It’s not easy to be an amateur Internet celebrity
In 2018, Douyin changed its brand slogan to “Record a Good Life” and began to encourage “everyone to become a creator.” In the past few years, amateur Internet celebrities on Douyin have continued to emerge. .
However, after the platform achieved the "god-making at the speed of light", these amateur Internet celebrities came to the same destination by different routes. After the traffic carnival, they continued to fall off the altar and slowly faded out of the public eye.
Recently, Chen Guoping, the "anti-fraud veteran" who quickly became popular in 2021 for promoting anti-fraud knowledge as a celebrity anchor of Lianmai, cried bitterly during the live broadcast of Lianmai and said: If you can't have a family, you can't have a career, and then you can't have a career. There is no going back either.
At the beginning of last year, he also revealed that his income in 2022 would be 1.33 million and he would pay nearly 400,000 in taxes. However, he started to apply for a job this year, and it has not been two years since he resigned..
html On December 26, Anti-Fraud Lao Chen released a video to promote the job search competition, "If you dare to use it, I want to use it, I can use mine, you can contact me to work as a co-worker or re-employment." He wants to continue to engage in anti-fraud propaganda. .
According to Lao Chen, he resigned because he did not clearly understand his status and abilities, and his resignation was approved three days after he proposed it.
It is understood that "Anti-Fraud Chen" was a police officer in the Internet Security Brigade of the Haigang District Public Security Bureau of Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province. When he became popular, his account increased by 1.81 million followers in a single day and received over 100 million likes.
On April 8, 2022, he posted a video saying that he decided to quit his job. Since then, he has continued to publish new content and conduct live broadcasts on his personal account.
Although Anti-Fraud Lao Chen has accumulated a certain amount of traffic in the early stage, there is nothing wrong with resigning to focus on account content. But the ideal is full, and the reality is skinny. After resigning, the traffic of Anti-Fraud Lao Chen’s live broadcast room dropped sharply, and gradually became uninterested.
On November 10, 2023, anti-fraud Lao Chen claimed to be a "passed Internet celebrity" in an interview, and his popularity dropped a lot. Later, he started eating and broadcasting just to maintain the popularity, but he also wanted to use it to implant anti-fraud content and explore A new form of anti-fraud, but not very effective.
was not the only one who resigned after the fire, but also Mr. Huang, who became famous for his "dig, dig, dig". Teacher Huang has attracted attention again because of the recent rumors about her. Some netizens said that Teacher Huang was suspected of being "made up about pornographic rumors" and called on her to call the police.
Colleagues from Teacher Huang’s kindergarten said that she had resigned years ago and would report the relevant situation to her leadership to see if she should call the police.
It is understood that in the second half of 2023, "Teacher Huang" will gradually move from online to offline on mobile phones. He has appeared with the director of Suizhou Internet celebrity culture and tourism to recommend Suizhou tourism, returned to his hometown in Qianjiang to recommend crayfish, etc., and also participated in Hubei Satellite TV’s 2024 Spring Festival Gala.
Currently, Teacher Huang’s account updated an annual review video on December 31, 2023, but it has not been updated yet.
Previously, Teacher Huang’s Douyin account gained nearly 5 million followers when it became popular. A few months later, Mr. Huang started live streaming to sell goods in an attempt to monetize traffic, but the cumulative GMV from five live broadcasts was only 1 million yuan. Since she started selling the product, a large number of fans have chosen to cancel it.
Why are Internet celebrities so short-lived?
Andy Warhol believed that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. What this sentence
emphasizes is not the fleetingness of fame and traffic, but In today's society, the threshold for fame and traffic has been greatly lowered for ordinary people, and almost anyone has the opportunity to become famous. This also explains why amateur internet celebrities frequently appear on the Douyin platform.
As a content platform, Douyin continues to bring closer the relationship between ordinary people and the platform by continuously creating "amateur Internet celebrities", which in a sense also continues to extend the life of the platform.
In addition, not only Douyin, but also Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and Kuaishou have written "ordinary people" and "ordinary people's lives" into their brand slogans.
But after ordinary people become famous, the sustainability of traffic is unknown. The key to is that the platform has the power to decide the traffic and regulate the direction of the traffic.
For most amateur Internet celebrities, rapid rise to fame and rapid fall seem to be their ultimate fate.
Among amateur internet celebrities who gained tens of millions of followers in just a few days, only a few can maintain their popularity thereafter. More than 90% of amateur Internet celebrities are just short-lived and unable to convert short-term traffic into long-term commercial value.
For example, in October last year, Yu Wenliang, who claimed to be an "ordinary person", suddenly became popular, gaining nearly 4 million followers in a single month. After Yu Wenliang became popular, he soon started live streaming to accept rewards. During a live broadcast of
, the anchor on the opposite side said, "I am here to live broadcast to make money." Yu Wenliang directly replied: "You have said everything in my heart, so let's make money together, brother!" Then Yu Wenliang's reputation took a turn for the worse, and he lost millions of followers within a few days.
and "Wen Shen", an ordinary person who was popular in WeChat Moments last year, gained 3.6 million followers on Douyin in one day. He has three accounts on Douyin, and each account corresponds to a different mental state. He works to make money during the day, goes crazy and dances at noon, and switches to emo mode at night.
After it became popular, Wen Huijun’s popularity only lasted for three days. From December 18th to 21st last year, Wen Huijun held a total of six live broadcasts. The first five live broadcasts had more than 20 million viewers. The number of live broadcast viewers on the 21st dropped to 8 million.
How amateur internet celebrities capture traffic
For most amateur internet celebrities, they are actually at a loss for the sudden popularity. The way most people catch the huge traffic is to start live broadcasts and monetize their goods.
Of course, the end of internet celebrity is live streaming. The result of this is a backlash from traffic. When ordinary people transform into Internet celebrities carrying goods, attacks from public opinion also follow one after another.
For example, Mr. Huang was questioned not as an ordinary creator, but as an institutional promoter. There is also the issue of copyright of children's songs, which has been questioned by the audience as plagiarism.
You must know that the evolution model of Internet celebrities is mainly divided into three links: brand building, promotion and communication, and commercial realization. However, due to the limited accumulation of social, financial and human resources of amateur Internet celebrities, they are often unable to be keenly aware of changes in fan structure and the evolution of social trends.
At the same time, they also lack the ability to self-drive, self-control and self-learning. Therefore, in various social and short video applications, the constant emergence of homogeneous content in short videos has made users lose their enthusiasm for amateur Internet celebrities. If
wants to maintain long-term popularity, amateur internet celebrities must produce high-quality content that is consistent with the platform’s tone.
Specifically, it is necessary to continuously improve the production capacity and creative level of original content, strengthen content features, increase the stickiness of fans, and expand the scale of different fan groups.
can only obtain lasting traffic by accurately positioning the video content and creating it in depth. People like Papi Jiang and Li Ziqi became popular mainly because they continued to release valuable video works or live broadcast content, which received recognition and attention from fans, thus gradually accumulating high popularity.
On the other hand, in an era where attention is scarce, it is very difficult to gain attention for a long time by relying solely on personal creations. This is why many Internet celebrities are short-lived.
In the live broadcast industry, it is already difficult to become a live broadcast internet celebrity by yourself. According to a survey by China News Service, “It is already difficult for new individual anchors to survive, and most of them will join groups such as guilds and other organizations to seek development... Through the professional packaging and operation of guilds, other benefits can be brought to the anchors, such as product promotion. , product placement, e-commerce promotion, and even various variety shows, online dramas, and offline commercial activities."
For example, MCN organizations like Wuyou Media, Wuyou Media has incubated a large number of "amateur internet celebrities" . Among them, the cleaning lady who live broadcasted with "Duoduo and Sister Maomao" also signed a contract with Wuyou Media.
But for now, how to survive still depends on the personal choice of amateur Internet celebrities. In the stock era, competition in the short video era has shifted from purely pursuing user growth to increasing user stickiness. It depends on how Internet celebrities can stand out.
author | Li Ying
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