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There will be no next "Cai Xukun". At the end of 2021, the relevant departments stopped the broadcast of the domestic idol draft, closing the door for Chinese trainees to debut through the draft. Many young people with dreams of stardom have encountered the sudden brakes of fate and have to pack their bags and return to their ordinary life paths.
After a dance class arranged by the company, Xu Jing, another trainee of the company, told Qiao Xin with a frustrated look that the talent show "Youth with You 3" held by iQiyi announced the negative news that had been reported before, and decided to terminate the recording and cancel the upcoming final night.
In the comments section of the announcement, a rumor was at the top - it is possible that similar idol cultivation programs, that is, "talent shows", will not be able to do it in the future. These speculations knocked Qiao Xin out of his mind.
Qiao Xin and Xu Jing are trainees trained by an entertainment company in Beijing. As trainees, their goal is to "debut". In the days before their official debut, they practiced singing and dancing day after day, crouching in the moon and adulthood, waiting for the opportunity to appear. That's why, people can always hear the contestants thank the stage and the opportunity to take the stage in the talent show. In all the days when people are not seen, the opportunity that many people wait for is itself a "stage". For them, the "stand out" thing is to perform a show on the stage, get the next opportunity to be invited to the stage through a wonderful appearance, and the cycle will not be over.
For the next two months, Qiao Xin hung her mind, watching all kinds of related news on her mobile phone every day, desperate to find the signs that what she feared would not happen.
In the process of conducting the talent show on the Internet, there are more and more questions and opposing articles and discussions about the behavior of the rice circle, including fundraising, accusations, insults, and list brushing, and the preliminary audition activities of many talent shows have also been temporarily suspended, and Qiao Xin has truly realized the seriousness of the matter.
In August 2021, the relevant departments announced the launch of a one-month special investigation and rectification of online variety shows, requiring "strict control" and "strengthening management" of talent shows. By September, a new notice was issued, and the requirements for idol cultivation programs were updated from "strict control" to "no broadcasting". The last boot fell.
The road to the stage gradually faded in front of Qiao Xin, and she felt that she did not have to wait any longer.
For the past three years, Qiao Xin has been waiting every day. Wait for the interview opportunity, wait for the program group arrangement, wait for others to send demo before recording the song - do the line of trainees, the daily compulsory course is "waiting".
She didn't fully love the job, but in order to pursue her musical dreams, she dutifully played the role of a good trainee.
"Every time I had an interview, I would do a haircut that I hated, and when I was done, I would change it back. It's just like that, it's going to be to In Qiao Xin's impression, in the past 3 years, she has participated in interviews for large and small programs, and she has worked hard to play the role of the person created for her by the company. The company wanted to make her persona cooler, colder, and more memorable to interviewers. "But I don't like the so-called 'cool' at all, I like the style of the cool goddess." Qiao Xin said.
Many trainees have dreams of singing and dancing, but Qiao Xin is different. She didn't follow stars, didn't like dancing, and only wanted to become a singer, so she worked hard to get a chance to study at a conservatory. It was 2018, and Qiao Xin was 18 years old. That summer she felt the popularity of "Idol Trainee" and "Creation 101", and considering the harsh age requirements of the trainees, her hesitation became whether to enter the conservatory or give up the admission and seize the time to interview the entertainment company to become a trainee.
In the end, the quick-to-fame talent show showed temptation, and Qiao Xin chose to become a trainee. After the interviews, she received invitations from 3 companies, all of which asked for training fees, two of which required training fees of 100,000 yuan. Qiao Xin chose a third company with relatively cheap training fees. There are many trainees in this company, and like the talent show, trainees in the company will also be divided into A, B, C three levels according to strength, only trainees who get A grade will have more opportunities. Everyone needs to work hard in the appraisal to earn a higher rating.
After Qiao Xin worked hard to climb to class A, she got the opportunity to join the company's newly formed women's group. But soon after she found that the only thing that the girl group was sure of was the name, in addition, there was no official blog, no single, no announcement, one of the four members also quit the group shortly after choosing to debut alone, and the remaining members took the initiative to fight with the company for the announcement, and could only get the company's "painted cake". The company did not send her songs, and Qiao Xin could only learn to write songs by herself, and then spend money to find a recording studio to record.
In the past three years, Qiao Xin has also been given external opportunities. Before the audition of "Youth with You 2", the interviewer had given her a verbal promise, but she was not well prepared on the day of the audition, and she still failed. "If I could put on makeup, lean a little thinner, and dye a well-behaved black hair, wouldN't I be able to choose?" She repeatedly blamed herself for not daring to click on any talent shows to watch in those years, which would make her unconsciously fantasize about if she could be selected.
Figure | Qiao Xin was singing
The biggest regret is to give up admission to the conservatory. For three years, she didn't earn anything from that trade-off. Three days a week, she also goes to the bar to sing and support herself.
After the draft was called off, the last bit of expectation that had sustained her for three years disappeared.
In recent years, the draft star-making model has been to gather trainees from large and small entertainment companies as idol reserves, and select future stars according to the ranking of talent and popularity scores. In the past few years when talent shows have been popular, the opportunity to debut by participating in talent shows has become the opportunity that trainees in many entertainment companies in China aspire to get ahead. After the "draft" model matures, the reason why many people choose to become a trainee is to target this stable debut flower.
The preparation of many talent shows for broadcast has created a large number of opportunities for trainees to appear, and inadvertently given many young people without acting foundations the opportunity to enter the industry.
Before deciding to become a practitioner, Guizhou zhong Fulin participated in the 2018 reality show "Metamorphosis". In the program, he recounted his experience of being abandoned by his parents after his parents divorced, and only his grandmother took care of him and relied on him for his life. After the show was broadcast, because of his bumpy childhood experience and well-behaved style, Zhong Fulin accumulated some attention and popularity. In the era of grassroots Internet celebrities everywhere, he relied on live broadcasting, receiving advertisements and working as a print model, and he could earn 20,000 or 30,000 yuan per month.
The decision to join the trainee industry was a rush march.
In May 2020, during the preliminary audition of "Youth with You 3", the program team went to entertainment companies across the country to dig up contestants. After learning the news, Zhong Fulin came up with the idea of signing an acting company.
Through friends, he met Lin Shanshan, one of the leaders of Chenfan Entertainment, and in order to seize the opportunity, he did not think too much about it and joined the company. At that time, there was less than a month left before the audition of the program. Zhong Fulin, who entered the industry with zero foundation, began high-intensity singing and dancing training with the company's arrangement and help. He had never stretched a tendon before, describing the leg press before dancing as one that made him "very painful". Even so, he was afraid that there would not be enough class time, and he also found an additional training institution to practice. Due to the excessive intensity of training, nosebleeds were common for him during that time.
Through the signing company, Zhong Fulin successfully signed up to participate in the show, opening the road to the dream showbiz.
What it's like to stand on the stage singing and dancing, Zhong Fulin doesn't know. When he was young, he liked South Korean star Kwon Ji-yong, and at the age of 15, of the money he earned from working odd jobs at a barbershop, he saved money for a concert and went to see a concert by Kwon Ji-yong.
At that time, he watched the stars on the stage from a distance, and now, he also has the opportunity to sing and dance on stage.
But he soon realized that in this line, the camera and the opportunity needed to be fought for by himself.
In order to have a bright performance in the program, Zhong Fulin did a lot of "homework" in advance. After asking the previous contestants, he learned that in the past, before the trainees performed for the first time, the contestants would first position themselves from the five levels of A, B, C, D and F, and paste the corresponding stickers on the clothes. He plans well, if there is still this link this time, he will definitely choose the best A-level representative for himself. Because he feels that in this link, he should show the confidence and momentum to enter the top nine debut positions.
However, after actually entering the recording, Zhong Fulin found that the program team cancelled this link.
The recording of the show on the first stage lasted 24 hours. Zhong Fulin's performance order ranked last of all 119 players. Due to the overtime of the program recording, when Zhong Fulin came on, the staff only promised him 20 seconds to show his extra performance.
"One minute, please." Zhong Fulin felt that he had to fight for himself, and he could not help but ask for the staff when he was usually introverted. After the accompaniment played to him by the program team stopped, he did not stop at homeopathy, but took care of himself and sang the rap song that he had written for more than a minute. All he could control was this short song time, and in order to take advantage of this hard-won opportunity, he could only do his best to act for a little longer and a little longer.
Zhong Fulin's youthful performance was slightly clumsy and nonsensical, coupled with his big tongue when he spoke, many of the contestants in the audience smiled forward and backward because of his performance on the stage.
Perhaps because of this comedic effect, the program team later gave Zhong Fulin a personal space of up to ten minutes in the main film of the program, broadcast his performances, auditions and interview clips, and even cut into some clips of him feeding pigs in the "Metamorphosis" program. Among more than a hundred trainees, this is a rare preferential treatment. Seeing that his performance effect was so good, Zhong Fulin once lit up hope. I didn't expect the first week of the contestant rankings to be announced, he ranked 91st. The next week, the ranking also rose only to 71st.
After the program was broadcast, some netizens commented that he was "very happy on the stage, but the strength is not very strong." Some people really remember him because of this comedic effect: "There are so many shots that the whole factory (referring to the program group) wakes up with laughter." ”
The show's first elimination plan will only leave the top 60 players. A week before the results were announced, Zhong Fulin's ranking stayed at 59th, stuck on the verge of promotion. On the elimination day, the host Li Yuchun announced from the 59th place onwards, and there has been no name for him.
The 60th-ranked player was finally revealed. "60th, who will he be?" Li Yuchun held the platform book in his hand and glanced at the player area. Some players who were good with Zhong Fulin whispered his name and prayed that Zhong Fulin could be shortlisted. However, the lucky one was another player, Wang Linkai, not him.
At that time, Zhong Fulin still did not understand that the 10-minute long solo performance footage was enough to prove that the show attached importance to him, but it did not mean that he would not be eliminated at the beginning. After returning to the company, the company told him that during the recording of the show, all the marketing expenses cost two thousand yuan, and other companies worked hard to buy hot searches for the contestants, spend money to vote, and it was common sense that he was not shortlisted.
Only by wading through the river do you know that the river is turbulent.
The format of the talent show is that the audience votes to decide whether the contestants will stay. Not only that, but opening a membership on a video site broadcast on the program and purchasing sponsored products can get additional votes. Subtly, fan support translates into concrete and objective economic returns, but there are also obvious drawbacks - it encourages fans to show a fanatical side, and the more fanatical fans are, the more likely it is to make this rule appear pathological and excessive, inviting resistance.
The poor results brewing in the format were revealed in May 2021. At that time, a video of pouring milk circulated on the Internet, in which the protagonist dumped several boxes of dairy products produced by the program's sponsors. It's easy to understand what's going on: fans need to take out the voting code printed on the cap of the bottle, and after casting the vote in a short period of time, they can't drink the drink before they can pour milk. After the milk pouring incident fermented, the news came out that the program was asked to be suspended by the relevant departments.
When Zhong Fulin learned of the news that the program had decided to stop broadcasting, he was driving from the airport to the car where the "Youth Has You 3" finals was recorded. At that time, he had been eliminated, and the show originally invited all the eliminated contestants to return and record the finals. Before he reached the set, Zhong Fulin received a call from the staff informing him of the cancellation of the recording.
On the last day of the recording base, everyone celebrated the birthday of a contestant in front of the world. Zhong Fulin found that everyone's mood seems to be unaffected, but many people are happy because they have taken back their mobile phones, and are busy adding WeChat and building group chats to each other. But Zhong Fulin guessed that everyone's heart was probably more lost than he was.
"It's a shame that those who are already in the top twenty are in the top twenty." Zhong Fulin felt that these brothers, who were only one step away from the debut of the group, must be the saddest people that night.
Unexpectedly, the suspension of "Youth with You 3" also had an impact on Zhong Fulin's acting work. A few days later, a variety show that had previously intended to ask him to participate in the recording decided to cancel his invitation. The staff who docked him said helplessly in his voice: "We have seen your information..." The other party was silent for a moment and decided to speak bluntly, "The director group still decided after consideration that there should not be too many 'green you' players." Since then, throughout May, at least 3 variety shows have notified Zhong Fulin to cancel cooperation. Some staff members were outspoken, while others dismissed cooperation on the grounds of "mismatched conditions". And more people, with cold treatment, consume Zhong Fulin's expectations. This is very helpless, because some programs have also actively expressed their recognition of him before, urging him to submit application materials.
After the "milk pouring incident", all the programs that had been negotiated abandoned him, and what was worse was that The bosses of Chenfan Entertainment, whose main business was e-commerce live broadcasting, Sydney and Lin Shanshan, were also banned by the whole network for tax evasion, and the entire company was also affected.
Figure | Trainee Zhong Fulin
Zhong Fulin had a retreat.
He tried to find a more professional company and continued to try to beat it up as a trainee. He wanted to throw himself into the trend, but the tide of helplessness retreated.
After Zhong Fulin's resumes were thrown out of the sea, he ran directly to Beijing and asked about the opportunity to join the company at Longtao Entertainment, founded by Huang Zitao. As a result, it was told that after the industry changes, the company had no plans to recruit new people in a short period of time.
In order to get a job offer, he went to contact various program groups and learned to negotiate business with each other, but he still did not receive new job opportunities.
He also thought about going back to become an Internet celebrity, but he was often unable to sign a new cooperative company because he had not officially terminated his contract from Chenfan Entertainment. The original company asked him to pay a "training fee" of about 110,000 yuan and show him a pen with an invoice. Zhong Fulin said that the 110,000 yuan included the money the company paid for him to invite teachers to class, the copyright fees for the songs he performed on "Qingyou 3", and even the money he bought when he and the staff ran the announcement.
Should he bear these costs, Zhong Fulin was puzzled. He has always felt that he is not valued, the company has been betting on another trainee, most of the singing and dancing training is carried out by himself privately, and many announcements of docking are also negotiated by himself, and then handed over to the staff to dock.
But he didn't want to be held back any longer. Since the "milk pouring incident", he has no stable job and income, and most of the time he just stays in a rental house in Hangzhou.
"Before I went on the show, I didn't have any debts, and now I owe more than 200,000 yuan." Zhong Fulin said. At present, he decided to borrow money to pay the termination fee, and then empty his mood to start again, whether it is as an Internet celebrity, or as an actor, to go to Hengdian to "break in".
Feng Rui admits that in the 26 years of her life, "nearly half of them have been working hard for this matter." 10 years ago, Feng Rui became obsessed with the Korean idol groups "Girls' Generation" and "EXO" and persuaded her parents to send her to South Korea for several months of trial training, but due to her average training performance, she was ultimately unable to stay. The year she graduated from high school, she went to South Korea again for a trial training, this time for two years.
Figure | Idol poster that accompanied Feng Rui for nearly a decade
As a trainee in South Korea for the second time, Feng Rui witnessed the formal formation of the draft star-making model. In 2016, South Korea's popular competitive real talent show "Produce 101" was selected by a large number of people and took the top few group debuts, which was later used by major Chinese talent shows in recent years.
In Feng Rui's experience, being a trainee should be able to "wait", learn to practice skills, and defeat other trainees to get the opportunity to walk out of the company. When Feng Rui trained in South Korea, she spent two hours of vocal music and two hours of dance every afternoon, and after class, many trainees would take the initiative to stay and practice until twelve o'clock in the evening. The new model undoubtedly contradicts this kind of model that encourages hard practice and refinement.
"I don't think the atmosphere is particularly good, why is it possible to sing and dance for a week or two, train for half a month, and then be pushed to the show, where is the qualification?" Feng Rui admitted that she was dismissive of this at first, "Some people are doing this every day, training for a year or two, and even some people have been training for seven or eight years, but they have not been given a chance." This year, this program is about to come out, and many companies have recruited a group of people, trained for a month or two, and then sent the program. I was upset. People want to make quick money, they want to become famous quickly, and I don't like that. ”
After training in South Korea for two years, Feng Rui did not make her debut, but due to excessive training, she had vocal cord nodules and had to spend at least three months to return to China for surgery and recuperation. Seeing that Feng Rui had a physical problem, her parents no longer supported her to go to South Korea alone to work. Reluctantly, Feng Rui left Korea, which has a mature idol industrial system.
Back in China, Feng Rui signed a contract with a company that only trains three trainees, which did not ask for training fees from trainees and provided Feng Rui with dormitories.
In China, trainees have used talent shows as an outlet, and she has to join the tide. She didn't hide it either: "I said I didn't like the draft, but when I returned home, I still had to participate." ”
For more than a year, she ran into a series of obstacles in interviews.
When participating in the audition for "Creation Camp 2020", the director suggested that she be more fierce when singing and dancing according to her temperament and appearance. But she found it strange to perform something exaggerated on an informal stage, and it was difficult to get straight into the state. Because everyone's time is short during the audition, they must immediately start performing the cool and dragging fan on the stage without sound and light. She was timid, and she lost the election. In hindsight, she felt that another reason was that she had spent so long that she had lost the fighting spirit of debut and fame, which really should not be.
Now, with the talent show no longer allowed to be broadcast, the era of zero foundation also having the opportunity to appear on stage has passed.
When she learned that there would be no more chances to draft the draft in the future, Feng Rui was packing her bags in her hometown and preparing to fly to the city where the audition was scheduled to be held. When the rules for prohibiting the broadcast of talent shows were set, the audition stage of various talent shows was still carried out step by step, and Feng Rui was still preparing for the 2022 draft, and during the period of going home to deal with private affairs, she also insisted on practicing singing and dancing, recording videos for remote guidance from teachers.
On the phone, the agent tried to comfort her, saying: The company will not give up on you. Feng Rui still couldn't help but cry. After that, Feng Rui decided to put an end to this protracted trainee routine. For many years before, her parents had supported her stubbornly waders in the idol industry, and she felt guilty that she really should find a stable job to reassure her parents. But she realized that she would not be able to do anything in this circle, but there were many connections in the circle, so she had the idea of becoming an agent.
In the past few years, Feng Rui has made many friends in the circle, and everyone learned of her decision and breathed a sigh of relief: "I have long felt that you are more suitable for this." ”
She would still stand in front of the screen and watch the shows of her already famous friends, without a trace of jealousy. She believes that the friends who have suffered together can "come out" is a blessing that can not be blessed, even if she herself is stuck in this door for ten years, and has not been given the opportunity to "come out".
The draft is the dream of the trainees. It has created a huge number of opportunities to change lives overnight. Now that the draft has disappeared, many trainees have woken up and found themselves driven back into their originally peaceful lives.
The days of the trainees are over, and business in the entertainment industry is still booming.
After the draft was called off, Qiao Xin found that in the company's practice room, there were some seven- and eight-year-old children and some fatter people in the woodland. The company's rapid development of new explorations has also given Qiao Xin a feeling: in the past three years, she may not be staying at an entertainment company, but a talent training class.
What have you gained in these three years? Qiao Xin asked herself.
"Nothing was learned." She answered herself.
The draft gave the trainees who were still on the road extra opportunities to try and make mistakes. Trainees with mediocre strength when entering the game can be selected by the star-making machine because of their outstanding appearance or sense of variety. Therefore, some trainees are happy to try singing, dancing, rap, acting, variety, and original music, but few people realize that they must be proficient in one of these directions. Now Qiao Xin realizes that the result of doing everything is that everything is not doing well, and she believes that the next time she goes to the interview show, directly handing over a few high-quality songs that she has produced is the most convincing way.
She decided to give up her career as a trainee, and at the age of 21, she re-entered the music production major of the Beijing Modern Music Training Institute, which is also the school and major she should have enrolled in three years ago. This school was once one of the institutions with the most talent stars, Xiao Devil, Li Ziting, Liu Yuxin, Liu Xuning and many other stars who shined on the talent stage have studied here, and the school's official news website has even opened a special section of "Event Tracking" to summarize the students' achievements in various drafts.
The past three years have been like an interlude, twisting and turning, and she is back on the same road.
*At the request of the interviewees, Xu Jing, Qiao Xin, and Feng Rui are pseudonyms
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Written by | Wu Menghan
Edit | Wen Lihong