U.S. kids want to be famous on YouTube; Chinese kids want to go to space: survey

Both types of kids desire the same thing: to contribute and be relevant to society as they perceive it.

American society has plenty of astronauts and space over acheivers. American society is also very much unplugged from the rest of the planet, so much so that I can say most Americans don't consider good image of their country in the eyes of the non-western world a priority. If this was the cold-war era, American kids might have wanted to help their country look better as compared to the communist world. The difference is that of being the winner and being the losers trying to catch up to the winner. China might be second place in many things but as they say, second place just means you're the first loser. There is a reason "made in china 2025","The 100 year matathon" and "belt and ring project" all have competitive undertones.

America is also an individualistic society where everyone seeks what makes themselves look good and profit while east asian societies tend to be more hive-minded (For a lack of a better expression). I dislike both selfishness and prioritizing the greater nation over your own immediate family and community. If the Nash equilibrum of economics and game theory holds true, I wager the American perspective will result in long term prosperity fot all that follow it, but of course that model does not take into account strife and external malicous actors whose end goal is not to profit but to destroy.

Isn’t YouTube banned in China? If so it’s not surprising the kids there don’t respond as strongly to the idea of being a “YouTuber”.

Not sure about the kids, lots people around my age in China (“post 95’s”) wish to be “influencers” on douyin

Kids in USSR also wanted to be astronauts and look what happened to their country

The larger question is why do kids want to be teachers?

Give them 5 years and China will be the same.