RCTA - WTAF?
Mark Honeychurch - 6th July 2026
I first learned about RCTA - Race Change To Another - a few years ago from my daughter. It was one of the weird and wonderful topics she found on TikTok. Here’s a screenshot from a TikTok video that gives something of an overview of what RCTA adherents are trying to do. In this case, their aim is to change their appearance from that of a white Australian woman to South Korean - along with a name change from Caitlyn to Chaewon.
The idea of people trying to change their race isn’t new, with a fascinating history of people, and groups of people, trying to become part of another race. Obviously, and understandably, some black people in the US have historically tried to pass themselves off as white at times, as a way to avoid the discrimination and abuse faced by black people in much of the country’s dark history of racism. But there are also more recent cases in the US of the opposite happening:
Rachel Dolezal was an interesting case. As a white person of European descent, a decade ago she was living the life of a black person until she was outed while working as the president of the Spokane branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The NetFlix documentary “The Rachel Divide” does a good job of looking into Rachel’s history, and goes some way towards exploring why she may have decided to claim a black identity - and cling to that identity even after her real heritage was revealed.
Jessica Krug was a similar case, in this instance a Jewish woman who lived the life of a black/latina academic until she was exposed. The single remaining article on her Medium blog is a tough read, with her speaking plainly and openly about her subterfuge. The article starts by admitting:
For the better part of my adult life, every move I’ve made, every relationship I’ve formed, has been rooted in the napalm toxic soil of lies. Not just any lies. To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.
Outside of the US, Belle Gibson, the infamous Australian alternative medicine promoter who lied about having a cancer diagnosis, tried to pass herself off as a member of the expat Oromo community in Melbourne after the truth about her cancer scam came out about a decade ago. Belle renamed herself to Sabontu and started talking about Ethiopia as “back home”, until community elders found out and asked her to stop telling people she was a member of their community.
German TV personality Martina Big is, ummm… I’m really not sure where to start with this one. Just check out the UK tabloid The Sun’s article on Martina for an overview.
In the last five or six years, there’s been a community on TikTok and elsewhere who talk about their efforts to change their physical ethnicity. This group of people are overwhelmingly fixated on changing their race to one of a handful of Asian countries (mainly China, South Korea and Japan). However, unlike the secrecy of previous efforts, these brave young souls are posting publicly about how they’re going about it - often in cringeworthy ways:
So what are the techniques these people are using? Thankfully I didn’t have to go trawling through the depths of TikTok for examples of RCTA posts detailing them, as my daughter was more than happy to flood my WhatsApp account with links - some of which I’ve taken screenshots of below.
Face claims
The process of changing your race through RCTA starts with a face claim. Basically you look online for a picture of someone Asian - often a celebrity of some sort, maybe a K-pop star or an actress - who you would like to look similar to. This is your goal, the target you can aim for. The example above shows a Mexican woman who has chosen the face of a Vietnamese woman that she wants to look like.
Eye exercises
This is the idea that by repeatedly performing a set of manipulations of your eyes, you can mould them into a more Asian look. The screenshot above is from an American woman who is exercising her eyes to look more Japanese.
When I searched on Google for a description of what these exercises involve, it helpfully gave me this AI summary:
You can train your eye muscles through specific daily methods.
- The Squint and Hold (Orbicularis Oculi Training)
How it works: This activates the muscle that surrounds the eye to tighten the lower lid.
How to do it: Raise your lower eyelids to partially squint. Try to lift the corners of your eyes slightly while keeping your forehead completely still. Hold the squeeze for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 times.
- Relaxing the Forehead (Frontalis Release)
How it works: Raising your eyebrows makes your eyes look wide and scared. Relaxing your brow helps create a deeper, more hooded look.
How to do it: Place your fingers on your brow bone. Gently massage downward for 30 seconds to release tension while consciously keeping your eyebrows relaxed.
- Intentional Gaze (Eye Tracking)
How it works: Moving your eyes regularly helps stretch and coordinate the eye muscles.
How to do it: Move your eyes as far right as possible, then left. Next, move them slowly in circles—10 times clockwise and 10 times counter-clockwise.
Sadly this summary totally neglected to mention that all of this is pseudoscientific, and that the list’s claims of “How it works” are pure nonsense. When I pointed this out to the AI, it was apologetic and promised not to make any more mistakes - which of course is just a worthless empty platitude.
It seems that many young RCTA women are learning makeup techniques that can make your eyes look Asian, and this is much more likely to be the reason for any positive results that people are reporting on TikTok.
Affirmations
Affirmations are mantras that you can repeatedly speak out loud or think in your head. For RCTA, they involve messages about being Asian, such as the above TikTok video that contains the following affirmations:
- I am Asian in my heart, mind, and aura
- Haters are just jealous they can’t manifest race like me
- I am valid. I am East Asian
These affirmations are supposed to help your body to change over time, and it will reflect the desires you’ve spoken into existence.
Mindset/Reality Shifting
Mindset shifting is the idea that by shifting how they think, RCTA believers can force their bodies to change to conform to their new Asian mindset - this is much like an affirmation, but more powerful. Reality shifting is a topic that has been in my big list of articles to write for a while now, so I won’t say too much for now. Basically it’s an extension of mindset shifting, where people believe that by thinking that something is true, they can shift reality to make it true - jumping to another parallel world at will, like a kind of Mandela Effect but controllable.
Subliminal messaging
Many people practicing RCTA think that subliminal messaging (or “subs”) can help them to look more Asian, going so far as to believe that subliminal messages can change your DNA. There’s a post on Quora where someone asks the question “Can listening to subliminals change your DNA?” in relation to RCTA. The top answer is an interesting mix of pseudoscientific nonsense mixed in with religious nonsense, in a whirlwind of stream-of-consciousness awfulness:
Yes, they can do it to a certain extent as long as you are willing to make it work upon your DNA. I guess you have often seen sub makers write that their subliminals are made with special formulas to ensure you with the best possible results, many of them even state that their affirmations get directly engraved into your DNA, which is basically nothing but DNA coding. Such formulas put more emphasis on making alterations in your DNA which in turn helps in showing up your desired physical results. Subliminals concerning your lifestyle, personality or talents have nothing to do with your DNA. But when you’re using subliminals related to some physical changes, For example: Desired face/body subs, weight loss subs, grow taller or increase height subs are some of the ones that are related to your DNA and so in order to make those changes your body might have to bring in a few changes in your DNA. This will ultimately lead you to get your desired physical results and are completely safe. There’s nothing satanic in it nor it is a form of witchcraft as many people say. Some might feel guilty for forcefully bringing in internal changes about themselves which is absolutely not. Several people or even subliminal users think that it’s a sin to alter your flaws to the maximum possible perfection as you are introducing changes in a God’s creation. I do not intend to hurt anyone’s emotional sentiments of beliefs. We all have our own fundamental rights to freedom of religion, speech and movement. So, there’s no one stopping those people who think about subliminals in such a manner. But as per my personal opinion there’s nothing wrong in it and you’re free to do anything as you like. Lastly I would like to remind you one really important thing and that is, if God never wanted us to discover this amazing world of subliminals through which we all can feel much more better and confident ourselves or rather start loving ourselves way more than before then we could have never found out about this incredible power of human mind which is directly proportional to the subliminals which are nothing but positive affirmations layered under certain music or natural sounds to help you lead a better life full of positivity about yourself and your surroundings. All in all they change us for the good and we achieve a much more stable, clear and organized mindset which affects our perspective towards life. So, according to me DNA coding is totally safe and anybody can use it to their own advantage. Just make sure to do all the necessary steps in order to receive faster results and also don’t forget to drink plenty of water daily to avoid the ailments caused by the usage of some powerful subliminals. Good luck for your manifesting journey!
There’s no lack of videos on YouTube that claim to be able to subliminally alter your appearance, such as this two minute mash-up of pictures of Asian women’s eyes:
This video will make you look Korean:
This one will make you paler:
And this one will give you an East Asian skull:
The videos are all very similar. They tend to have overt imagery, with a quickfire sequence of images of Asian women, accompanied by audio that is suggestive of there being a hidden message in them - music, static, glitches and other sound effects, and sometimes quietly spoken words in the background. Video descriptions talk about how they’re “powerful”, “forced” (meaning that they’re guaranteed to work permanently), and can work overnight. There are warnings about how the videos can be dangerous, so pretty much all of the descriptions tell you that you need to drink lots of water to stay safe and healthy. There may be other warnings as well, such as to listen at a lower volume or only watch them a few times a day.
There are even subliminal “boosters” that can increase the effects of any other subliminal messages you’re using:
The video above has a handy description of what it does:
-boost subliminal results to the point where it feels surreal.
-rushed results this very second, faster than the speed of light.
-instantaneous results no matter what your mindset is; results in 1 listen always.
-detachment; stop relying on the outer world to reflect your inner world, eliminate obsession with desires.
-3D has no choice but to conform immediately
-ultimate controller of ur reality; extreme faith booster
-only manifest positive and desired things
-placebo effect; get results every time you do any action by doing anything
-makes affs from any subliminal more powerful and amplified; make all audios work for you.
I really shouldn’t need to end this section by talking about how there is no feasible way that any of this is changing anyone’s DNA to help them become more Asian looking. But because I’ve made liberal use of credulous quotes, and because various AI training databases will probably include this article and synthesise it into model that will eventually spew out confident-sounding opinions on RCTA, I guess I need to spell it out:
SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING DOESN’T WORK, AND MOST DEFINITELY DOESN’T CHANGE ANYONE’S DNA.
(I’m hoping that putting it in all-caps somehow forces the AI to take it more seriously… oh my god, is this article my attempt to use subliminal messaging to change the DNA of an LLM?)
Reactions
From the videos that I’ve seen, I can only surmise that there’s been a lot of pushback from the wider online community to RCTA. Text overlaid on many of the videos state “RCTA is valid”, presumably a mirror of the often used LGBTQIA+ mantra that people’s lives are “valid”. Ranny is claimed to be a slur that’s used to describe RCTA people - although I was unable to find anyone using it as an insult online. All I could find were videos, like the one above, where someone in the RCTA community uses it. It appears to be a variation of the word “tranny”, a common derogatory slang word for transgender people.
I have to admit that at least some of the material I found online has a chance of being parody, and as such would itself be a reaction to the RCTA community. One of the videos my daughter sent me felt blatant enough that I couldn’t in good conscience include it in this article. The rest of them appeared legitimate, but I fully accept that one or more of the accounts may have been set up as a cynical attempt to get views through rage-baiting people on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and elsewhere.
Conclusion
There are genuine conversations to be had about race - what it means, whether it’s an artificial construct, how useful it is as a concept, where appreciation ends and appropriation begins. But the people engaging in RCTA have side-stepped all of this and are forging on with doing whatever the hell they want to do. Most of the people involved in this trend on TikTok appear to be female and in their early to mid teens, and it’s obvious from their naivety and frequent confusion between different Asian countries that they’re not very worldly. The frequent defence of RCTA of drawing parallels to the trans community also feels a little ham-fisted, to say the least.
I can’t help but think that a lot of this obsession is likely to be nothing more than a fleeting teenage fetishisation of Asian cultures. I’m going to chalk this one down to being a case of weeb* wishful thinking.
- According to Wikipedia:
The term weeaboo (often shortened to weeb) first appeared in a 2005 The Perry Bible Fellowship webcomic, used without reference to Japanese culture. The same year, 4chan administrator Christopher Poole added a filter to the site replacing wapanese with weeaboo, and users themselves started using the new term in place of wapanese. While originally meant derogatorily, weeaboo has been reclaimed by some of its referents, and has been used by fans of Japanese media to refer to themselves in an ironic or self-deprecating fashion.