Selena Gomez, the world’s number one Internet celebrity

“I hope my existence can serve as a warning to people who want to be Internet celebrities.” 29-year-old American Internet celebrity and YouTube game anchor After Etika released a confession, he jumped into the East River in New York on a dark night in June 2019. His Internet celebrity career was also fixed on that day.

I am an Internet celebrity, but my life is very dark

After Etika committed suicide, his friends said that due to the long-term verbal violence on the Internet, he was worried about the decline in traffic, limited income and other factors. I suffered from anxiety and even depression, and finally chose the path of no return. This seems to be different from what we imagine the life of an internet celebrity to be like. In most eyes, Internet celebrities are young, beautiful, famous, and rich. When their peers are crowded on the subway and buses, they turn on their computers or mobile phones, shoot short videos, and tell jokes, earning tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. 100,000 income received. But it turns out that behind the glamour, there is endless anxiety and even the cost of life.

David Dobrik & Liza Koshy, the most popular couple on YouTube, with a combined fan base of more than 30 million, publicly announced their breakup in June 2018, two years after they first produced short video programs together. The main reason is that the two people are too busy and create a sense of distance and estrangement. One of the things is that their lives are almost completely exposed in front of tens of millions of fans, and they have no space of their own.

Selena Gomez, the number one internet celebrity on Instagram, has more than 150 million fans on one platform alone. Due to long-term high-intensity work and fierce competition among internet celebrities, she has developed serious mental problems, including anxiety, depression, and panic. disease. He also suffered from serious health problems, suffering from lupus erythematosus, and was eventually forced to undergo a kidney transplant. She needs to take hormones constantly to treat her body weight. The media and netizens took turns to attack her, which made her mental condition even worse. In 2017, in an interview with the American version of "Vogue", she said that she had uninstalled Instagram on her phone.

El Rubius, a Spanish born in 1990, has more than 35.5 million fans. He released his first video on YouTube in 2006. He is the third-ranked YouTube celebrity in the world, with more than 30 million fans. His channel focuses on games or funny videos, etc. Because it "cannot bear the pressure and is heading for collapse", updates were stopped for three months from June 22, 2018 to September 30, 2018.

Beauty blogger Michelle Phan has more than 8.8 million fans on YouTube. Pan founded the company Ipsy in 2011, with a valuation of more than 350 million (US$50 million). But because she couldn't stand the pressure of social media, she announced in 2016 that she would stop posting, "I carefully tailor the life I want on social networks, not my life." Her busyness on social networks eventually caused her and her family, Alienated from friends, she said: "I found that I was getting more and more lonely and depressed...I finally found that I was lost."

Why do Internet celebrities increasingly want to get rid of the life that countless young people long for? Woolen cloth? Pressure from public opinion, algorithm changes, short life cycles, competition for stars to sink, all kinds of pressure are like nooses around the necks of Internet celebrities.

The Internet celebrity who was a fan finally exploded.

Removing content, banning accounts, and even criminal liability are a guillotine hanging over the heads of Internet celebrities. Regardless of whether it is YouTube, or domestic Douyin, Weibo, etc., any words and deeds that violate public order and good customs, or content that is suspected of violating the law will be dealt with. The content may be removed from the shelves, or the account may be blocked, and the user may also be held criminally responsible.

Mike Lombardo is one of the earliest YouTube celebrities. He is good at composing and playing and singing. At the same time, he also liked to flirt with female fans and encouraged them to post nude photos of themselves and various videos inappropriate for children. In the end, he was targeted by the police because one of them was an underage girl. He was eventually sentenced to five years in prison and his account was canceled. Another YouTube celebrity, Alex Day, loved to fuck fans and sleep with all kinds of female fans. However, he was eventually exposed by female fans and was forced to stop updating videos.

A few months later, he started making videos again. But everything is gone. The previous worst single episode had 2 million views. The best one now is only 20,000 times. Alex Jones, a YouTube celebrity with more than 2.5 million fans and TV show supporter, was completely banned by YouTube officials in 2019 because of his long-term extremist remarks.

In China, there are no clear standards for public order and good customs. It is precisely because of this that platform management is tighter. You have 1 million fans. In other words, there are 1 million pairs of eyes staring at you. In daily life, harmless jokes may be ruthlessly amplified in videos and live broadcasts. Inappropriate remarks published many years ago will be exposed to the public like digging holes and digging graves.

A DouYu anchor who makes more than one million dollars a month told me that his account is blocked every two months, about a week at a time, because he likes to make side jokes. "Because it's like this in daily life, the atmosphere in the live broadcast room is much better, and there are no explicit remarks. But after being reported by users, they will basically be dealt with." Every time he goes live, he is a little nervous, worried about accidentally committing a foul. .

More importantly, avoid politically sensitive remarks. Many Internet celebrities were born in the 1990s and lack basic historical and political knowledge. They used earthquakes, national anthems, heroes, national leaders, etc. to ridicule or make inappropriate remarks. In the end, they were blocked, or their accounts were banned completely from the entire network. Banned accounts abound. MC Tianyou, Rampage Event, Chen Yifaer, Lu Benwei, the list of bomb accounts is increasing every month. Although MCN and major platforms continue to train and issue regulations, it is difficult to standardize speech.

No matter how awesome the Internet celebrity is, he must surrender to the algorithm:

Papi Jiang, the representative of Chinese Internet celebrities

“No matter how big the Internet celebrity is, on YouTube Algorithms must surrender. Engineers are the high priests of dominance.” This is a joke circulating in Silicon Valley, but it is very true.

YouTube influencers have a love-hate relationship with the platform algorithm. Because this directly affects whether the video posted by the YouTube celebrity will become popular, and whether the life cycle of this Internet celebrity can be continued for a long time. More than 500 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Based on the user's previous observation records, YouTube accurately finds the video that a single user is interested in and pushes it to the corresponding user's recommended viewing list. At the same time, advertisements with different contents will be pushed to target users. The level of these clicks also directly determines the income of Internet celebrities. On YouTube, income from display ads, overlay ads and video ads is the main part of most Internet celebrities' income.

YouTube celebrity Leith believes that algorithms are like drugs, addictive, but constantly destroying everything of Internet celebrities. The more excited, angry, and clickbait he is in the video, the more popular he will be among users, and the platform will promote it to more people. YouTube continues to enhance content that excites viewers. The algorithm determined that his videos became more and more emotional and his performances became more and more exaggerated, until he finally collapsed. He began to develop thyroid problems and was diagnosed with depression.

What’s even more extreme is that in April 2019, because he was dissatisfied with YouTube’s algorithm and the click-through rate of his videos was too low, 38-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam entered the California YouTube office and asked The employee shot and wounded three people before committing suicide.

At the end of 2017, many major Weibo users reported that the reading volume of their accounts had dropped significantly. For an account with 1 million real fans, the number of single-view readings was less than 100,000. Soon the Weibo server responded because the algorithm had changed. . Weibo uses an EdgeRank algorithm similar to FaceBook. All new Weibo posts have been reordered according to different weights. The weight is determined by fan intimacy, content quality, originality, etc.

Major platforms including Toutiao, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. will constantly adjust and optimize their algorithms based on product development stages, policy changes, user preferences and other factors. This is actually a continuous process of Strengthen the central role of the platform. No platform wants to see the whole Weibo platform kidnapped by a big V on Weibo. No matter how awesome the internet celebrity is, he still has to worry about algorithm changes, which are likely to be earth-shaking changes.

Internet celebrities become famous quickly, and they become popular quickly:

“I don’t know when I will become popular, so I have to seize every moment and squeeze out the last of my value. You can earn as much as you want, I know the company thinks so too. "Keke (pseudonym) is the top anchor of a live broadcast guild. She specializes in live broadcasts on Huya. She has a sweet appearance, a proud figure, and is good at chattering, so many rich men like her very much. Playing in her live broadcast room, you may be rewarded when you are happy. The monthly turnover is stable at more than 500,000 yuan per month, reaching a peak of 1 million yuan. She has become a benchmark for countless small internet celebrities, and her family follows her as an example.

But she knew that what was waiting for the next step was Liangliang. In order to make more money before she expired, she broadcast live for at least 9 hours a day, sometimes even more than 10 hours. After the broadcast, she and The family members no longer have the strength to speak. "When you make enough money, you can switch to other businesses when things get colder." In order to avoid being eliminated, Internet celebrities who have become popular are working hard to develop across borders, live broadcast, shoot short videos, appear in variety shows, and sell things. Starting an MCN, starting a company, short video or variety show cafe will also develop horizontally, but most of them are just a piece of cake. Even the popular yellow connoisseur Tang Maru, after leaving Baozou Company, financed his own company to start a company, and later helped others lead the team, but in the end he disappeared.

The average life cycle of Internet celebrities is only 6 to 18 months. They must make themselves more popular and realize cash quickly during this stage, but this is mostly just a fantasy. In July 2018, Xiguamei released a short video on Douyin lip-syncing to "Flowing Bridges and Flowing Water". The video received nearly 3 million likes and instantly became popular on Douyin. Her number of fans peaked at 7 million. . But in the next year, no matter whether she broadcast comedy, food, singing, or dancing, she just became not popular. Many of the videos posted have around 10,000 likes, and the public has forgotten this once popular internet celebrity, just like she was never popular.

Celebrities also want to make money by becoming Internet celebrities

Comparison between Deng Ziqi and Daigula fans

Instead of waiting for Internet celebrities to encroach on their territory, it is better to take the initiative To attack, whether it is popular stars, such as Wong Cho Lam, Deng Ziqi, Aaron Kwok, or outdated stars, such as Li Xiang, Guo Donglin, etc., they are all investing in live broadcasts, short videos, etc. The halo effect of celebrities, rich performance experience, systematic training, and a powerful entertainment company support system behind them are obviously incomparable to Internet celebrities and emerging MCNs. In turn, they come to devour the territory of Internet celebrities.

The difference between internet celebrities and celebrities is like that between guerrillas and regular troops. With two or three guns and an Internet celebrity team of seven or eight people, meeting a star with a professional background, the outcome is self-evident. Singer Deng Ziqi started updating her first Douyin in May 2018. So far, she has updated 43 videos and has 26.433 million fans. Daigula, who is also the top internet celebrity on Douyin, has been updated since February 7, 2018, with 220 videos and 23.671 million fans. Daigula is a full-time Internet celebrity, while Deng Ziqi is mainly engaged in singing and acting. Many Douyin contents are just casual scenes such as work and eating.

More and more celebrities are seeing the potential of the Internet celebrity economy. The boundaries between celebrities and Internet celebrities are becoming increasingly blurred. The development of dimensionality reduction will further engulf the already fiercely competitive Internet celebrity market and industry. income. There are emerging Internet celebrities who are constantly popping up below, and there are well-trained celebrities who are surrounded by aura. If it were you, would you be anxious?

In order to escape anxiety, what happened to those Internet celebrities who ran away? Except for Etika who committed suicide, including El Rubius, Michelle Phan, and Selena Gomez, almost all Internet celebrities who clamored to escape have returned to their original platforms. Not only did they update again, but they also worked harder and more frequently. Because while they were away, many new people appeared, and the fan activity dropped a lot. "As long as you make money as an Internet celebrity, you will never be able to leave it again." The CEO of one of the largest Internet celebrity organizations in China said to me with confidence.