlikely sensation: a little-known Chinese company touting the virtues of an industrial-grade food additive.

Donghua Jinlong, a chemicals concern in the northern province of Hebei, had put out a one-minute video to promote glycine, its headline product. One of many Chinese firms looking to break into overseas markets, the company was taking an unusual approach to advertise the compound – an amino acid mostly used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and only occasionally as a dietary supplement.

But four months later, orders have more than tripled, causing a shortage due to the unexpected barrage of attention, administrative director Chen Liya said. “In April we had no idea,” Chen said. The results, they thought, were “strange and puzzling.”

The video has received more than 100 million views, and led to countless spin-offs and memes extolling – with, perhaps, a touch of irony – the product’s many wonders, according to an August 13 report by the Chinese radio and television producer Yi Shi Yi Se Cultural Communication.

This isn’t the first time a Chinese social media phenomenon has piqued interest from across the sea.