The Times Youth Group has always been a magical existence of internal entertainment.
The appearance is not outstanding, the business is not too hard, and the representative work is not out of the circle, but with the concept of "cultivation system" and the strong krypton gold ability of fans, it has come all the way to today.
The way this group is hotly searched is also always unusual. In particular, the captain Ma Jiaqi, who scored 307 points in the last college entrance examination was questioned about his IQ; This time, the fundraising method of "inducing loans" by its fan support club has attracted a lot of criticism from the media.
On February 8, Ma Jiaqi's support club account @MAgic Wanshiya posted a Weibo call for borrowing money to rush album sales, requiring fans to provide bank cards, addresses, hand-held ID photos and other information, although the copy did not directly single-handedly single, but private information requests, "60 single purchase thresholds" and other requirements were quickly recognized by netizens as a means of borrowing credit loans.
Obviously, this is a fan support club fundraising rollover incident. Although the Qinglang operation continued, the rice circle comparison never disappeared, and this time Ma Jiaqi fans induced fundraising, allowing us to re-glimpse the tip of the iceberg of rice circle gold.
01
Under the Weibo of Ma Jiaqi's support association calling for borrowing, many fans asked whether the threshold for borrowing money could be lowered. Even if the legal awareness is weak, online transactions involving strangers should be more vigilant.
It can be seen that fans have complete trust in the support club and are unsuspecting.
Where does this trust come from?
Fan support clubs are mostly unofficial organizations where fans gather spontaneously, organizing loose fans (scattered fans) online to cast and buy albums and magazines, offline contact in public places to release materials, and sometimes have the opportunity to communicate directly with artist agencies.
In the hearts of many young fans, the support club is the combat command, and it also provides fans with a sense of belonging and trust.
In fact, many aid organizations have used this trust to run away. Originally, fan funds were crowdfunded through third-party apps such as Tao Lao and Owhat, but as these applications thundered and stopped, the management of aid expenses returned to the hands of the aid organization.
There are always people who lose money because of greed.
In the fan groups of popular artists such as Wu Xuanyi and Di Maxi, there has been a phenomenon of administrators taking funds to evaporate in the world. The post bar of Park Chanyeol, a member of the Korean boy group EXO, has been "used privately by public money" by almost every bar owner.
In 2021, South Korea's Apple Music agent sent a Weibo request for help, saying that Park Chanyeol's bar owner owed up to 1.3 million yuan in payments such as albums and magazines.
Since the response involves brushing data and topics, the disclosure of the bill is to admit that it is a fraud for idols. Keeping the details of the use of funds not being made public makes it easy for aid organizations to embezzle public funds.
After the launch of the Qinglang operation, large-scale fundraising has become less and less. Many support clubs began to sell peripherals concurrently, but the essence of the form of "first payment and then goods" is to collect money in disguise in the name of "customized peripherals".
02
In addition to the support club with fans charging online, the "station sister" who captures the whereabouts of artists offline also has business experience behind them.
"Station sister" is also known as "cannon goddess", the etymology of Korean entertainment rice circle, especially refers to the star-chasing girl who uses a high-end camera to follow the trip of idol. They often have brilliant retouching, video post-production technology, and often post fresh video frequencies on fixed social media accounts.
With excellent image quality, these information stations will gradually accumulate voice and credibility within the fan circle, and then sell exclusive photos of idou into PB (Photo Book) from time to time.
The station of Song Yaxuan, a member of the Times Youth Group
The price of PB single copy ranges from 100~500 yuan, but the printing cost is less than one-third of the selling price. A single PB of a head artist can sell thousands of copies, and the income of the station sister is very considerable.
Today, this kind of video frequency station has extended from idou to the drama CP field.
The first station sister to eat the CP dividend was @Wantyue Mountain and River, the male protagonists of "Town Soul" Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu. When "Town Soul" was a hit, the album worth 149 yuan sold more than 10,000 yuan in one hour after it was put on the shelves; By the time the link was closed, sales exceeded 16,000 copies.
149 yuan plus 10 yuan freight, @肆月山河 2.6 million yuan in a single day, once became the god of wealth in the rice circle by word of mouth.
The myth of selling PB's station sister getting rich has attracted many fans who want to make quick money, which is why Reuters flew all over the world during the filming of romance dramas. During the filming period, the CP of the actor who bought shares in advance and followed the actor CP who could explode, and the exclusive photos of the actor were released during the hit, which will attract a large number of CP fans to snap up. Therefore, more and more people began to bet on CP, the protagonist of the romance drama.
03
In addition to selling PB in the fan economy, the more popular ones are "fried cards" and "raising babies".
"Card speculation" means taking the idou card and selling it in the second-hand market to earn the difference. Small cards are cards printed with non-public photos of idols, often included with albums or official PBs, and are extremely valuable to fans. Some small cards are highly sought after in fan circles due to their scarcity and unique photo shape. Some of the bonus cards of the girl group BLACKPINK on the idle fish were sold for a sky-high price of 8000~15000 yuan.
The price of the same idol-like card will also fluctuate, so some people will buy a large number of popular group members' cards at a low price in the early stage of small card issuance, and then hang out similar cards at a high price after the high-value small card stands out in the rice circle. Fans love blindly and often don't mind the high premium of good-looking small cards, so the second-hand market is getting hotter and hotter.
Some people who speculate on cards do not have the patience to collect cards in the early stage, and directly copy your cards with "empty gloves and white wolves", and fake them on second-hand platforms. It is difficult to identify new fans who have just entered the pit, and social platforms are full of fans who share their discernment experience after being deceived.
"Raising dolls" refers to buying and dressing up cotton dolls with star attributes. Three years of the epidemic have cut offline performances, and fans who can't see the true face of idols have sought the emotional companionship of star dolls, which has now become the standard for many fans.
These dolls with real attributes need to be customized by the group. After multiple links such as model conception, drawing manuscript, publicity into a group, adjusting sample drawings, and doll factory proofing, a doll of about 20 cm can be mailed to the buyer.
In this process, the "baby mother" is the person who drives the process on behalf of the buyer's fan group, directly connects with the manufacturer and designer, and then delivers the message to other buyers.
Due to information asymmetry, there is a difference in the price of each link for the baby. Similar to the fan support club running away with money, in the "cotton beautiful doll" super talk, you can often see the rights protection post "a baby mother lost contact with money".
At the same time, there are also many speculators like card speculation, selling limited edition dolls for the second time, raising the price of dolls, and some good dolls can even be fried to four figures.
Whether it is flipping cards, flipping babies, selling PB, or filling one's pockets in the support organization, the nuggets of the rice circle have always broken through the boundaries of the imagination of outsiders, and at the same time, it also attracts people who try to harvest quick money.
What must be recognized behind the excitement is that if someone earns, someone will lose. The income of the rice circle has not yet come out of the gray area in essence, and it is a small number of players who can "enjoy the sea view room" who rush to enter, and more players who lose money and make money, as well as those fans who have been cheated out of money, have no goods and have no way to defend their rights.
【Text/Kwai Chung】