Young Chinese women hire female cosplayers to play dream men

SHANGHAI, China — During her final years of high school, Chinese teenager Xu Yunting found an unusual way to make some pocket money — transforming herself into male video game characters and taking their female devotees on dates.

The trend, called "cos commissioning", has gained traction in China recently, with social media posts garnering millions of views as an increasing number of young women use their purchasing power to engineer a meeting with their dream man in real life.