The author | weiwei
Edited | Jiang Yue
WeChat public account: Chief Character View (ID: sxrenwuguan)
01 Start broadcasting
Pine Tree Village, a small northeastern village that is becoming more lonely because of the extreme cold, has become "crowded" on saturday nights, which is 10 days before the Lunar New Year.
Zhang Classmate, an internet celebrity with 18 million fans, conducted his first live broadcast this night. When he released his first Douyin video on October 4, 2021, he was just a middle-aged man who had failed to open a store in the city and had not been very successful in returning to his hometown to raise chickens. Suddenly, the traffic selected him, with an average of 150,000 fans per day, and the pine tree village where he was located also had the general meaning of "ivory mountain".
On the evening of January 22, about 20 million people poured into Zhang's live broadcast room, and at its peak, 266,000 people simultaneously watched the live broadcast of the man from Pine Tree Village.
The warm atmosphere was there from the very beginning.
At 9 p.m., Mr. Zhang, dressed in an army green coat, sat in an old abandoned house and appeared on time. Whether it is myself or the background behind me, it is exactly the same as in the usual video.
After 3 minutes of broadcasting, 100,000 people quickly poured into the live broadcast room, and the popularity rushed to the first place in the whole network of Douyin. The comments section was packed with welcome sentences, and everyone greeted him like an old friend. The gorgeous and slightly exaggerated "carnival" frequently crowds on the screen - every time a user sends a carnival, the fee needs to be paid is about 4285 yuan.
Despite experiencing the "net red" treatment such as centralized media reports and fans gathering to visit, Zhang in front of the camera is still slightly unfamiliar.
For example, he said that his original intention of making short videos was to help the villagers, just like the Douyin slogan said - but he did not remember the phrase "record a good life", and after saying it wrong several times, he simply skipped this topic.
For example, tipping. For fans of the Big Brush Carnival, the normal anchor's practice is to read out the name to express gratitude. But Mr. Zhang is obviously not familiar with the market, and at least half an hour after the start of the live broadcast, he began to read the name and thank you - of course, he did not forget to remind him all the time, "Everyone just hold a personal field."
In this chat that seems to take place in the winter kangtou in the northeast, the topic he talked about the most was: the original heart.
Some of the content he told the media earlier, and also made a video to clarify, such as no team, all of which he did himself. Obviously, this was the question he cared most about. In the public's simple cognition, the team model is purely commercial. Such a cognition is obviously contrary to Zhang's "simple" personality.
In the era of Internet celebrities, human design is the biggest wealth of anchors.
He wanted to be freer, "to do his own thing, to do what was worthy of his conscience." He refused a lot of business cooperation, such as the price tag of 5 million, 10 million or even 20 million offered by MCN, because once he signed the contract, he would lose the freedom of choice, "today I want you to connect a wheat, tomorrow let you cooperate with a paragraph."
He wanted to focus on agriculture. That's why he started his own company. Specifically, it is to sell agricultural products, starting from the hometown of Yingkou, Liaoning, and then expanding into various rural areas. "If you don't make money, I just help, and everyone can supervise me."
"It's a native chicken, just lay your eggs." He used this sentence full of the wisdom of the Northeast countryside to finally summarize his position.
The live broadcast lasted for an hour and a half, and there was no continuous wheat and no anchors sent red envelopes to interact. In addition to the repeated emphasis on the "original heart", more interesting content and tidbits are about "Ertao", Zhang's small hair in the video and real life.
Ertao did not appear on camera at first, and sat in front of the camera under the thousands of calls from netizens, but still did not say much. He was exposed by Zhang that he had to go to the toilet 12 times a day, so in many videos, Ertao's appearance came out of the toilet.
Someone asked about the distribution of benefits between Zhang and Ertao, and Zhang replied almost without thinking: "As long as there is food for me, there is no shortage of Ertao." ”
This answer is not surprising. This feeling also runs through the entire live broadcast. If you don't like Zhang enough, or are familiar with the chat mode of northeast farmers, it is probably difficult for anyone to insist on listening to the whole process.
In a sense, this is the price of simplicity. However, the data ultimately confirmed the value of simplicity.
02 Select
At least in the world of Douyin, Zhang, a northeasterner, stood opposite his fellow Luo Yonghao. They became spokesmen for idealism and realism, respectively.
Only this time, the label of idealism no longer belongs to anchor Luo Yonghao. In the world of short videos, he is just a debt repayment machine without emotion.
Many people still remember that April Fool's Day night in 2020, middle-aged frustrated entrepreneur Luo Yonghao opened the first Douyin live broadcast with goods. He may have deliberately chosen this date, and this choice is indeed in line with his usual style of teasing and self-deprecation.
It is said that Douyin signed him at a great price. At that time, in the field of live streaming with goods, Taobao had Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, and Kuaishou had the Simba family, but Douyin did not have a highly recognizable anchor with goods.
That cooperation became a two-way rush, Luo Yonghao participated in the shooting of a lot of promotional materials, and Douyin even left the advertising space of the day's boot screen to him - at that time, Douyin's daily active life had exceeded 400 million, and 5 months later it exceeded 600 million. Such a user volume, coupled with the most expensive advertising positions and the most gimmicky anchor candidates, in the end, 48 million people watched Luo Yonghao's live broadcast, and incidentally completed a transaction volume of 110 million.
When Douyin needed to fight live e-commerce, Luo Yonghao stood out. When Douyin needed to show its original intention and determination to help farmers, Zhang stood up.
In this era of internal pandemics, it is difficult to achieve great success by talent and hard work alone, and fortune, or some kind of fit with the times, is indispensable.
The story of Classmate Zhang has a high starting point as mentioned above.
Rural themes are actually not new in Douyin. As early as August 2020, Douyin announced the launch of the "New Farmer Plan", in addition to Li Ziqi, Shuzhong Peach Sister, Niu Aifang's Xiao Chunhua and other rural bloggers, but also through different styles of rural themes, douyin has gained tens of millions of fans.
Pictured: Sister Peach in Shuzhong
Kuaishou also has an autumn plan and a cultivation plan. In the vast "agricultural assistance" team, Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo and other e-commerce platforms have also brushed their sense of existence in their own ways, and this wave has become more and more enthusiastic as the state formally proposed to comprehensively promote rural revitalization in the "Central No. 1" document in 2021.
Zhang, who was "selected", was lucky.
He satisfies the curiosity of modern people with the details of life of the last century, and hits the anxiety of modern people with the freedom to stay away from the city. The frequent appearances of Ertao, Uncle, and the proprietors and ladies who open shops in the town also let people see the shadow of "Country Love Story". This kind of rural life, both far and near, is both intimate and strange, in short, let people get on their heads.
The fertile black soil of the northeast can not only produce watery vegetables and fruits and fragrant rice, but also contract the "output" task of the short video head anchor. Simba, Luo Yonghao, Zhang... There are many more anchors with tens of millions of fans, all of whom are like codes, with similar Northeastern accents.
In Yingkou City, Liaoning Province, where Mr. Zhang is located, shouted a slogan in June 2020, claiming to be the first city to propose to build "China's Internet Celebrity Economic Capital". 3 months later, Zhang and Fa Xiao cooperated to shoot a short video with rural themes, but this new business did not last long.
Although there are many anchors in the northeast, this does not mean that they can tell the story of the northeast well, especially the story of the rural areas of the northeast.
Pictured: Stills from "Country Love Story"
The proportion of rural population in the northeast is actually lower than most people think. Thanks to industrial development and other factors, the northeast is one of the earliest regions in the country to achieve urbanization, and the data of the seventh national census show that the urbanization of the northeast ranks second in the country, second only to the economically developed eastern region.
In The lens of Mr. Zhang, the phenomenon of bustling crowds in the village has hardly appeared.
They all went to the city and probably only returned during the Spring Festival. In the first live broadcast, Zhang predicted the Spring Festival activities in the village on January 28. Perhaps only at that time, fans can relive the distant rural popularity through his lens - of course, this also provides more meaning for Zhang.
03 changes
"If one day I change, you will scold me."
Zhang, a student in the live broadcast, almost carved "loyalty" and "initial heart" on his face.
Don't care if the original intention has not changed, the changes in the real world have been staged violently. Some time ago, strangers who came to visit were piled up in Pine Village, some people wanted to rub traffic, some people wanted to come to visit the teacher, some people wanted to volunteer to join Zhang's team - such a noise seems to affect The output of Zhang, and in the whole of January, he only released seven videos.
Pictured: Going into town to consume, the first commercial
These include at least two commercials. His advertising offers are now as high as 300,000 per bar – which could be equivalent to the family income of many rural families for 2 years.
In addition, he also established "Zhang Classmate Media Advertising Co., Ltd." with a registered capital of 8 million yuan. A few days later, the company name was changed to Kairunkang Culture Media Co., Ltd. The word "Kai" is obviously from Zhang Kai's real name " Zhang Kai " .
Change is the theme of human beings, and Zhang obviously knows the importance of creating freshness. But this requires challenging inertia and then taking risks.
The iconic background music of the old German song was once replaced by him for other music, which was met with countless opposition in the comments section, and the number of likes did not exceed the past.
But some changes, at least at this stage, Zhang has made it clear that it will not happen, for example, to become a anchor with goods like Luo Yonghao. After all, carrying goods, making money, and repaying debts, this set of operations can make Luo Yonghao return to the aura of "idealism", and the failure of hammer entrepreneurship and all kinds of criticism and ridicule seem to be covered by the aura.
Classmate Zhang is different. It is difficult for him to move from Beijing to Hangzhou like Luo Yonghao, rent an office in the online business road next to Ali and NetEase, get the supply chain, and wholeheartedly engage in live broadcasting. This requires not only money, but also the accumulation of contacts and supply chains.
Zhang, a northeasterner, needs to find his own survival mode. The unique "simplicity" of rural people is his personality, his personality charm, and the armor that supports his long-term progress.
Moreover, in less than 2 years, the current live streaming industry is not the same world as when Luo Yonghao entered the industry. Via fell, Sydney fell, and more anchors were busy paying back taxes. From late spring to late autumn, the rotation of the seasons is so irresistible.
In addition to the traffic, Zhang needs to find a longer gripper.
Past setbacks have taught him a very important point: don't do what you don't understand. He mentioned this sentence in the live broadcast, after becoming popular, many people came to him to talk about some strange cooperation, and he refused.
Such "not doing" can be understood as conservative and overly cautious for rural people in northeast China, and can also be understood as the survival wisdom of a middle-aged man who has been beaten by society. These choices may not make Zhang more popular, but at least, it will not let the suddenly popular blogger fall into the unknown abyss in the short term.
Security exists, and that's the basis of all stories. In the present, this matter is also more important than ever.
In reality, Zhang students can't help but go to the city. However, his purpose in entering the city now is different from most rural people and his past self. Sometimes it is shooting material, and his videos are full of content about him and Ertao entering the city. Recently, it has become a recording of the Spring Festival Gala in Liaoning Province.
He mentioned the Liaoning Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala in the live broadcast, modestly saying that he only had a short time to reveal. Earlier, the villagers who were familiar with him had already seen him at the Beijing Satellite TV New Year's Eve party.
He went to Beijing to record the show in December 2021. At that time, it was the peak period when outsiders poured into Pine Tree Village, many people failed to see him in person, uncle Qingyun and Zhang's neighbors who always appeared in the video received these foreign visitors, the uncle found paper and pencil, patiently registered the visitor's information, and said that he would wait for Zhang to come back and discuss.
In the live broadcast debut, Zhang did not mention going to Beijing to record a program, nor did he mention the impact of these uninvited guests.
"As long as it is a fan, I can help, I will help", he said righteously, he will also open a live broadcast next, free sharing of the actual combat experience of shooting, "certainly without reservation", "as long as you do not understand, in the comment area to ask, I will try to answer."
"The original intention remains the same", he repeated over and over again.
That night, he gained 55,700 new followers.