Chinese social media users are making ‘Eternals’ actor Ma Dong-seok their profile picture for better customer service

Chinese social media users have started a new trend of using photos of Eternals actor Ma Dong-seok (also known as Don Lee) as their profile pictures to get better customer service.

Earlier this week, The Guardian reported that several Chinese social media users have started a trend of switching their profile pictures to photos of Korean-American actor Ma Dong-seok, best known for his roles as Gilgamesh in Marvel’s Eternals and Yoon Sang-hwa in Train To Busan.

According to users on the recommendation app XiaoHongShu, using Ma in their avatars helped them resolve issues more quickly and got them better online customer service.

One user, per The Guardian, claimed that they were ignored by customer service when using the photo of a girl as their profile image.  “After changing to the avatar of Ma Dong-seok, the customer service attitude was much more polite, and they even took the initiative to make up the price difference,” they said.

Another user shared that changing her profile picture to a photo of Ma led to her property manager resolving an issue that she had previously raised several times in a matter of minutes.

The trend has since spread to Weibo, a social network similar to Twitter, and social messaging app WeChat, which are two of the most widely-used social media platforms in China. Users hopping on the trend include Chinese actor Li Xian, who reportedly changed his avatar on a gaming site to a picture of Ma.

However, some users have voiced their disappointment towards having to change their profile pictures to a celebrity in order to be treated better. “It’s fun and useful, but it makes me sad that it shows a form of discrimination,” said one user per The Guardian.

Ma’s next project is The Roundup: No Way Out, which marks the third instalment of the The Outlaws movie series. The actor reprises his role as detective Ma Seok-do in the upcoming film, which premieres on May 31.

Last August, it was announced that Ma had also been cast in an upcoming apocalyptic sci-fi K-drama series called Hive, based on a popular webtoon of the same name. However, the series’ production company has since announced delays in pre-production due to edits in the script, per Soompi.