The “Natasha” doll, a squishy stress-relief product originating in China, became one of the more uncomfortable viral trends of recent months after videos of people squeezing, punching, stomping on, and otherwise abusing the dark-skinned version of the toy flooded platforms like Douyin, RedNote, and TikTok. The toy comes in several color variations, but as Bored Panda reported, it is predominantly the Black version that has attracted the most attention and the most violent treatment from content creators, many of whom have filmed themselves pouring boiling water on the doll, running it over, and repeatedly flattening its face for views.
The controversy did not stay within Chinese borders. When the videos began circulating internationally, the reaction was swift and, in many cases, furious. Motivational speaker and digital creator Latoya Greene, who has over 508,000 Instagram followers, was among those who spoke out, writing, according to Bored Panda, that creators “knew exactly what they were doing and what it symbolises.” What Greene and others identified was not simply the act of abusing a toy, but the specific, almost ritualised targeting of a toy that looks like a Black child, while the lighter-skinned versions of the same product largely escaped the same treatment online.
An explanation that circulated on social media, allegedly from a Chinese user, did not help matters. The post claimed the Black version was favored for rough treatment because the white doll “looks more human-like,” which apparently made people reluctant to handle it aggressively, while the darker-skinned toy felt more like an abstract, ugly object to play with. The alleged post went on to argue that whiteness is more universally recognized as beautiful.
Chinese academics have also weighed in on the trend, though their concerns have been somewhat different. Fang Zengquan, Party Secretary of the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University, told local media outlet ECNS that the toy’s core marketing concept was troubling regardless of race, arguing that encouraging users, particularly teenagers, to derive satisfaction from physically damaging a baby-shaped object could reinforce destructive behavior rather than healthy emotional regulation. Psychologists quoted in the same coverage warned that children learn through observation, and that seeing a human-like figure treated as a punching bag could erode empathy and contribute to bullying.
These are legitimate concerns. But the racial dimension is impossible to separate from the wider picture, and for many observers, the Natasha doll controversy does not exist in isolation. It arrives as part of a longer, more troubling pattern.
In 2022, a BBC Africa Eye investigation uncovered what it described as a Chinese video-making industry built on the exploitation of vulnerable African children. BBC Africa Eye reporter, Runako Celina, traveled to Malawi after a 2020 video went viral in China showing a group of young African children chanting phrases in Mandarin that translated to “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The children were smiling as they said the words because they had no idea what they meant. According to Voice of America Africa, the BBC investigation identified the producer as a Chinese national named Lu Ke, who was recording hundreds of videos every day and selling them to Chinese websites for up to $70 each, while the Malawian children involved were paid roughly fifty cents per appearance.
According to VOA Africa, human rights organizations in Malawi called on authorities to locate and deport Lu Ke, and Sylvester Namiwa, executive director for the Center for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives in Malawi, said the videos were an insult not only to Malawians but to Black people worldwide. Namiwa also called on the Chinese embassy to make a public apology to the Black community globally. The Chinese embassy in Malawi condemned the videos and said it would work with the Malawian government to address the situation, though Namiwa found the response inadequate. As he put it, even if something was filmed in 1906, a genuine apology would still be warranted.
The grandmother of one of the children featured in the low IQ video told the BBC that the Chinese producer was “profiting from the poor.” That phrase sits uncomfortably alongside the broader context of China-Africa relations. China has been one of Africa’s largest trading partners and infrastructure investors for two decades. The relationship is complex, economically significant, and, at the diplomatic level, frequently described in terms of solidarity and mutual development. But the lived experiences of African migrants, students, and workers on the ground in China tell a different story. Reports of discrimination in housing, employment, and public life have surfaced repeatedly, and incidents like the Guangzhou evictions of African residents in 2020, which drew widespread condemnation, reveal a gap between diplomatic language and social reality.
What the Natasha doll phenomenon raises is whether this gap is being addressed, or simply papered over. The argument that Chinese attitudes toward Black people stem purely from limited exposure to diversity grows harder to sustain in the age of social media, when content from across the world flows freely across platforms, and when Chinese citizens are increasingly traveling, studying, and working abroad. The more uncomfortable question is whether the issue is not ignorance but something more entrenched: a set of racial hierarchies, absorbed through media, advertising, and social norms, that place Black people at the bottom.
Some Chinese content creators have pushed back against the Natasha doll trend as well, with at least one creator telling her followers, as referenced in Bored Panda’s reporting, that she did not condone racism and was disappointed in those participating. The debate is live, and younger Chinese audiences in particular appear more willing to engage with it than previous generations.
But engagement is not the same as accountability, and the scale of the Natasha doll trend- the millions of views those videos accumulated before any real reckoning took place- suggests that content depicting violence against a Black child-like figure was not a fringe curiosity. It was entertainment. The algorithm surfaced it, rewarded it, and spread it, which is itself a form of normalisation. Experts and creators have urged parents to report the videos and block related keywords, but the damage is in the volume of what already circulated.
The Natasha doll reflects the conversation that China, like many countries, has been reluctant to have fully and honestly. The conversation about who is seen as fully human, whose image is treated as something to squeeze and throw and pour boiling water on for fun, and why, when someone finally holds that mirror up, the first instinct of so many is to explain away what they see rather than sit with what it means. This is a purely racist action, and someone needs to be held accountable.
