I was accidentally recommended Li Ziqi’s video "Soybean Soy Sauce" on station B. It had a high number of views, so I went in to watch it out of curiosity.

My previous impression of Li Ziqi was that there were heated discussions on the Internet about whether she had a team, and whether her talent was worthy of the hype.

Actually, I am still biased against people who are good-looking and capable of doing things. After all, where are there perfect people in this world?

Okay, I admit that I am jealous... but after watching countless of her videos, I feel that there is nothing wrong with it even if there is a team operation, because the process of making soy sauce is really too long. ! She works really hard.

Of course, since she became famous, many people are discussing whether she is an Internet celebrity packaged by the Internet.

She rarely comes forward to explain, but looking at her first video and her unskilled editing techniques, you can basically judge that it is her own work.

In the past few years, her popularity has continued to increase, and the quality of her videos has also improved rapidly. Then there are more and more doubts.

The teams listed in her explanation above should really not exist, but she did not say that she has not signed a contract with the company, which can be said to be a cover-up.

But with or without a team, her achievements and efforts cannot be ignored.

Home-made firewood, rice, oil and salt, as well as pens, inks, paper and inkstones, papermaking, wooden movable type printing and other things that represent traditional culture. It took someone two years to make just one pen, ink, paper and inkstones. This dedication is worth learning from.

Whether it is on Bilibili or YouTube, Li Ziqi’s videos have exceeded one million views.

And she already has 7.34 million fans on YouTube, and "earns millions of dollars every year" from YouTube.

More and more urban people want to return to the countryside and live a pastoral life of "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and leisurely seeing the southern mountains". More and more foreigners are learning about Chinese traditions through Li Ziqi’s videos.

What exactly made her receive such high praise from CCTV as "From today on, love life like Li Ziqi and live out the splendor and confidence of the Chinese people"? Let's talk about it today. chatter.

01

On July 6, 1990, Li Ziqi was born in Mianyang, Sichuan.

When her parents divorced when she was very young, she followed her father. However, not long after, her father passed away when she was four years old.

Her childhood was not happy. Li Ziqi once said: "When I was 6 years old, my stepmother pulled my hair and pushed me into the ditch. I was beaten until I was half dead, but I didn't lose a drop. Tears."

Li Ziqi later lived with her grandparents. Later, soon after her grandfather passed away, Li Ziqi had only her grandma as a relative. She was only 14 years old at that time. Li Ziqi had no choice but to drop out of school and go work.

In order to support herself and her grandmother, she worked as a waitress in a restaurant and a DJ in a bar for eight years. She endured all the hardships she could endure, and shouldered all the pressure she could endure. Just when her life was stabilizing, an accident happened.

Grandma got seriously ill, so she immediately rushed back to her side. She is well versed in the principle of "a child wants to be raised but not a child", and she also knows what is most important to her, so in 2012, Li Ziqi returned to the place where she grew up.

After returning to her hometown in Mianyang, she began to think of ways to make money. The small mountain village was poor and backward, with underdeveloped transportation. But in order to stay with her grandma, Li Ziqi chose to open a Taobao store.

In 2015, in order to promote the Taobao store, she began to take selfies and direct short videos of ancient food. As a result, the short video became popular, but the Taobao store was forced to close because she had no energy to take care of it.

However, her videos did not become popular immediately. She stayed up for a long time.

At the end of April 2016, she filmed an episode of "Kirsch". According to Li Ziqi's words, this video is: a head with cancerous yellow hair and oily bangs, and she will do it until she dies. The slow pace that I thought was beautiful, the abrupt switching of shots, the images that were often exposed to the point of being out of focus and impossible to look at directly, and the only editing method that relied on "overlaying" to switch shots....

But that It was already the most perfect work she could produce at that time. At that time, she had already been working on the beauty shoot for more than a month, so after filming "Kirsch", she began to wonder if she couldn't eat it anymore.

Li Ziqi said: I did some ideological work for myself at that time and kept a diary seriously. Of course, I don’t know where the diary has flown to now, and I can’t remember the specific content. It’s probably——

Maybe I really took the wrong path, I am not suitable for this... No one will watch the video I took so hard and tiringly... Forget it, I will post this last video No more filming...continue to run my small business honestly...

As a result, just when she was about to give up, a turning point came.

"Cherry Wine" went from not having a single like for two days to getting over 10,000 likes in one and a half days! It turned out that "Cherry Wine" was seen and liked by the CEO of Meitu, and it was also pushed to the popular list on Meipai's homepage.

On that day, Li Ziqi was extremely excited and posted a screenshot on WeChat Moments to record this historic moment. Finally, 7 months later, Li Ziqi made the hit video "Lanzhou Beef Noodles", which has been viewed 50 million times online and has more than 600,000 likes.

Since then, Li Ziqi’s Weibo fans have exceeded 5 million to 10 million. Later, she resumed her original Taobao store. Four years have passed in a flash from 2015 when we were promoting Taobao stores to now.

Now Li Ziqi is not only a food blogger, but also a brand, an oriental food culture brand, ready to achieve greater success in the trillion-level market.

02

There are many people who are popular, and only when someone criticizes you can you be truly popular.

Li Ziqi is no exception. After filming "Swing" with 80 million views in April 2017, Li Ziqi became famous all over the Internet and was quickly blacklisted by the entire Internet.

There are many comments like the following on Zhihu:

At first glance, it looked like it was shot by a large team, and she was only responsible for showing her face. How could she cook so many dishes? There must be a substitute. He even said that he took the video alone. shameless! So pretty and can cook? Is it possible to think about it with your brain?

You can tell at a glance how big the team behind it is, and the so-called ancient-style woman is just a gimmick!

Such a beautiful video must have been shot by a professional team! How could I possibly take the photo alone? There is no shame in having a team, so I have to insist that I shot it myself. How disgusting!

This incident directly affected her life.

So one day in 2017, Li Ziqi chose to stop updating videos.

One day when Li Ziqi was filming the video, she had a stomachache and suffered severe pain, but she did not dare to tell her grandma. After all, her grandma was old and it was inconvenient to go to the hospital. So she called a nurse friend of hers, and her friend immediately came over to give her an intravenous drip and prescribe medicine.

At that time, Li Ziqi was suffering from online violence. When the two were chatting, her friend gave Li Ziqi a good scolding. Even if she doesn’t know how to take care of herself, if she keeps doing this for her life, who will take care of grandma?

A nurse friend told Li Ziqi that after she was criticized on the Internet, she angrily explained a few sentences at the bottom of the post. She did not expect that she herself would be implicated.

When Li Ziqi heard her nurse friend talking about this matter, both of them shed tears.

The next day, Li Ziqi chose to stop updating. But the real reason that made her choose to stop updating was her grandma.

Although grandma is old, she can’t understand her granddaughter’s recent emotions. When a friend was visiting, I overheard about the recent stress and difficulties my granddaughter was experiencing.

After a while, he heard the sound of metal falling to the ground outside. Li Ziqi knew that something was wrong, so he immediately pulled out the pillow and rushed outside.

It turns out that grandma accidentally cut herself while cutting pig grass!

She later said: When I went out, I saw an old man in his 80s. His left hand was stained with blood and there were tears in his eyes. He didn’t care about the wound or the knife that fell on the ground. The knife that was used to chop the pigweed was looking straight ahead...I instantly understood that she must have heard her, so she would be distracted when cutting the pigweed, and that's why she would hurt herself. We have lived together for so many years, and I understand every move and look in her eyes! ! At that moment, my heart felt like it was being pulled hard! That is the person I hold dear to my heart, the person I gave up everything to stay with her just to protect her... But now she is indirectly hurt because of my willful actions...

When Li Ziqi and her friends bandaged her grandma, her grandma said to her: Let’s save some money in the future, so you don’t have to do this job anymore....

She reflected seriously that day and wrote a lot of things in her heart. After saying that, he posted on Weibo the next day, announcing a temporary suspension of updates and responding to all doubts.

Li Ziqi wrote in the explanation of stopping the update: I have imagined many ways to stop the update. Maybe it is because I am tired of shooting and do not want to appear in front of the camera anymore; or maybe I have met someone who can The person who entrusted me with my whole life got married and had children; or maybe one day I will find a lifestyle that interests me more than now; but no matter which one, it is not the one I have to face today.

At this moment, I am typing these words with swollen eyes and a disfigured face. I tried very hard to calm myself down, and I knew how ugly I looked now, but I still couldn't control my current mood after biting my lip. What they hurt was the person I was protecting with my life!

03

After stopping the update, she posted a self-certifying video. It can be seen from the video that she was indeed filming alone. It's not that it's not difficult to shoot videos by yourself, but it's troublesome. After turning on the phone and doing a little work, you have to press the shutter again, and sometimes your hands are very dirty. Of course, you can keep shooting and then edit later, as long as you don't go out of focus, and as long as your memory is large enough...

This self-certification is as pale as Han Han's self-certification that he did not have a ghostwriter. You can't explain it clearly to people who want to blackmail you.

Some people are simply unwilling to understand the ins and outs. After stopping updates for 15 days, Li Ziqi publicly stated on Weibo that he would form a team.

It can be seen that her video before the update was shot by one person.

Hang the camera on a tree and put it on a small bench. If the angle is not enough, use a small stone to prop it up.

She even broke down while filming "Lanzhou Beef Noodles". She filmed the ramen scene alone more than 200 times! The whole process is more complicated. There are many thresholds for ramen from kneading the noodles, adding water, adding ingredients, kneading the noodles, resting the noodles, etc.

This video took her three days to shoot, and she kept kneading the dough again and filming again. She wasted more than 20 kilograms of flour. She made the waste dough into big naan and ate it for more than half a month.

Before the update was stopped, 99% of the problems were caused by her alone. As for the 1%, occasionally Li Ziqi’s grandmother or cousins ??would come to help.

After the update was stopped, the boss of a company that cooperates deeply with Weibo kept sending her private messages, wanting to help her promote, saying that he admired her talent very much.

But Li Ziqi didn't take her seriously and thought he was a liar. Later, the boss personally went to Mianyang to find Li Ziqi, and they had a meal and chatted.

But Li Ziqi was very vigilant and still did not completely believe him.

But later, her video really received resource promotion and policy support from Weibo. She said: I realized that he didn’t lie to me. When I didn’t give him any promise, he Fulfilling his promise gave me a wave of resource support.

Later, the boss and his wife suggested hiring a photographer and team for Li Ziqi, but Li Ziqi did not agree. She always feels that her works can only be satisfied if she shoots them herself. Other people's ideas and concepts cannot replace her thoughts and works.

At first, she wanted to stop changing jobs permanently. After making the decision, she told the boss mentioned above and was educated. The boss said:

" The point of view you have always insisted on may not be completely accurate. I can understand and respect your persistence. But as far as the photographer is concerned, why do you think the photographer can't take what you want? Photographers have a lot of professional knowledge. Maybe they can use their professional knowledge to help you solve problems like the ones you mentioned before.

”

“To take a step back, if the photographer is really not as good at taking pictures as you are, then you can ask him to help you adjust the tripod and switch the shooting button. For the rest, how to shoot, how to position the lens, and how to adjust the focus, you only need to use your mouth. You no longer have to run back and forth. ”

But although she rejected the boss’s kindness, she has been thinking about it. This is why after a brief 15-day break, she chose to recruit assistants and photographers.

However, there are still barrages and comments besieging her because of the team issue. As early as 2017, she publicly stated the formation of a team and the recruitment of an assistant and photographer.

04<. /p>

Working hard is a terrible thing.

Just like the sales king Li Jiaqi, a person who can sell an "OMG video" for 500,000 yuan in just ten seconds. His highest record is. Within one minute, 15,000 lipsticks were sold out. There are 389 live broadcasts 24/7, 365 days a year.

Just like Papi Jiang, she started out with her college classmate Huo Nifang. Posting a short video for the Weibo account "TCgirls loves to complain", one person plays multiple roles, has an exaggerated expression, speaks super fast, and uses a voice changer to seamlessly switch between English, Mandarin, and dialects, and it instantly became a hit on the Internet. < /p>

People don’t care about how a person succeeds through hard work, but they only maliciously speculate about the hidden secrets behind success.

The same is true for Li Ziqi.

Li Ziqi is a combination of kindness and beauty. There is no reason for such a girl to be buried in the romantic world. The meaning of Li Ziqi’s existence is to tell us that that dream can indeed come true.