Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui
CP culture, the "metaphysics", independent bands also have to practice.
On May 21, Mr.Mss lead singer Liu Lian posted that "it is the saddest to see the friction and disputes between some fans", and "even if it is reconciled, it may cause more happy star chasers or people outside the dispute to be mixed into it, and the conflict will escalate."
This remark also aroused the attention of many music fans and industry insiders, for no other reason, that is, the spearhead of this incident pointed to the contradictions between the "CP fans" who are popular in the band circle and the ordinary music fans, such as the stalemate, watching experience, etc., and ran through Mr.Miss's "Pillow Trek National Tour" journey.
And these CP fans call themselves "dream people", which refers to the two fans who like Liu Lian and Xue Kaiqi, the "hot love qi" CP, and are also the "rivers and mountains" that Liu Lian has laid down by relying on "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", and it is one of the main consumer audiences of Mr.Miss's performance audience.
However, just as the so-called success CP defeat is also CP, the conflict between CP fans and music fans is also quietly emerging.
If you don't sell CP, you can't become benevolent
The bands that attract fans in other circles because of CP are not Mr. Miss.
It can be said that the "CPIZATION" of band members has existed for a long time, and it is not even limited to BG (male and female CP), GL (female female CP) or BL (male male CP). CP in layman's terms refers to the pairing of characters in the work that have a "love" relationship, and now it generally refers to all pairable relationships.
As early as 2019, the Douban platform launched a topic discussion called "Your favorite rock band CP", and band members such as The Libertines and Queen were on the list, becoming a model for netizens to pull lang or sip sugar. Until now, Queen's Weibo super talk still has a steady stream of CP output has become a hot post, and CP has become a "popularity label" that many bands cannot erase. Some netizens jokingly said that "the wind of the base circle has begun to erode the rock circle."
For this evaluation, the intuitive embodiment is the music variety program where musicians get together. For example, Liu Lian has attracted a large number of CP fans because of "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves Season 3" with her "hot love qi" with Xue Kaiqi, and "Band Line" CP with Zhao Meng and Yu Wenwen.
The most typical is the band "Luck Alliance" from "Tomorrow's Children Orchestra Season", as the drummer Hu Yutong and lead singer Tian Hongjie who became a popular contestant due to the "Cosmic Waste" CP during the competition, because CP fans guaranteed all the way to make the "Gas Luck Alliance" band successfully debut in the first place; Another pair of popular CPs in the show, "Kebone Unforgettable Heart", was regarded as a classic by CP fans with the pull of "BE aesthetics" when Ju Yiming, the drummer Ju Yiming who flowed into the nap gramophone band, and Zhao Ke, a rapper who joined the Gas Luck Alliance, personally dismantled the CP.
In short, the demand of CP fans for CP often lies in whether there is a certain story line, sugar points and other content between the two parties that make up CP, and this often depends on the program effect, the chemistry between musicians or interactive cooperation to be effective.
In "Let's Band Together", Jiang Dunhao, the lead singer of the traveling new bee band, and Wu Jian, the drummer, were regarded as "sneaking points" by CP fans because of their decades-long friendship, and their "Zhou Haojian" CP with bassist Zhou Jun also fell into an emotional breakdown after interrupting the three's cooperation due to voting for the captain format. In the end, it was also officially stamped to "lock" the strongest iron triangle, which also became a CP line attraction for the show to stabilize the audience at that time.
However, looking back, this kind of CP fan fever in the mainland has also become a mainstream craze through the influence of animation, idol groups, film and television dramas, and drafts. Whether it is the early ACGN fandom, or the era of idol CP Ming opened by Flywheel Sea, Oriental Shenqi, Super Junior, etc., and even the era of CP consciousness popularization after the 101 series draft and "Chen Qingling", the CP culture in the mainland has entered the popularization of "everything can be eaten" under the influence of this, and it is becoming more and more unavoidable.
For example, even if Jiao Maiqi and his band bassist Guo Rui do not interact across the line, they can still be "snorted" by fans because of the co-production of the performance; For example, the Italian rock band Maneskin's lead singer Damiano already has a girlfriend, which does not prevent mainland music fans from snorting on his "brother and sister" CP with female bassist Victoria. It can be said that this can also be seen as a manifestation of rice circles.
This also makes it inevitable that when the band is exposed to the public eye, it is inevitable that it will become a "smacking point" due to a certain active or passive chemical reaction, attracting a large number of CP fans on the top and completing the "fantasy". And this is also to put the two parties who will be regarded as CP in an imaginary-based intimate relationship, to put it bluntly, there are more brain supplements than reality.
However, as a party who benefited from CP fans, Liu Lian also said in an interview that it is the same as making music, "We provide our songs, but the moment they are sent, they actually become the material processed by others, a raw material." How others understand our songs is someone else's right, and how others want to understand our relationship is also someone else's right. ”
How profitable is the CP economy?
In fact, CP culture for the vast majority of musicians, can be regarded as an effective means of "breaking the circle", whether it is snorting or speculation, CP as a necessary element of the explosion is already an indisputable fact. CP hype can bring explosive high popularity and topic in the short term, and to a certain extent, the traffic brought is much higher than that of individuals.
For example, relying on the popularity brought by the CP fans of "Cosmic Waste", the unconventional band group of "one drummer and three lead singers and one rapper" of the Luck Alliance was able to vote all upstream and became a popular idol band. And Hu Yutong and Tian Hongjie, as newcomers, have occupied the "2020 Tencent Video Annual Index Report" in the "2020 Tencent Video Annual Index Report" in the "2020 Program Limited Combination Popularity Top 5", and the show has also successfully appeared in the circle due to CP selling points.
This is also because the audience has a "crazy" preference for CP, and it is easy to quickly "go up" to contribute to CP to win the public's favorability, and the corresponding music ensemble can also play popularity and obtain the improvement of sound volume value after having traffic. And this is also a content consumption scenario where CP fans can stably and actively invest, which is equivalent to a win-win transaction.
More importantly, the fan economic benefits brought by CP fans are likely to be far above the ordinary fan group. According to the "New Generation and New Circle - 2020CP Vertical Circle Marketing Report", when CP culture will enter the sky in 2020, about 73% of the audience tends to invest money for CP, and the average monthly expenditure of more than 1,000 yuan is not a few.
For example, in the calculation of the total amount of funds raised by the SNH48 calendar year output of Douban's "Ten Years Later Group", it can be intuitively seen that the role of CP powder is crucial, in the TOP16, relying on CP powder can raise more than 100,000 yuan of more than 13 members, and more than 500,000 yuan has 8 members, strong CP help, but also made last year's SNH48 activities become the world of CP. Taking the 9th SNH48 Golden Melody Awards in 2022 as an example, the "Poetry Painting Yi" CP composed of Zhou Shiyu and Wang Yi, who won the first place, invested a total of more than 3 million yuan for it, far more than double the "self-employed" Wang Xiaojia who ranked second.
This performance is also reflected in today's CP economics, such as Mr. Miss's "Pillow Trek Tour" opened after Liu Lian participated in "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves Season 3" with high ticket prices, and even the "Pillow Trek Concert" jointly held with Big Band still reached the price of 288 yuan in stands to 988 yuan in the infield, but still reached almost sold out.
Among them, "Hot Love Qi" CP fans also provided a very large number of votes and support. According to fans, "Hot Love Qi" CP fans have a strong sense of presence in performance consumption, "As long as Mr.Miss tours to a city, CP fans will fully support, distribute CP version of the support or group to buy tickets to see the performance, 480 yuan ticket price increase to two or three times have many people charge, in the scalper side of the response is very good." Since its establishment in May last year, more than 49,000 people have joined, which is already a consumer group that should not be underestimated.
At the same time, it is obvious that the dividend due to CP topping up has also become a convenient way to enhance the commerciality of artists, and this benefit even has a very long-term effect. Even CP, which receives short-term attention due to programs or performances, can still return to the long tail after the outbreak of attention, maximize its commerciality, and also allow brands to keenly see the value of empowerment and aim at the strong consumption power and demand of CP fans.
For example, in the variety show "Sound into the People's Heart" based on musicals, Zheng Yunlong and Ayunga, the "cloud power" CP, are still popular CPs after the end of the show, and they have also been invited by many well-known brands, and the cooperation between this CP and the Benasong brand alone has attracted CP fans to promote and interact with CP fans on the self-media platform as high as 460,000, covering nearly 100 million users.
Of course, the CP economy is also a combination of stable core harvesting and marginal benefit harvesting, which is also the "love house and Wu" psychology of the CP circle, which can help musicians and brands take advantage of the situation to create high revenue. Due to the popularity of "Chen Qingling", Harper's Bazaar sold more than 6 million yuan in electronic magazines shot by Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan, and the actual revenue of media brands also provided a data basis for the commercial value of artists.
Even if CP goes to BE, CP powder can still "find sugar in glass slag to eat", which can still bring strong economic benefits. For example, SNH48 members Shen Mengyao and Yuan Yiqi, who were invested more than 1.46 million yuan by CP fans and sent to the cooperation stage of the 9th SNH48 Golden Melody Awards, have been CP "black meow" BE for many years, but they still have strong gold-absorbing ability and fan attention, even if the non-interactive cooperation stage that is jokingly called "a galaxy apart" is also "scorned" by CP fans.
In general, fame or fortune makes the composition of CP a gamble that can be thrown big. After all, relatively speaking, artists have played a reputation and commercial value, the brand side has also obtained bonus benefits, and CP fans have also become a new stable consumer audience, which can be described as a million profits.
epilogue
However, CP is also a double-edged sword.
When it brings the joy of a good harvest, it is inevitable that it will usher in a "fight" with the original fans. In the existing public opinion environment, the sense of boundary of CP fans is still taboo for ordinary fans, such as Mr. Miss fans and "hot love" CP fans such a confrontation is not a new thing, which will also make musicians embark on the road of avoiding suspicion, and even take the initiative to disassemble CP, old and dead do not communicate with each other also exists, but will affect the survival of the band or team. For example, the Qi Luck Alliance, which started vigorously by CP, eventually dissipated in the disagreement team, and now the drummer Hu Yutong has withdrawn from the group and faded the "Qi Luck Alliance" certification.
And when CP becomes a kind of productivity, in fact, it can not only serve CP, whether it is a music complex or a musician, CP should play a role in the icing on the cake, rather than become the core of musicians' deliberate attention.
After all, relatively speaking, the CP economy is still a kind of fan behavior consumption logic, which is inseparable from the essence of entertainment and is destined to be a form of subcultural commercialization. In this era where anything can be snorted, CP is also a commodity generated under the relationship between supply and demand, but when supply and demand are out of balance, the so-called dividend will eventually become a flash in the pan and bury certain hidden dangers.
It can only be said that CP can be temporary but impossible for a lifetime, after all, it is unrealistic short-term living water, in the end, musicians ultimately rely on high-quality works and performances to truly retain a long-term consumer audience.
The short-term CP dividend is just the sweetness of the forbidden fruit that has been ripened, and the yellow millet is just a dream.
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