You can click into a live broadcast room and follow any female show anchor, but it is difficult to meet them in the offline world. At the other end of the network, anchors are like bats living in caves, getting up at night and starting live broadcasts. They are almost impossible

You can click into a live broadcast room and follow any female show anchor, but it is difficult to meet them in the offline world. At the other end of the network, anchors are like bats living in caves, getting up at night and starting live broadcasts. They are almost impossible to see during the day. Most of the time, only deliverymen delivering food and medicine come and go from their rental house. Some anchors have not even gone out of the community for two or three years, except to get takeout and throw away garbage.

People are a little afraid of light if they don't get sunlight for a long time. Most of the anchors were in poor health due to staying up all night and insomnia. Some suffered from myocarditis, and some new anchors fainted at home just one month after they started broadcasting. After taking off the heavy makeup and beauty filters, the real anchors look worse than the last.

This is the living conditions of low-level show anchors that Wang Yilin came into contact with. If they don't work day and night and challenge their physiological limits, it will be difficult for them to survive in the highly competitive live broadcast industry. Wang Yilin holds a PhD from the University of Hong Kong and will become an assistant professor at the Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University Joint International College after graduation this year. Starting in 2019, she chose live streaming of Chinese shows as the topic of her doctoral thesis and began a three-year field investigation.

If you just look at the guild’s recruitment notice, being a female anchor should be the most perfect job in the world. There is no restriction on academic qualifications, and there are no high requirements for appearance. Just as a talent scout from a guild said, "With beauty, there are no ugly people" and "it can be broadcast as long as it is an individual." You don’t have to get up early to squeeze into the subway, or run around outside. Work four hours a day and have five days off per month. You only need to put on makeup, sit at home, chat with others, and turn on the live broadcast to collect money. Many labor unions call themselves "MCN companies." The live broadcast base is also called the "Internet celebrity incubation base", which can easily make amateurs have the fantasy of becoming Internet celebrities. Wang Yilin saw that some offline live broadcast rooms would have a piece of paper on the wall, which said:

"Become fair and beautiful for me and then stand tall in front of your future husband. You can buy whatever you want without spending a penny on him." What are you buying!!!"

Such a job attracts many young girls who have just emerged from society. These students who graduated from vocational and technical colleges may have gone to factories in the past. Now, they care more about being visible. They hope to become famous and make money quickly and find a more respectable path.

But when you actually click into these live broadcast rooms, most of the time, the anchors are saying, "Please give me a like, brother" and "Don't leave." By spending a dime, you can get the qualification to "flirt the anchor for 0.1 yuan". When a high-level big brother comes to the live broadcast room, the anchors will immediately stand up to welcome him. Sometimes, someone suddenly buys a gift worth several thousand yuan, and the anchor will burst into tears and keep saying "Thank you, brother" and "Thank you, old man, I bow to you."

"Feels like begging." Wang Yilin said. These contrasts and doubts are also the reasons why she wants to do this research. Does the live broadcast satisfy the wishes of these young people? What impact did it have on their lives? Who is doing the live broadcast, and why does it have to be live broadcast? Can all problems be solved by blocking platforms and encouraging people to work hard? This is a question she wanted to address in her research.

The guild does not welcome outsiders to report on this industry. A staff member told Wang Yilin, "If you knew everything that happened here and the fig leaf was removed, our industry would be over."

In March 2019, Wang Yilin sent interview invitations to 20 female anchors , but in the end only 6 people responded to her, and they all refused further dialogue. It was not until later that a female anchor who was about to leave her job agreed to be interviewed. The reason why she left her job was because of her relationship with "Big Brother".

"Big Brother" supported her for a while and then never appeared in the live broadcast room again. She became more and more lonely, fearful of starting the show, fell into a state of depression, and suffered from severe insomnia. At first, Wang Yilin didn't understand. Isn't it normal for people to come and go in the live broadcast room? She did not reveal the story between her and her eldest brother, but just told Wang Yilin, "If you become an anchor yourself, you will definitely feel these feelings of mine."

In order to understand the lives, work, emotions and interpersonal relationships of female anchors, in March 2019, Wang Yilin joined one of the top ten guilds in the country in Chengdu and became a full-time female anchor.

The following is Wang Yilin's self-report:

bottom anchor

The first step to becoming a female anchor is to know how to use beauty. After signing the contract, all new anchors will receive several "Beauty Parameter Adjustment Suggestions": it is best to smooth the surface to no more than 60%, so that the live broadcast screen will present an undistorted beauty. The nose is directly raised, the head-to-shoulder ratio must be adjusted, and the face can be opened by 40%-80%, so that it is photogenic without appearing aggressive. "School girl" and "pseudo-faced" are the filters that best display childishness, thinness, and purity. Sister Duo, the guild's manager, said that this is the most in line with the aesthetics of East Asian men.

When I was in Lianmai, I met Xiaoyu from Northeast China. She was 24 years old and lived in a small city near the border. Xiaoyu thinks she looks ordinary, but with the beauty filter, she is "no different from an Internet celebrity." Because the local permanent population is small, it is difficult for her to meet older brothers with enough spending power. Even if they live broadcast all night, the income earned by the platform and the guild will not be enough to pay for electricity and food.

"I earn fifty from broadcasting one night, which is not enough to buy all the cosmetics on my face. Lipstick, foundation, concealer, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, blush... What is this not money? There are also lotions and makeup removers. Water, cream... From now on, I will use beauty products. If I don’t use them anymore, I will never use them again!”

For Xiaoting, another low-level anchor, beauty products filter out her embarrassment in real life. 28-year-old Xiaoting is a single mother. Her ex-husband suddenly lost her job and the elderly at home became seriously ill. She had to start live broadcasting at home shortly after giving birth. She increased her weight loss and covered up her figure that had not yet recovered.

For less than 50 yuan, you can buy a piece of clothing online that is of poor quality but photogenic enough. She is very satisfied with this. "With the beauty function enabled, I can wear both brand-name and cheap clothes." The live broadcast only needs to reveal a small area, and the audience cannot tell whether it is a big house or not. Xiaoting once sent me a photo of her home. Outside the camera, there were milk bottles, diapers, toys, medicine boxes and plastic bags piled in the corner. What cannot be revealed is her real life.

Like Xiaoting, 30-year-old anchor Lili is also a single mother. She has two children and was listed as a dishonest person by the bank because of her debts. During the day, she gets up at 6 a.m., not caring about dressing up, but has to cook for her children and send them to school. In the evening, she sat in the live broadcast room, put on a mask with a filter, and joked and chatted with her "big brothers". The more exaggerated the beauty is, the safer she feels. Only in this way can she switch between the two worlds calmly without being recognized in front of her children's teachers and parents.

After following the anchors for two or three years, I found that many women are surprisingly tenacious. What touched me the most was an anchor who I had followed for a long time but had never met in person. On her personal account, she will post videos of herself during confinement and photos of her baby who is not yet one month old. But in the live broadcast software, you can see her put on makeup every night and live broadcast like a normal person, without even a day off. They will work extremely hard for a little bit of living space.

Of the many female anchors I know, none of them are locals in Chengdu. Most of them come from some underdeveloped areas in the west, even poor counties. Female anchors who graduated from vocational and technical schools already belong to the highly educated group, and many of them dropped out of school early. Among them, there are young girls who cannot find a job after graduation, some are single mothers living with children after divorce, or women who are in debt due to investment or starting a business.

Anchor work is the best choice within their abilities. As my agent said, "For a divorced woman who has two children to take care of, live broadcasting may be the only choice because she can live a stable life as soon as possible." A prosperous life."

I was in the guild's offline live broadcast room and saw a piece of paper posted on the wall, which described the common vision of these women: "Become white, rich and beautiful, and then hold your head high in front of your future husband. You can buy whatever you want without spending a penny on it! ! ! "

However, only when you truly step into this industry will you understand that this so-called shortcut to a decent life is just an empty dream.

The pain of being sold

In the beginning, my positioning was "talented anchor ". I specially learned 200 songs. For everyone who entered the live broadcast room, I would also use notes to write down what songs they ordered and what they liked. The staff of

taught me the rules of survival in this industry. For example, "Five Dares" ": "Dare to sing", "Dare to shout", "Dare to flirt", "Dare to shame yourself" and "Dare to connect" (Lianmai).

Lianmai pk is the focus of the female anchor's work. If you just sit in front of the camera, no If you are willing to compete with Mai, you will receive a warning from your agent. I was told that this is the best way to convert ordinary viewers into loyal fans. A player also asked me to "risk it" and said, "Do you think that sitting like this will make you happy?" Many people watch it? "

pk game, you can select an anchor in the watch list, or you can match others with the algorithm. The two anchors who accept the challenge will be cut into the same live broadcast screen for three rounds of PK with a total duration of three minutes. Whoever wins Whoever has more gifts will be the winner, and the loser must accept punishment.

pk What and how to punish? The anchors will ask their respective eldest brothers’ opinions in advance to see what they want to see. A pure talent competition is not attractive enough. In order to stimulate male fans to give gifts , some female anchors will add some sexually suggestive performances, such as twisting their waists, kissing the screen, shaking their breasts, or rubbing their bodies against the chair.

punishment is also highly humiliating. I was once matched with a man After the anchor pk lost the game, he asked me to do as he said, move the camera down and nod. At first glance, it didn’t seem too much. But a friend who was watching the live broadcast sent me a message on WeChat Me, that action has sexual connotations. People in the live broadcast room were laughing at me, making me feel like a fool.

Once, I competed with a big anchor, and she said that she would only consider playing with me if I could afford it. I became a friend on the platform. "Affordable" required me to lose the PK and pour a bottle of water into my clothes. This punishment also has a name, called "Mountain and Flowing Water". In order to establish a relationship with the big anchor, I had no choice but to accept it. .I experienced various punishments, such as painting on my face, putting garbage bags over my head, jumping on bottle caps with my bare feet, taking a sip of water and spitting it out, plucking my hair with scotch tape, etc.

A female anchor once complained to me that she met a big brother who had a foot fetish. "Big brother" refers to the loyal fans who support most of the anchor's income. When she lost the game, the big brother came up with a punishment method and asked her to use Grabbing a small ball with her feet. This strange habit made her feel disgusting, but she couldn't find a second man who could spend more money than this big brother. After the punishment, the big brother would give her a gift.

Watching anchors be humiliated is part of entertainment, so others are willing to spend thousands or even tens of thousands for gifts. I interviewed a player on the platform, and he told me that in the live broadcast room, in front of other male players Swearing, teasing female anchors, and manipulating them to do what he wants them to do will make him feel "very free and comfortable."

I found that many male players do not directly mention anything too explicit when watching live broadcasts. Request. Some big brothers think it is "boring" to let the female anchor be exposed directly, "it makes me look very low". Sex is highly hidden, but it is everywhere. When will it be released? In fact, it is in the three-minute pk . Desire is hidden in the game, so players can get pleasure openly. Some people speak very civilly in the live broadcast room, and after adding WeChat, they start to curse and ask the host to post naked videos. They don’t want others to see the side. In fact, it is also a twisted psychology of East Asians towards sex.

Many people may think that being a show host is like sitting there and falling in love with your big brother. In fact, it is not that simple.

I once came across a live broadcast room of a female anchor on the platform. She said she was a mother of three children. During the live broadcast, the mother was wearing a clown outfit, and there was a gift list posted on the wall: Be careful (0.1 yuan), Come on Duck (1.5 yuan), etc. Most of them were small gifts of a few yuan. Some can make her croak ten times, and some can make her do 20 squats. Thinking of that image now still makes me feel sad. Games like

have even slowly developed offline. In the most prosperous May Day Square in Changsha, there are many outdoor anchors. They are not only connected online, but also find anchors on the same street to compete with each other. My collaborator, teacher Dong Chenyu, once described to me a scene he had seen. Two anchors were standing in the rain. One man was sticking his butt out, and the other woman was spanking him very loudly.

In such a gamified scenario, people will convince themselves to do something that breaks their own bottom line, without even realizing that it has caused harm to themselves.

But this method does work. Later, I also met my "big brother" while playing PK games. That day, I lost a PK match and was spanked as punishment. The eldest brother said that when he saw the painful expression on my face, he felt very guilty. After that, he made up his mind to give me gifts and help me win other PKs. There is a popular saying on the

platform, "The anchor's mouth is a liar. The anchor's vulnerability is like crocodile tears."

The love game where a hero saves a beauty

The platform consumes emotions and also creates emotions. It is difficult for you to encounter such a dramatic situation in your daily life: Just imagine that when you are about to face the humiliation of crawling on the ground or doing a "chair-bashing" dance, what appears in front of you is a certain person. Dukes, monarchs, and even emperors (status levels on the platform, which means they spend hundreds of thousands or more on the platform). How many anchors have longed for gifts that fall from the sky. He uses his generosity to exchange for your dignity, a day's income, and a romantic experience. Many female anchors I have come into contact with have been deeply moved by the masculinity of the big brother in this kind of hero-saving beauty game.

, the elder brother who once made up his mind to prevent me from losing PK again, spent tens of thousands to participate in the lottery game on the platform and won the first prize of "Elope to the Moon" worth 4880 yuan. He told me: "What other anchors have, I also hope you can have it, and be the first person to give you this gift."

That night, I sat there without saying anything, looking at each one. The special effects bloom in front of you, and you can feel the heartbeat. There is a saying in the guild, "No female anchor can resist the romance of a big brother, and no big brother can resist the romantic illusion of a lucky draw." Even in the end, I only received 20% of these gifts, and the other income went into the pockets of the platform and the guild.

But the cruel thing about this love game is that the big brothers will not just like one anchor. Their freshness can only last for a few months, and some of them will disappear faster than one or two months.

At the beginning, I thought female anchors could retain people through their talents. Later I discovered that as long as you are brave and have fun, you can make money. However, the longer I live broadcast, the more I find that there is nothing I can control.

If the enthusiasm of the eldest brother is found to have waned, a common trick used by anchors is to "sell out" in various ways, including uploading photos of themselves being sick, writing sad essays in Moments, and giving the most severe punishment when losing in a PK, etc. . One of my eldest brothers once said in an interview that every time he sees a female anchor cry, he feels embarrassed and guilty. "I will give her gifts. Everyone in the live broadcast room knows that I am the eldest brother. I don't want to embarrass myself in front of others, and I don't want others to think that I have no money to play on the platform." But he also hates the anchor's tears, "They are forcing me."

If they find that their eldest brother is following other people, many anchors will register anonymous accounts to follow their eldest brother. Take a screenshot every day to save the wealth value of the eldest brother's homepage information. If the number changes, you can estimate how much the eldest brother has spent on "other women."

Just like wives discover evidence of their husband's affair, they will fall out with their eldest brother, or ask for more expensive gifts as compensation. Jiajia, a 25-year-old anchor from Shanghai, deliberately stopped live broadcasting for a week and blocked her elder brother's account to let him know that she was jealous and angry and come back to comfort her. In an even more extreme case, she broadcast live non-stop for three consecutive days, using this method of challenging her physical limits to force her eldest brother to return to the live broadcast room - if she bought enough gifts, the eldest brother would have the right to let the female anchor rest. Some female anchors cannot stand the continuous live broadcast and will faint in front of the camera, giving male players the strongest emotional stimulation.

Many anchors will unknowingly fall into emotional entanglements. Yaoyao is an anchor who joined the company at the same time as me. She is 21 years old and very cute. She used to be a dance teacher who specialized in teaching children to dance. Not long after Yaoyao started airing, her eldest brother, whom she had known for less than a month, gave her a virtual gift of 20,000 yuan. In order to get Yaoyao on the platform's hourly city hot search list, Big Brother will also set an alarm clock, send her gifts and compile data before the hourly list is updated.

usually dances in the live broadcast room. Someone will say something offensive to Yaoyao, so the eldest brother applies to become an administrator, kicks those people away, and becomes Yaoyao's guardian. With the support of her eldest brother, Yaoyao's monthly income soon reached 30,000.

In the third month, this girl who had never had any love experience fell into love. The eldest brother went on a business trip to her city, and the two made an appointment to meet offline. Yaoyao, who didn't know that her eldest brother already had a family, became a passive third party.

Most of the offline relationships developed between eldest brother and eldest brother will not last long. Yaoyao soon discovered that without the identity reconstruction that imitated the aristocracy on the live broadcast platform, the eldest brother was just an ordinary businessman. Although he has a wife and children, long-term business trips make him very lonely. During his rest time in hotels and guesthouses, he can only pass the time by watching live broadcasts.

Brother doesn’t like her as much as he thought. The reason why Yaoyao received those great gifts was because her eldest brother was addicted to the blind box drawing and roulette activities on the platform. The platform uses the form of a game to conceal its gambling nature. Winning a gift is a first level of pleasure, and giving it to your favorite anchors in exchange for their attentiveness is a second level of pleasure.

On the other hand, the relationship between the anchor and the eldest brother is built in the environment of the live broadcast room. Big brothers don't like to transfer money privately, and prefer to give gifts in public in the live broadcast room. They need to be witnessed by other male players, be watched and admired, and establish a successful male image. In the

live broadcast room, the elder brother gave Yaoyao a gift of 200 yuan. But she won't know whether the eldest brother spent 20,000 yuan to get it through a lottery behind his back. The value of this gift has unlimited room for imagination. But in reality, Yaoyao received a lipstick, and this gift was obviously two to three hundred yuan. Without an audience, the pleasure is greatly reduced. The person giving the gift feels uninterested, and the person receiving the gift also feels uninterested.

In the end, the main reason for the separation of the two people was that the eldest brother was unwilling to give up his family. Yaoyao always felt that her nose was ugly. In order to save her eldest brother, she tried plastic surgery. He also lent money to his elder brother when his business was not going well. Once, Yaoyao asked me if she could keep her eldest brother if she was pregnant with his child. While her eldest brother was asleep, she used his mobile phone to send text messages to his wife, declaring her sovereignty. But this has no other effect than irritating Big Brother.

You will find that the remaining tenderness and romance between each other have disappeared with the disappearance of the live broadcast platform environment. For young girls, these perceptions of what constitutes a good intimate relationship will be changed. Yaoyao once told me that she might not be able to like boys in real life anymore. The

guild has never supported private meetings between host and eldest brother. They know best that the show live broadcast is a game of human nature. Some people are greedy, some are lonely, some are lustful, and some are face-saving. The anchor actually takes advantage of these human weaknesses to make money. Guild people often warn anchors, "Once you meet, your relationship is over."

Who is the big brother?

When I met my eldest brother in real life, I realized that they were completely different from what I imagined. For research purposes, I met offline with more than a dozen buddies who have been giving live broadcast rewards on the platform for a long time.Some are fans of my live broadcast room, and some are introduced by my live broadcast sisters. Of course, they are not all big brothers who spend an astonishing amount of money, but they all invest a lot in the live broadcast platform, especially in terms of time and emotion.

What impressed me most was the man I met in a small town in the Sichuan and Chongqing regions. The middle-aged man in front of me was selling oranges at a mobile stall in the market. After selling for a while, he had to change places. The T-shirt he was wearing was washed white and thin, with a few holes exposed.

The eldest brother is married. His wife used to owe money for playing mahjong. In order to avoid the debt, he ran away with someone else. Today, he is alone raising two children who are about to enter middle school. During the day, I get some goods from my hometown to sell, sometimes oranges, sometimes walnuts. In the evening, I drove to a local factory to collect goods.

Before I left, my elder brother tore off several bags, filled them one by one, and asked me to take them home to eat: "You must take them, I don't have anything for you."

I always think of the way he put oranges for me. It’s hard to connect him with the big brother on the platform who speaks foul language and exchanges gifts. He has several accounts and has spent 10,000 to 20,000 yuan on the platform.

When I was writing field notes on the subway, I was very sad. How could people who live such a difficult life still induce people to consume in the live broadcast room?

Later, many anchors knew that this big brother was not easy, and they would persuade him not to spend money and just stay with him in the live broadcast room. But when the factory pays wages, the eldest brother will still spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in the live broadcast room one night to buy two sports cars for each of his favorite anchors. He was very proud of this: "Look at me, I am like a 'rain and dew'." That generous moment was very important to him.

For this single father living in an underdeveloped area, he is either working to earn money or has two children, and he lives a very lonely life every day. On the platform, my eldest brother learned that if you like someone, you can not only earn money and take it home, but you can also send flowers and gifts. It was a romantic relationship like no other. When he really has no money, he will stay in the live broadcast room, chat with them and maintain order.

Most of the older brothers I come into contact with are engaged in the construction industry. Project funds are generally delayed. When they suddenly get a sum of money, the true value of the money becomes blurred. They will not cherish it, but spend it immediately. There are also people who work night shifts in factories or travel long distances at night. They are under great pressure from work, but they also have some free time. They all come to big cities from surrounding towns and have no way to integrate into city life.

An older brother once complained to me about their marriage and family. Raising children is stressful, his wife is overbearing, and his mother-in-law dislikes him for not making much money. Another elder brother had just established a company. In order to win a project in Chengdu, he had to deal with a middleman who was difficult to talk to every day. "I feel like I am living like a dog."

needs to satisfy others and please others. In the live broadcast room, he has changed from "Party B" to "Party A", gaining the attention and respect they crave. The platform will set status levels based on the player's consumption level. As long as you spend more money, you can leave your civilian status and enter the aristocratic system, becoming a knight, earl, or emperor.

After being in contact for a long time, you will find that the elder brothers are actually very fragile and have a "glass heart", and you will offend them if you are not careful. Sometimes, a high-level player suddenly comes to the live broadcast room, and the anchor starts to divert his attention and chat with the new person, and some big brothers will be jealous, "You see, when there is a new person, the old person is forgotten. "After

was downloaded, I found that a big brother had blocked me. He felt that he had been left out by not giving a gift. The anchor has to coax them all the time, "Brother, come back tomorrow", "Don't leave, I love you".

recalls the days of frantically buying gifts in the live broadcast room. Big brothers will regret it in the end. One of my elder brothers spent hundreds of thousands on the platform and was in huge debt. When we last met, he showed me a short essay indicting the live broadcast platform, attributing all his failures to being induced to live broadcast rewards, especially live broadcast lottery draws.

He wrote in his essay that he was originally a "sunny and healthy" man who opened two companies.When he was on a business trip, a friend recommended a live broadcast platform to him, saying that he could watch football games and have female anchors singing. He felt curious, so he downloaded the software, clicked in and saw that others were shopping for gifts. After the anchor taught him how to recharge, he was "out of control" from then on.

When he has no money to spend, in order to maintain the image of a successful man on the platform, the eldest brother will borrow money to spend. The micro-loan business is embedded in the software, making it easy to borrow money.

Later, due to poor management, the company closed down and he was in debt, so he had to work everywhere. Every time we meet, I invite him to dinner. Usually, he is always reluctant to spend money on food, and sometimes he only eats a bowl of Chongqing noodles a day. In the winter, I change back and forth between two sets of clothes. As soon as I get close, I can smell that the down jacket is already worn.

At first, he still couldn't quit live streaming. So he lied to his wife and asked her to give him money for entertainment, and then used the money to buy gifts. It was not until the anchors who had a good relationship with him stopped broadcasting one after another that they finally sold their accounts.

Brother regrets every day, why don't you focus on the company's operations? If hundreds of thousands are still here, will your life be different now?

Desperate labor

After the fieldwork, I completed my doctoral thesis. During the defense, the teacher asked me if I wrote this line too darkly. Before I became a female anchor, I had similar questions about my colleague who resigned due to depression and pain: What about it?

Five months after joining the company, I can clearly feel the changes in myself. At first, as a researcher, I thought that as long as I got to know more people in the industry, it wouldn’t matter whether I could keep my eldest brother. Even if my income is only 30 cents a day, I won't be too anxious. However, as the number of supporters gradually increased, I also began to receive gifts such as "sports cars" and "elope to the moon". At that moment, I felt like a star and felt so elated. These things will amplify people's desires. After

was downloaded, I lay in bed. My ears had just been bombarded by those subwoofers for several hours. My ears ached and my hearing decreased, but my brain became more active. I also began to suffer from insomnia and was overwhelmed by a huge sense of loss: Will those people come tomorrow? Can I still receive gifts? No matter what you gain or how happy you are, everything may be lost at any time when you wake up.

Like many anchors, I also began to consciously extend the live broadcast time, from the first five hours to seven hours, singing and chatting non-stop. From then on, I suffered from chronic pharyngitis, which remains till now. Affects me.

Because the live broadcast lasted long enough, I even got the monthly "Live Broadcast Star" from the guild. The prize is not cash, but a virtual "castle" gift in the live broadcast room. According to the split rules, I can only get 20%. In other words, I worked my butt off and worked overtime, and the guild still had to take most of the money from my rewards. The downloading of

does not mean the end of work. I moved from the armchair to the bed, continued to open the software, and maintained my relationship with the players: "Brother, have you gotten up? Have you eaten? What are your plans for today? I will start broadcasting at three o'clock in the afternoon, do you want to Come?"

I used to be unable to accept the PK humiliation game, and I also started to teach newcomers who have just entered the industry. How can I sit there and do nothing? How can you have a chance if you don't do it? In this environment, people will gradually become alienated. During the time of

, a friend asked me, after almost half a year as an anchor, why haven’t I seen you doing academic work or publishing papers?

After doing this for a long time, people’s attention and energy will be swallowed up by the platform, and they will no longer be interested in real life. I feel a huge sense of emptiness every day, but I still open the live broadcast platform uncontrollably, and I can’t even read this book to enrich myself. Many anchors told me that they used to binge-watch dramas and variety shows, but after becoming anchors, they never watched them again. After four or five months, even though I was doing well, I realized that I couldn't live this life anymore.

I lived with the anchor Jiajia for a week. She is the best and most profitable celebrity anchor among us.For seven days, she never went to the room with me to sleep. After the live broadcast every day, she would sit on the ground, either staring out the window until dawn, or she would keep browsing the live broadcast rooms of anchors of the same level to learn how others did it. Even on my day off, I'm still thinking about this. I attended a gathering of female anchors and found that everyone was chatting with the big brother on their mobile phones or watching other live broadcasts.

Many anchors stay in their rental houses all day long. During the three years I followed them, some of them never even went out to the community except to get takeout. An anchor I follow has been posting photos on social media of people being given intravenous drips in hospitals.

Brother will also ask for rewards if he spends too much money on anchors. There is a brother who supports me, but he doesn’t come to my live broadcast room for several days in a row. He clearly knew how dismal my live broadcast data was during that period. Later, I couldn't help but ask him, what exactly did he want me to do? He replied to me: "You are so smart, you must know it. Brother, it depends on your performance." He hoped to come to my city to meet, or let me fly to his city to accompany him. In the early days of

, when I was live broadcasting in the guild's offline studio, someone gave me a small gift and sent me a private message: "I will pick you up from get off work later." Normally, anchors would enable positioning in order to attract traffic from nearby areas. Players can see whether the distance between the two sides is 1000 meters, 500 meters, or 100 meters.

Some players can see the window behind the anchor in the live broadcast room and infer the anchor's location based on billboards or street views. During my live broadcast, I saw a barrage: "I know which floor of the xx office building you are on. There are all anchors there." At that moment, I was very scared. I couldn't see anyone at all, but they knew that I was specific information.

If players are obsessed with the platform’s lottery games and cannot pay back the money they owe, the host will eventually be blamed. Some people will find the host to collect debts. They will think, "I spent money on it just to draw blind boxes and buy gifts for you." In fact, the anchor can only get 20% to 30% from the gifts here, and the maximum cannot exceed 50%. An anchor I know, in order to avoid his elder brother coming to collect debts, canceled his account, moved, and changed six live broadcast platforms in a row. In the end, he could only hide on an illegal foreign platform.

After working undercover on the platform for five months, I resigned and left the industry in order to meet the interviewees and gain a deeper understanding of their real offline lives. I can choose freely, but other anchors have no choice but to retreat. In WeChat Moments, I often see those anchor friends constantly stopping and resuming the broadcast. They all mentioned to me that they no longer wanted to be a show host, but they couldn't find any other way.

These girls have low academic qualifications and can only find jobs like receptionist. With a salary of 3,000 yuan, it is difficult to even afford their own living expenses.

A female anchor changed her career to the live streaming industry and joined the product selection team. She soon discovered that this job was more tiring than being a show host. Every day, thousands of products that have been live-streamed need to be entered into the system, write reviews, think of copywriting, and record the discount mechanism for each product. You have to try the samples sent by the manufacturer yourself first, and apply bottles of various anti-hair loss shampoos on your head. After joining the company, her salary changed from the originally promised 10,000 to 5,000, which is lower than when she was an anchor. All cooperation is irregular and there is not even a contract. Every time

shares research on the live broadcast industry, there are always people who criticize show live broadcasts and believe that these platforms should be banned. But I found that this type of live broadcast platform is at least legal and regulated. If they cannot survive on the green platform, they will be squeezed into the illegal space.

An anchor I know was introduced to a gray gambling platform because his broadcasting was not good. You can only download that software through a specific link and by clicking out the pop-up window that says there is a virus. Her job is to broadcast live football matches, and there will be a dedicated person to handle players' purchases and recharges. Not long after, she received a call from the "police station" saying that she was engaged in illegal activities and must cooperate with the investigation of funds. In a hurry, she borrowed money from everywhere and transferred more than 100,000 yuan to the other party. When I found out it was a telecom fraud, I didn't dare to call the police or ask for help. "People would say you are not clean yourself."

Therefore, in the paper, I proposed a concept called "desperate labor". Anchors must constantly and strategically challenge platform rules amidst various nested uncertainties, and even resort to self-harm to gain limited living space. They exploit themselves, hurt themselves, and at the same time get some "highlight moments" that attract attention and love. When they hope to start a new life, they find that live broadcasting of shows is already the best and highest-paying option. I hope that the concept of "desperate labor" can help us understand the industry they work in and the complexity of human nature and desire.

When doing this research, I often feel powerless. A few years have passed, and many female anchors have gone round and round and returned to this industry. For them, the live broadcast industry can also provide a dream. Just like an anchor who took care of her children at home showed me that her eldest brother spent 90,000 in the live broadcast room in one month. She can get 30% of it, which is equivalent to a huge sum of money.

When she was a child, due to family difficulties, she dropped out of high school before finishing high school. Now she is over 30 years old and has no good skills. In order to take care of her children, she cannot stay too far away from home, and her life is restricted everywhere.

For these anchors, if they want to break this life where they can see the end at a glance, they can only wait for the "magic" from the sky to win a big prize in this gambling game.

◦ Cover image from Visual China.

Author | Chen Xiaoyan Editor | Zhang Rui Produced | Tencent News Guyu Studio

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