Strategic self-praise in a female-dominant online community: A pragmatic analysis of Xiaohongshu posts

Yan Qiu and Chonghua Li
Hunan University of Technology | Xi’an International Studies University | Lanzhou City University

This study adopts an emic perspective and a mixed-methods approach to examine 190 instances of female self-praise on Xiaohongshu. The analysis shows that competence-related themes, modified explicit strategies, and persona-oriented purposes dominate self-praise, with notable correlations between these aspects within Xiaohongshu’s weak-tie, female-dominant community. Profit-oriented posts combine explicit self-praise with competence to enhance credibility and promotional effectiveness, whereas persona-oriented posts use implicit strategies to foreground character traits, fostering authenticity and community resonance. These findings illustrate that self-praise on Xiaohongshu is collectively shaped by platform affordances and gendered community norms, being reframed as a socially legitimate and value-oriented discursive practice.

Publication history

Date received: 26 November 2024

Date accepted: 2 February 2026

Published online: 15 September 2026

Table of contents

Self-praise is defined as the act of “explicitly or implicitly attributing credit to oneself for some ‘good’ (possession, accomplishment, skill, etc.) that is positively valued by both the speaker and the potential audience” (Dayter 2014, 92). As a form of self-presentation, self-praise involves disclosing positive attributes about oneself with the goal of constructing a favorable self-image (Ren and Guo 2020). Critically, self-praise inherently challenges traditional politeness theories (e.g., Gu 1990; Leech 2014) by prioritizing self-enhancement over attentiveness to the hearer’s face needs. Notwithstanding these theoretical tensions, empirical evidence confirms self-praise’s pervasive manifestation in online interactions (e.g., Dayter 2014; Rüdiger and Dayter 2020), particularly on social media platforms, which function as “sites of self-presentation and identity negotiation” (Papacharissi 2011, 304–305). Within such spaces, users deploy self-praise not only to construct and maintain a desirable public persona, but also to enhance their self-esteem and accumulate symbolic capital by showcasing achievements and upscale lifestyles that are highly valued by most audiences (Ren and Guo 2021).

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