Reporter | Liu Yanqiu
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From the suspension of the idol draft caused by the milk dumping incident, to the collapse of idols such as Wu Yifan and Zheng Shuang, to the "Qinglang Action" to rectify the rice circle culture, the entertainment industry in 2021 is experiencing a major earthquake.
The rice circle refers to the fan community formed by the same star or idol, which was originally the product of the star-chasing subculture, but in China, the intervention of capital has brought a profound impact on the rice circle. The relationship of interests between fans and idols has formed, and the rice circle has become a link in an interlocking business chain: under the logic of data supremacy, groups such as investment groups and data women workers have emerged, and fans have supported the commercial value of stars with uniform actions and data, which in turn coincides with the logic of capital that values data.
But rice circle behavior is not always rational. Last year's Xiao Zhan 227 incident has unveiled the irrational side of the rice circle, this year with the rice circle chaos intensified, fans tear each other up, pull the battle, malicious marketing and other phenomena are not uncommon, coupled with the past has been created out of the "top stream" have fallen to the altar, the standardization of the rice circle can not be delayed.
Since June this year, the "Qinglang· The special action of "chaos control" in the rice circle is marked by the fact that this rectification action taken by the state comes at an opportune time.
The flow is out of control, and the state is out of control
The cause of a series of storms is the milk pouring video that points to "Youth Has You 3". In the video, a group of people sit around the ditch and pour all the milk in the bottle into the ditch, leaving only the cap for voting. On the evening of May 4, the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau posted on the WeChat public account ordering iQiyi to suspend the recording of the third season of "Youth with You". On the evening of May 6, iQIYI's official Weibo issued an apology statement and rectification measures.
The policy quickly pointed to online variety shows. On May 10, the Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Online Variety Shows. The "Notice" emphasizes that the program must not set up a "spend money to buy vote" link, and it is strictly forbidden to deliberately guide and encourage netizens to use material means such as shopping and membership to vote for the contestants. Subsequently, at a symposium organized by the China Television Artists Association, Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, said that iQIYI canceled the idol talent show and any off-site voting links in the next few years.
What the milk pouring video exposes is the shortcomings of the traffic-led idol draft voting mechanism. Starting from "Creation 101" in 2018, the four-year idol draft has gained public attention while also exposing various problems in models and mechanisms, and the domestic rice circle culture also needs correct guidance.
Image source: "Youth Has You 3" official stills
In fact, before "Youth with You 3" was stopped, the discussion about the chaos in the rice circle had already appeared at this year's two sessions. For example, at that time, some people's congress deputies suggested that fan support associations should be registered with the civil affairs department, clarify responsibilities, and stipulate rights and obligations.
A clearer crackdown began on June 15 with the Cyberspace Administration of China's "Clear Lang· Rice circle 'chaos control' special action. In response to the problems of "rice circle" fan groups tearing up and insulting each other on the Internet, responding to aid and hitting the list, and rumor-mongering attacks, the action proposes to focus on cracking down on five types of "rice circle" chaotic behaviors such as inducing minors to raise funds, high consumption, and voting and hitting the list.
From August onwards, the crackdown began to enter a substantial landing phase.
On August 25, Weibo administrators issued a community announcement saying that due to the continuous fermentation of the confrontation between the fan groups of the two sides, Weibo banned 2,080 accounts and closed 2,459 accounts. Among them, Zhao Liying's studio took the penalty measure of banning speech for 15 days, and Zhao Liying's official support association Weibo account was permanently banned. This is the first fan group to be banned for "mutual tearing" since the Qinglang special operation.
On August 27, the Central Cyberspace Administration issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Governance of the Chaos in the "Rice Circle"", which pointed out that it is necessary to cancel the list of star artists, and at the same time optimize and adjust the ranking rules, strictly control star brokerage companies, regulate fan group accounts, strictly prohibit the presentation of mutual tearing information, clean up illegal group sections, do not induce fan consumption, strengthen program setting management, strictly control the participation of minors, and standardize the behavior of aid collection.
This means that platform lists, brokerage companies, online variety shows, etc. are all included in the scope of remediation. Weibo celebrity super talk list, Ai Man data, FUNJI and other institutions of the artist data rankings are immediately offline or product optimization.
After the milk pouring incident, incidents such as Zheng Shuang's surrogacy and childbirth, and Wu Yifan's criminal detention on suspicion of rape broke out one after another, and the scope of rectification was further expanded.
On September 2, the Central Propaganda Department issued the "Notice on Carrying Out Comprehensive Management of the Cultural and Entertainment Fields", expanding the scope of rectification from the rice circle to the entire performing arts and entertainment industry. The "Circular" calls for curbing the profits of bad capital, resisting sky-high film remuneration, rationally allocating the proportion of costs, strictly investigating and punishing tax evasion, and effectively maintaining market order. The "Circular on Further Strengthening the Management of Literary and Art Programs and Their Personnel" issued by the State Administration of Radio and Television put forward that it is necessary to resolutely resist illegal and immoral personnel, resolutely oppose the theory of only traffic, resolutely resist pan-entertainment, resolutely resist high-priced film remuneration, earnestly strengthen the management of practitioners, carry out professional and authoritative literary and art criticism, give full play to the role of industry organizations, and earnestly perform management duties and supervision trends.
With the in-depth rectification of the Central Cyberspace Administration, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and other management departments, major platforms have also issued announcements on rectifying the chaos in the rice circle. For example, in response to the improper remarks caused by the "Wu Yifan incident", the Weibo administrator issued a Weibo community announcement saying that as of the evening of August 1, 108 misguided super talks had been closed, 789 illegal groups had been dissolved, irrational behavior had been resolutely curbed, and extreme speech had been resolutely dealt with. Illegal accounts such as taking advantage of opportunities to pick quarrels and provoke troubles, attack government agencies, malicious marketing and rubbing hot spots, and maliciously washing the floor have been seriously dealt with, and a total of 990 accounts have been banned or permanently closed.
Weibo, Douban, video websites affected by the rice circle...
To rectify the rice circle, the first to bear the brunt is Weibo.
On August 6, Weibo announced the release of the "Star Force List". After that, Weibo comprehensively offline the celebrity, CP, and music classification super talk rankings in the super talk module, and it is strictly forbidden to appear in the super talk module, and illegal fundraising behavior is strictly prohibited. Weibo is also reducing the proportion of entertainment information under the home page of the hot search list, according to the "Weibo Hot Search List Trend Report" released by Weibo in August, in the first half of 2021, the proportion of hot search social hotspots and vertical hot spots increased significantly, and the proportion of entertainment hotspots dropped from 34% to 26%.
In the past, entertainment star content was the most important source of traffic for Weibo. In the process of transforming to the mobile Internet, Weibo has successively launched the star power list function and the super topic function, becoming the home of fan pitching. Fans battle, Weibo profits, according to the self-media "technology koala" posted a head traffic artist in Weibo received the number of flowers statistics table, fans for Weibo Krypton gold expenditure of up to 100 million.
Image source: Tech Koala
The rectification of the chaos in the rice circle is bound to affect Weibo. On December 8, Weibo was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, after Weibo said in its prospectus that it had taken the measures stipulated in the Notice within the scope applicable to Weibo's business, including the removal of the star power list function on the platform. Although the financial report after the listing has not yet been released, it is conceivable that under the policy of rectifying the rice circle, Weibo's user activity and value-added service revenue may be affected.
It is worth noting that Weibo has recently launched the "Qingyun Plan" that specifically supports actors. According to Weibo, the plan will carry out content output such as the display of artists' business capabilities and the promotion of high-quality works on social platforms such as Weibo, so as to build a good star content ecology and star fan interaction relationship from the source. Encouraging actors to build personal brands on Weibo shows the importance of entertainment content to Weibo, and in the context of the tightening of the rice circle, how to organize entertainment content on the platform tests the wisdom of Weibo.
Douban is another platform that has a deep connection with the rice circle. As early as last year, some book editors accused Some of Wang Yibo's fans of systematically hoarding Douban numbers in batches, and the five-star pink and black war was still staged until the recent broadcast of "Wind Rises Luoyang" starring Wang Yibo.
Image source: Wang Yibo Weibo
In September, in response to the requirements of the "Clear Lang Action", Douban issued an announcement that it would control the chaos of the "rice circle" in the group, and then closed the reply function of all groups, and at the end of September, the "Douban Emma Garden" and "Douban Tea Room" and other groups were dissolved or shut down, and the entertainment groups such as the Douban Green Grassland Group, the Stepping Group, and the Show Group entered the indefinite period of suspension and rectification, and the Douban Goose Group with more than 680,000 fans was suspended for two months.
According to the official statistics of Douban on November 26, more than 70,000 pieces of illegal and bad information were deleted, and 273 accounts were banned. After the unsealing, the Douban Goose group also set up 5 "Clear Action" related multiple choice questions, and the team members need to answer all correctly before they can continue to operate in the group.
Compared with Weibo, Douban has not profited too much from the rice circle business, but it is also responsible for poor management because the rice circle is on the hot search.
Also affected are video sites that have created idol drafts.
After the milk pouring incident was exposed, at a symposium organized by the China Television Artists Association, Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, said that iQIYI would cancel the idol talent show and any off-site voting links in the next few years. Wang Xiaohui, COO of iQIYI, revealed in an interview with Interface Entertainment this year that the current policy mainly restricts the selection of Korean-style idol cultivation and the third-vulgar content. "Variety shows can't be entertained for entertainment's sake, in the past it may be more market-oriented, sometimes interesting than meaningful, but everyone did not pay attention to how much cultural nutrients can be brought." Now the competent authorities will pay more attention to significance in the review and supervision of variety shows. ”
How will the cancellation of idol talent shows affect iQiyi? Earlier, Gong Yu said in a conference call after the first quarter earnings report that the impact on iQiyi's advertising revenue is still being evaluated, "Yes, but it will not be very large." ”
Although idol talent shows have brought traffic and advertising revenue to video websites in the past, it is difficult for a single category of variety shows to shake platform revenue. The bigger impact is that idol talent shows are not only variety shows, but also a business that is highly expected by video sites.
Video websites occupy an important position in the idol ecology, due to the current imperfect domestic idol industry, there is no domestic song program to provide real-time traffic supply, singing and dancing idols can only be active in film and television dramas and variety shows. After the variety show was on fire, it appeared in the idol drama of the platform and drained the episodes, which became a common idol operation idea, which also involved the larger commercial territory of the video website.
Among the "Ai Tengyou", "Idol Trainee" contributed to the birth of iQIYI's brokerage company Aidou Century, the largest shareholder of the boy band UNINE's agency Aidou Youth is iQIYI, and in terms of artist brokerage business, iQIYI also invested in the sky, and the content and caviar culture cooperated deeply. Tencent invested in the agency of Rocket Girl 101, the company of Sun Li, the general director of the "Chuang" series, Hao Feng Qingyun, and the company of "Draft Godmother" Long Dani. In 2017, Alibaba's Youku established an artist management company Cool Entertainment, a joint venture with Alibaba Pictures, to provide resources for cooperation between Alibaba Pictures, Youku Tudou Film and Television and related content.
After the rectification of the rice circle, at least in recent years, the business related to video websites and idols has been put to a standstill.
App peach houses, super star rice balls, and modian related to rice circle fundraising are all removed from the shelves in the remediation. These companies are also experimenting with new businesses, such as video signings for overseas celebrities, and production and sales in the surrounding areas.
A series of policies after the "Qinglang Action" have also further enhanced the supervision of industry remuneration and the direction of film and television drama creation.
Rectifying the rice circle actually affects the ecology of the entire entertainment industry. Screenwriter Wang Hailin once revealed that TV series are sold to the platform, there is often a clause in the contract, and there are several hot searches during the broadcast, one of the ways is to invite traffic stars to let their brain fans brush hot searches. Even now, the production model of traffic + big IP has not completely stopped. In the previous interview with Interface Entertainment, producer Chen Yitao revealed, "The platform still attaches great importance to artists, directors, actors, and scripts, actors are more important than directors and scripts combined, because S-level dramas correspond to S-level actors." ”
Therefore, the collapse of the artist is a result, behind which is the capital collusion in all links. A series of storms have also forced the film and television production side to reflect on the existing production model. On August 17, the Screenwriting Working Committee of the China Television Drama Production Industry Association issued a letter calling for saying goodbye to the "only traffic theory". The article said: According to the story to determine the project, according to the content to set the price, according to the real effect of the broadcast to determine the revenue, completely prohibit the operation mode of fake ratings, fake traffic, and fake ratings. Give the choice to the real market, to the real audience.