Many years later, in front of the audience’s roaring applause, the actors will think of that afternoon when they were fumbling with the live broadcast.
This is not a drama, this is reality.
The first batch of people who sang, played the piano, acted in plays, and talked about cross talk on Douyin have become what others call "characters, stars, and masters."
Someone once said that live streaming is the lottery ticket given to everyone in this era. If you win the jackpot, it will be a great fortune and a chance to change your life.
But who knows, many actors who do live broadcasts initially just want to be on stage and be the protagonist once; some are endangered theater troupes and are forced by life; some are even passionate and spend their own money to make the declining intangible cultural heritage skills , pass it on.
Life is like a play, and play is like life. They have long been inseparable from each other inside and outside the live broadcast room. When
went live for the first time, they might not have guessed that they would become the reckless hero who took advantage of the situation first.
could not have guessed that the state has included online anchors into the new profession "regularization", promoting the live broadcasting of the performing arts industry and the professionalization of online anchors. State-owned literary and art troupes, hall-level masters, first-class actors, and performing artists have also become the new force of anchors, turning the live broadcast room into a second stage.
Perhaps, live broadcast is just a door. Behind the door is a cross-section of an era and a new self.
Have you ever had a dream of being an anchor?
Who is the chosen one of traffic? Who can realize their talents? What exactly does
live broadcast bring to ordinary people?
According to statistics, the live broadcast and short video industry has created 100 million job opportunities. There was a survey on
Weibo. Among the 10,000 fresh graduates interviewed, 61.6% said that when seeking employment, they would consider emerging careers such as Internet celebrity live broadcasting.
The same survey was conducted in 2016. At that time, 54% of college students regarded anchoring as their ideal career. This result made "Why do young people want to be anchors?" a hot search topic.
's incomprehension of young people's employment concepts is a generation gap.
In essence, it is the unfamiliarity and disapproval of "anchor" as a profession.
Many people think that being a host is not a "serious career" and can only be done by people who are dawdling and have nothing to do, and are even dismissed as online beggars.
There is a joke that when young anchors return to their hometown during the Chinese New Year, they are most afraid of being questioned by their uncles and aunts, "What do you do?" and "Can you really make money? How much can you make?"
Looking back now, everything has changed. . The number of
professional anchors has exceeded tens of millions.
Walking on the road today, if someone is live broadcasting the whole thing, you will most likely not be surprised or point fingers.
In just a few years, online live broadcasts have promoted industrial development in the fields of performing arts, rural revitalization, local cultural tourism, education and science popularization, and intangible cultural inheritance.
On July 31 this year, three departments including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly released the latest list of 19 new occupations, and network anchors were among them.
also has an authoritative definition for online anchors: people who are based on the Internet and provide online performances and audio-visual information services in the form of live broadcast, real-time communication and interaction, uploading audio and video programs, etc.
The changes in employment concepts and emerging professions are an unstoppable trend of the times.
million practitioners have finally become regular employees. is included in the national occupational classification system, which will greatly enhance the professional identity, belonging and gain of network anchors.
At the same time, the anchor group will become more specialized and professional; employment guarantees and supporting services for practitioners will mature; national and industry supervision will also improve professional standards, evaluation, training, employment and other standard systems . Professional institutions, vocational schools, industrial parks and incubation bases of
live broadcast are also promoted and constructed in cities across the country to form a complete industrial chain.
"Creator Economy: The Rise of China's New Digital Professions" released by Renmin University of China says this: Creators in short videos, live broadcasts and other industries have become an emerging digital profession.
The creator economy, with the support of new technologies, can create new professions and business forms out of nothing; old professions will also be constantly transformed and upgraded in this process.
On city streets, factory workshops, rural fields, tourist attractions, whether it is as high as a temple or as far as the rivers and lakes, you can see the live streaming army like a tide and a blazing fire.
In the infinite distance, countless people are connected in the live broadcast room.
are all people who are working hard to live.
For quite some time, Zheng San’s Yu Opera Troupe had no income.
Zheng San, who is over 50 years old, has several generations of opera singers in his family.
The Zheng Sanyu Troupe is good at singing and acting. The troupe is composed of veteran actors who have been singing all their lives. The "Zheng Family Troupe" is famous far and wide in eastern Henan. The theater troupe is his family business and the livelihood of a group of people.
However, the epidemic is coming. It doesn’t matter what your name is, whether you are singing plays, plays, or musicals, the theaters are closed.
In the best days of the past, Zheng Sanyu Theater Company performed more than 400 plays a year, and the whole house cheered.
But in 2020, they waited for half a year before receiving a gig. The actors played their roles with great colors, and as soon as the first scene started, the local director said in a hurry: The village will be closed soon, and everyone will have to leave within 30 minutes.
is not just the Zheng Family Troupe, offline performances are the main source of income for the private theater troupe. If it’s gone, it’s gone.
It was also this year that Zheng San began to post famous parts of Henan operas such as "General of the Yang Family", "Liu Yong Goes to Nanjing" and "Robbing the Coffin" on Douyin. Young people joked in the comment area: I am born in the 90s, but I also like to listen to operas. Is it normal?
By August, Zheng San already had 120,000 fans. He held his first live broadcast and received a reward of 40,000 yuan.
Confidence is back. The rewards and gifts from the audience became the most critical straw. Actors in the troupe have started to do live broadcasts one after another. "Even if you only earn a few dozen a day, it is enough to make a living."
Throughout 2021, there were more than 800,000 opera live broadcasts on Douyin alone, with a total of 2.5 billion views, and 73.6% of the live broadcasts received rewards.
On average, each live broadcast has more than 3,000 viewers. If it is offline, it must be at least a medium-sized performance, a big show for the whole village.
In more than two years, Zheng San has accumulated 989,000 fans. He has purchased more than 500,000 costumes for the troupe and a stage car worth 280,000. The
troupe survived. After the recovery of offline performances, orders for commercial performances have also continued to come from Douyin.
Looking back at the great changes in the past few years, Zheng San feels that the hard work of five generations of his family has not been in vain. I have been singing Henan opera all my life, and seeing that everyone likes it so much, I want more people to hear it in the future.
The entertainment industry is huge, how many people can be heard? How many have grown up?
Gods and demons are mixed together, and young actors are at the bottom in the circle based on seniority.
They don't have many opportunities to take the stage, they can't play a role, and they lack a way to show off. This seems to be an endless cycle.
Dingge didn’t believe that this was a dead end, she loved singing too much.
In reality, Dingge came from a primary school theater and major class, but in the theater troupe he could only play small roles for a few minutes on stage.
There is no stage in reality, so go to the live broadcast room. Some birds cannot be contained because their feathers are too bright.
Even among hundreds of millions of people on Douyin, Dinge is a very special stream of fresh air.
In the live broadcast room, Dingge sang Huangmei Opera for several hours with one person and one microphone. She doesn't ask for likes and rewards, doesn't read comments and interact with her, and doesn't ask for time. She just sings when she sings. She can be called a "three-no" anchor.
sang together for a year. She accumulated 270,000 fans and 1.1 million likes on Douyin. After the results were seen, she was promoted to deputy leader of the troupe.
In reality, no matter how popular a drama is, there are only a hundred people in the audience. But in the live broadcast room, there are tens of thousands of people at each show.
There are netizens who must come to every live broadcast, and there are fans who follow all the way offline to hear Dingge sing the song "Female Consort": "To save Li Lang from his home, who would have expected him to be number one on the imperial list.""
Throughout 2023, the total number of Douyin performing arts live broadcasts reached 71.43 million, a year-on-year increase of 47%. There are 190,000 medium-sized performances every day in Douyin live broadcast rooms.
Practitioners have gained income, and culture has been promoted , young people satisfy their cultural consumption.
Such new occupations and new business formats benefit all participants and generate positive externalities. Only then can healthy development and long-term prosperity be possible.
As the live broadcast industry matures, traditional elites in various industries have emerged. The large-scale entry of
is an inevitable result. In the past two years,
, after the network anchors are "regularized" into a new profession, the anchor team will develop in a more standardized, professional and high-level direction. A large number of literary and artistic practitioners from state-owned theater troupes and professional institutions have become the new main force in the live broadcast industry.
Large theater troupes have established their own account matrices of theater troupes and actor accounts to integrate online and offline performances, projects, and operations. Get through.
For example, the Hunan Provincial Song and Dance Drama Troupe started online live streaming in June 2022.
They found that there are many young actors trained in the troupe, but opportunities for performing on stage are always scarce, especially for solo performers. How many opportunities are there? What should I do?
opens a second stage in the live broadcast room and transforms into an online anchor.
The seven girls in the troupe debuted in the Douyin group under the name "Youth String Song". "Chili Pepper Song" became an instant hit and became their masterpiece.
Over a year ago, the song "Young Hua Xian Song" was broadcasted hundreds of times and received over 100 million likes.
China has no chance. The richest variety of intangible cultural heritage related to stage performances.
There are more than 300 types of Chinese national operas such as Peking Opera, Henan Opera, Yue Opera, and Huangmei Opera.
The most essential, most important and scarce literary and artistic resources. All of them are in the hands of state-owned theater troupes.
Famous speakers, first-class actors, orchestra leaders, inheritors of intangible cultural heritage... If you want to see a big-name performance, you can only go to big cities, where there are big theaters, and often there are also theaters. It’s hard to get a ticket.
Or, the common people have to wait for the national large-scale performance gala and art performance.
Now, with the in-depth industrialization of live broadcast and the standardization of the anchor profession, top artists are also running to the live broadcast room.
Throughout 2023, hundreds of art troupes, including the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe, the Central Chinese Orchestra, and the China Coal Mine Art Troupe, will perform live on Douyin;
11 national first-class actors will perform 19,350 "palace-level" performances throughout the year live performance.is equivalent to an average of 18 large-scale theatrical performances on Douyin every day.
With the addition of these national teams and regular troops, competition has been pushed to a higher level.
The live broadcast content ecosystem has also changed from the past "show model" to "content is king".
After all, one minute on stage, ten years of hard work off stage, is true. It is a coincidence that
wants to break out of the industry with just a few dozen seconds of live video; but if it wants to remain popular all the way, it must show king-level strength.
In the live broadcast room, the big names are down to earth.
They interact in the comment area and accept comments from fans. Because of the emergence of new technologies, they can interact with audiences on a large scale ten or a hundred times.
They learn from new technologies, understand the hobbies of the younger generation, and know what the people like to hear and see, so that they can innovate.
Therefore, anchors who are popular on the online "second stage" often get more performance invitations and business opportunities on offline traditional stages.
Zheng San said that online is a booster for private theater troupes, and online and offline complement each other. Private theater troupes have a platform to showcase their skills, and theater fans also have more choices.
On November 25 last year, "Youth String Song" held its first offline concert at the Changsha Concert Hall. This news attracted fans of the seven girls across the country to go to Changsha to watch their live show up close.
Life is like a play, and play is like life.There is no longer a clear distinction between the inside and outside of the live broadcast room, and the anchor has become indistinguishable from the outside and has become a new version of himself.
Changes in the world do not happen overnight. The foreshadowing has already been laid for the ups and downs. Behind the regularization of
network anchors, the rise of new professions, and the prosperity of the entertainment industry are the great waves of the times that combine new technologies and spiritual civilization. They are also the ordinary people under the camera who devote themselves to life, dreams, and love.
This is not a grand narrative, but an individual epic.
As the live broadcast ecosystem becomes increasingly industrialized and standardized, perhaps the individual differences, hobbies and skills, personality traits, cultural aesthetics, and value orientation of "people" themselves are the most irreplaceable key.
How many people from far away will usher in a new life in the live broadcast room?
