In theory, Ride the Wind, the reality show launched in 2020, set out to celebrate women over 30 by encouraging celebrities from different backgrounds to step beyond their comfort zones and take on demanding singing and dancing performances.
This season, the program has once again drawn attention for showing audiences something rarely seen on polished entertainment shows: vulnerability, uncertainty and the courage to fail in public.
Some of the show's most talked-about moments did not come from technically flawless performances, but from participants struggling openly on stage. Actress Li Xiaoran's stiff choreography and shaky singing, along with actress Tang Yixin's stumbling rap performance, quickly spread across social media through memes and imitation videos.
Yet, rather than turning audiences away, those imperfect moments appeared to deepen viewers' emotional connection with the show.
Li, now 50, has long been known for her elegant screen image. Tall and fair-skinned, she is often associated with a cool, refined and delicate presence.
But during her first group performance on Ride the Wind 2026, she appeared in pigtails and a pink tulle dress while singing the opening lines of the romantic song Sticky Note with Wishes.
The contrast surprised many viewers. Her singing drifted off-key at times, while her dance movements looked tense and mechanical. The polished image audiences associated with her suddenly gave way to visible nervousness and awkwardness onstage.
Online comments quickly followed: "This is exactly me at karaoke," some viewers joked, while others said the performance felt unusually relatable.
Unexpectedly, Li's popularity ranking on the show rose sharply afterward. Many viewers seemed less interested in technical perfection than in the honesty of the moment. The sharp contrast between Li's graceful public image and her clumsy but sincere performance gave audiences a sense of authenticity rarely found in highly edited entertainment programs.
"As long as everyone is happy, that's my greatest happiness. In this era, every version of yourself deserves appreciation," Li says.
Now in its seventh season, Ride the Wind has taken an even bolder step by adopting a fully livestreamed format.
Not only the performances, but parts of the reality show segments themselves are broadcast live. The footage is presented without editing, audio correction, or broadcast delay.
Ren Yang, the show's producer, says the production team wanted to support participants through the unpredictability of live performance, especially because many of them come from acting or hosting backgrounds rather than professional singing and dancing careers.
This means, as he puts it, that the technical team must shift "from the past pursuit of a flawless presentation to embracing room for error, allowing mistakes and continuously optimizing after them".
"In the past, we focused on presenting a perfect result. But this year, we are focusing on presenting the process, including the uncertainties and the imperfections, without holding anything back. Then we gather audience feedback, make adjustments, and present the next stage of the process," he says.
Zhou Kui, director of the research department at the China Online Video Research Center of Communication University of China, says the technical demands behind such a format are enormous.
He points out that a conventional reality show is filmed first and edited later, with a crowded production site where multiple scriptwriters document real-time events, extract key moments, and create post-production scripts for the editing team before the footage goes through rough and fine cuts.
In Ride the Wind 2026, however, more than 30 participants appear together, and the production team must manage multiple people, camera angles and audio feeds while providing real-time feedback to the director and head writer, who then decide which shot to cut to on the spot.
"It is an extremely complex process," Zhou says.
The gamble, however, appears to be paying off.
According to industry tracker Maoyan, within 40 days of its release, the show had already garnered nearly 3.5 billion views online, making it one of this year's biggest reality television hits.
For Zhou, the program's success reflects a broader shift in entertainment culture. "The older approach relied heavily on the judgment of directors, writers and celebrity influence," he says. "Now the audience increasingly shapes the direction of the program."
In this environment, he argues, discussion and emotional resonance often matter more than technical excellence alone. "What audiences respond to is not simply singing or dancing ability," Zhou says. "They respond to stories, personalities and emotional identification."
He adds that the audience votes are not about professional ability or personal worth, but about whether you symbolically represent a certain group or tell a story people want to hear.
