Li Jiaqi's jungle: a sword hanging above his head, waiting for Liu Qing's teachers to solve

Written in the preceding words, to the reader who opened this article:

E-commerce is like air and water integrated into life, every day online shopping I thought I knew the e-commerce world very well, until I accidentally crossed the information cocoon and saw the world behind e-commerce, I knew what kind of wolf fighting jungle law "Li Jiaqi" lived in. This article is a first exploration of the jungle behind Li Jiaqi, hoping to serve as an invitation letter to invite more professionals in economics, journalism and communication, sociology, philosophy and other fields to cross the cocoon, pay deep attention to this industry, and help the next "Li Jiaqi" who is about to go crazy and ordinary migrant workers who are bound to depreciate in the extreme SOP system.

The concentration of wolf culture in the e-commerce industry is beyond imagination, winning is getting rich overnight, losing is poor and white, excessive disparity between rich and poor stimulates vicious competition, in order to win, crush all value with efficiency. Li Jiaqi suddenly went crazy, ordinary workers in the industry worked harder and lowered their salaries, and Li Jiaqi's burnout but could not retire, all related to the industry's excessive pursuit of efficiency. According to e-commerce KOLs, efficiency companies defeat innovative companies through plagiarism and imitation, and extremely fine-grained SOPs cause continuous depreciation of talents, which is the development trend of the industry... (We look forward to taking the time to read the full version.) The full text is about 6000 words, about 15 minutes to read)

The body begins:

"Li Jiaqi's jungle: a sword hanging above his head, waiting for Liu Qing's teachers to solve"

Text/Wang Shuxi

"The harder someone works, the more they drop their salary! Can Li Jiaqi believe it? ”

"Did the salary go up, did you work hard? When Li Jiaqi said this, why not eat minced meat. In "The Arrogance of the Elite" recommended by teacher Liu Qing, it is said that successful people believe that success is the result of their own efforts, and forget the timing and luck to help them, and they will despise those who are less fortunate and unqualified than themselves. ”

"Why don't you eat minced meat. Li Jiaqi's kind of work intensity, how can he have time to study? ”

"He should have thought about it himself."

"If anyone could figure it out for themselves, 'The Arrogance of the Elite' would not have become a representative work of Harvard professors."

Regarding Li Jiaqi's fans "not working hard to raise salaries", we quarreled in the group until midnight. The main thing is that after a busy day, it only starts to be noisy in the middle of the night, it lasts for ten minutes and they wash and sleep separately, and the next day they have to get up early to catch the shuttle, if they miss the free shuttle, take a taxi to work, and be poorer. When hard work is also difficult to make money, saving money is making money.

It was this "money-saving" method of making money in disguise that provoked Li Jiaqi. Fans think eyeliner is expensive, Li Jiaqi scolds fans not to work hard, but fans are obviously working hard, it only takes one minute to go directly to the store to place an order, and they have to come to the live broadcast room to squat for an hour to buy, isn't this trying to save money?

Regardless of class, regardless of wealth or poverty, Li Jiaqi and pig girls are not the same kind of people by nature, people who race against time and work hard to make money, and people who "waste" a lot of time to save ten yuan and twenty yuan really have walls. Some people say, "Li Jiaqi, who was still working as an ordinary teller in L'Oreal stores in Nanchang a few years ago, but in just a few years, he could not empathize with ordinary migrant workers. "I think even a few years ago, Li Jiaqi, who was busy working everywhere, and people who waited for coupons in the live broadcast room because they were poor, could only partially empathize - they could empathize with the poor situation, but they could not empathize with the mood.

By nature, Li Jiaqi can empathize with the self-media who stay up late to write articles and videos to scold him, and the competitors who take advantage of the fire and robbery, but he can't empathize with his fans "Shu", the wolf blood roll king and the pig girl, what a desperate fate.

But Li Jiaqi and the pig girls were happy before, why? At that time, his life was a narrow road, he only had a live broadcast room, and there were only pig girls in the live broadcast room. Li Jiaqi is fortunate that although the road of bringing goods anchors is narrow, it is extremely fast and becomes rich overnight. And the biggest misfortune is that even if you get rich, it's still a narrow road. Li Jiaqi once said that he wanted to create his own domestic makeup brand, and now he is famous, advantageous, has status and resources, and has all the conditions to go to the ideal, but the ideal is in front of him but can't go, and he is still trapped in the live broadcast room. Now the live broadcast room is no longer a stepping stone for him, but a stumbling block.

A few things I want to discuss with you today are now officially started:

1. Why did Li Jiaqi suddenly go crazy? What the hell drove him crazy?

2. Why can't I raise my salary despite my efforts? And even the harder someone works, the more they cut their salaries?

3. Why can the rich Li Jiaqi only be trapped in the live broadcast room as a salesman, who trapped him?

4. Who can rescue the next "Li Jiaqi" who is on the verge of going crazy, as well as ordinary migrant workers in the e-commerce industry who reduce their wages the harder they work?

The answer to everything is in the jungle behind Li Jiaqi, which is clearly explained by e-commerce entrepreneurial KOLs, but they are told to students as a rich experience, the more students who know the answer, the more people who follow suit, the more these contradictions intensify, the more "Li Jiaqi" drives them crazy, and the more pig girls cut their salaries.

On the stage of live broadcasting, Li Jiaqi's companions are: stars Liu Tao, Dong Jie, Lin Yilun, intellectuals Luo Yonghao, Dong Yuhui, famous aristocrats Xiang Tai, Zhang Xiaohui... But Li Jiaqi was never the same group as them. To understand Li Jiaqi's fate, it depends on the jungle behind him, Brother Sea Cucumber, Jiang Hui, Da Lan, Lone Wolf, Yinuo Lao Wu, Liu Siyi... This group of grassroots e-commerce startup KOLs and their fans. Many people have never heard these names, have they? Before Xiucai and Yixiao came out of the circle, we didn't know that he was a super star in the cocoon room of middle-aged and elderly people. In the same way, these KOLs are famous in the cocoon of e-commerce entrepreneurship, with extensive exchanges and peach and plum all over the world. Li Jiaqi's living space is not the pink world of pigs and girls in the live broadcast room, but the bloody world where wolves gather behind the live broadcast room.

Why did Li Jiaqi suddenly go crazy?

Not at all suddenly, "expensive" is his dead hole

KOL Lone Wolf revealed the jungle law of the live e-commerce track: "The iteration speed is beyond imagination, it is a 5-minute horse race, the plagiarism speed is fast to the next day, coupled with the price war and the global ROI competition, so that this track is crowded to the point of purple." Some fans said in the comments: "Don't wait for the next day, a model is bursting, and before it is broadcast, the same low price will come out." ”

At such a roll speed, Li Jiaqi disappeared for 3 months last year and then came back, and the live broadcast has been iterated for hundreds of rounds. Although the fans on the water surface have not been lost, the low-price advantage of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room below the water surface is no longer there. Li Jiaqi, who once relied on the "lowest price on the whole network", the biggest pain point after his comeback is "expensive", and he is unable to return to the sky, only 3 months, the sky has changed.

The salesperson should not scare customers, but Li Jiaqi used to be a grumpy salesman, "has there been no effort" is not the first time he intimidated customers, once in the live broadcast room the customer said that the assistant broadcast sister was ugly, Li Jiaqi exploded on the spot: "Call us ugly, how immortal are you?" And didn't let you pay to come in and see! The assistant broadcaster told him not to say anything, and he became more and more angry: "I will say!" The three views are correct! ”

After his comeback, Li Jiaqi has been criticized as "expensive", and in November last year, he was on negative news because he was hundreds of yuan more expensive than the official store of Senior Hall. "Gui" is his dead hole, the mental pressure is seriously overloaded in his body, a little Martian will explode, saying that he is expensive than saying that the assistant broadcaster is ugly makes him nervous. He has a headache and can't solve the problem of expensive prices, and subconsciously hopes that the piggy girls will work hard to make money and accept him as expensive.

(Leave a small question here, why should the new e-commerce industry iterate wildly, and is it not tired to roll so fast?) The answer will be available later in this article. ）

Why don't you raise your wages for your efforts?

In Li Jiaqi's jungle, the harder someone works, the lower his salary

After the Li Jiaqi incident, Chinagong.com did a questionnaire survey: "Have you raised your salary in the past three years?" 281,000 people participated in the survey, of which 6% had a large increase in wages, 49% had basically unchanged, and 37% had their salaries reduced.

It's been hard to raise wages in recent years for a variety of reasons, but will the 6% ratio discourage meritocrats who believe in "hard work leads to success"? No. Don't forget what kind of ratio Li Jiaqi is killed from, in 2016 L'Oreal counter 200 sales champions participated, only Li Jiaqi 1 person went to the beauty wrist to become the anchor, in 2018 beauty wrist founder Qi Zhenbo decided to quit more than 100 other anchors, the whole company around Li Jiaqi to operate. (Remember this action, Li Jiaqi's crazy foreshadowing is buried here.) ）

The meritocratic belief is that if you work hard enough, you can squeeze in that 6%. This belief is particularly concentrated in Li Jiaqi's jungle, Weiya, Brother Sea Cucumber, Jiang Hui, Da Lan, Lone Wolf, Yinuo Lao Wu... Their common characteristics are grassroots origin, self-made, no background, no education, Li Jiaqi graduated from university, Weiya dropped out of high school, and the others are two books, junior colleges, technical schools, Liu Siyi is a graduate of Peking University, but it is also a small town youth who squeezes into Peking University by unremitting efforts. Hard work is the only tool in their hands, and if you let go of the belief that "hard work will succeed", it will only be despair. Li Jiaqi because of "whether the salary has risen or not, have you worked hard?" When he was under siege, e-commerce KOL Jiang Hui posted a Weibo post reflecting the true thoughts of his group: "Li Jiaqi said something correct, but he can't say so publicly." If it is said by an e-commerce blogger, it is actually a normal inspirational chicken soup. ”

It is in line with the law that wages do not rise due to corporate losses, and when the company turns losses into profits, wages will rise again. It sounds bizarre that the more profitable the company is, the more employees depreciate, and this weird trend is sweeping the jungle of e-commerce.

E-commerce KOL Haifound and Jiang Hui exchanged management experience: "In the second half of e-commerce, companies that are doing bigger and bigger are generally characterized by very fine internal SOP granularity, a trader with a monthly salary of 500,000 yuan, with 100 executives with a monthly salary of 5,000, doing 100 million projects. I'm going after that granularity right now. Tell employees a cruel reality, don't feel that if you take less now, it will become less and less valuable in the future. At the beginning, the people who would open the through train had an annual salary of 500,000 or 1 million, and these people can't find a job now, because now the drivers with a monthly salary of 6,000 or 7,000 have driven very well, the whole process is completely SOP, and the talent is completely devalued. The trend is that a very small number of traders can take 1 million, and executives who generally take 5,000 or 10,000. (Note: Through rider is a position in the e-commerce industry.) ）

Of course, the numbers they give are inaccurate, but it is a rough sense that in this fast-growing industry, about 1% of employees strive to become traders and squeeze into the wealthy class, and the remaining 99% of employees are reduced to low-paying screws and engaged in very simple executive work, which in turn will lead to the inability to grow in ability, and the more time spent on simple work, the more growth opportunities will be lost and continue to depreciate. What is alarming is that in this system, 99% of employees' salary cuts have nothing to do with the economy, which is an inevitable trend caused by the ultimate SOP management model. (Note: The proportion is roughly estimated based on the dialogue between Brother Vladivostok and Jiang Hui, not research data.) ）

Since I started paying attention to SOPs, I have discussed them with my colleagues a few times. After the industrial revolution, the concept of scientific management is to move towards standardization and professional division of labor, in fact, SOP has existed in modern society for a long time, is advanced management experience, so why is the SOP trend in the e-commerce industry described by Jiang Hui so worrying? The granularity they are looking for is too fine and unprecedented.

1. The purpose of professional division of labor in scientific management is to arrange each employee in the appropriate field to accumulate knowledge and develop skills to improve work efficiency. SOPs with extremely fine granularity improve efficiency by weakening the accumulation of professional knowledge and skills. Jiang Hui shared the successful experience of incubating health IP, the whole team does not understand health at all, the trader copies the manuscript, and hands it over to the IP to read, the IP as long as it can read the manuscript, why choose him to read the manuscript, because his image and temperament meet the expectations of health users, after reading it, there will be nothing for him, and then hand it over to other jobs.

2. In the past, the assembly line operation with extremely fine particle size was only in the manufacturing department, and the manufacturing department pursued efficiency, which was very reasonable. Now that the assembly line has entered the creative department, but the SOP granularity is too fine, it will obviously seriously hinder innovation, how to solve this contradiction? Jiang Hui, the originator of e-commerce training, said that the trend of the e-commerce industry is that efficiency defeats innovation, so it is necessary to give up innovation and choose efficiency. But without innovation, no matter how efficient the company is, how to solve it? The answer is to imitate, imitate someone else's originality, and defeat the original with greater efficiency.

The industry has been plagiarizing for a long time, and some people asked: "What to do in the face of peer imitation?" ”

Jiang Hui's answer is: "In fact, the core of my project, focusing on finding those places that my peers cannot imitate. And where peers can imitate, we need to be imitators, not innovators. ”

In short: if you can copy, you can copy, and if you can't copy, you think for yourself. Be a plagiarist, not an innovator.

3. The Internet has entered the AI era, and a single skill is easily replaced by AI. At present, it is necessary to strengthen general knowledge and cross-disciplinary boundaries to enhance people's competitiveness. The "SOP pursuit of extremely fine granularity" within e-commerce enterprises is contrary to the general trend of upgrading talents and improving comprehensive capabilities in the AI era. For individual employees, the smaller the granularity, the greater the risk of being replaced by AI. For humanity as a whole, the loss of creativity means complete surrender in the face of AI.

However, these are not in the consideration of e-commerce bosses, they are scrambling to fish, why? The efficiency and wolf fighting in this jungle are jaw-dropping, as if a primeval forest that has never appeared in human civilization. Li Jiaqi had an accident, peers immediately rubbed traffic to play terriers and sell goods, e-commerce KOL Tian Nuo Lao Wu immediately filmed a video teaching: "The real business war is to take advantage of your illness and kill you." ”

There is a local wolf culture in every industry, but I have never seen such a high concentration of wolf in any industry. What drew them together? Or what sifted them together?

1. The big environment diploma is supreme, but this small world does not look at academic qualifications, and grassroots groups come to look for opportunities.

2. The myth of wealth creation in this small world is too amazing, and everyone comes for profit.

3. Based on the above two reasons, some practitioners have no way back, can only succeed, not allowed to fail, victory is overnight rich, defeat is poor and white, the disparity is too large, stimulate vicious competition. (Remember the little question we left earlier, why is this industry crazy about efficiency?) The answer is here. ）

4. The speed of the industry is too fast, and practitioners are busy learning business growth, and they have no time to take into account "useless" knowledge such as humanities and social sciences. The knowledge structure is partial and has a strong wisdom to make money, but it lacks the perspective of humanities and social sciences, and it is difficult to understand the consequences of exhaustion.

Li Jiaqi burnout, why not retire?

Psychology could not cure his serious illness

After the hot search for "Li Jiaqi brought goods to scare netizens", "Li Jiaqi's burnout" also followed the hot search. Many netizens wondered, why didn't Li Jiaqi retire when he was so rich? Is it that the desire has no end, and has not earned enough? Faced with the same problem, we ordinary people drink a few bowls of chicken soup that is "willing to put down" to solve it, and Li Jiaqi's serious illness should be put into the jungle behind him to see.

Li Jiaqi's company, Meijiang, ranks first in the MCN industry with a GMV of more than 65 billion yuan in 2022, which is equivalent to the volume of a shoulder e-commerce platform. How did they get out of the wolves? Become the most ruthless wolf. In 2018, founder Qi Zhenbo resigned from more than 100 other anchors, and the whole company revolved around Li Jiaqi, who finished work at 4 a.m. all year round, started work at 12 noon, worked 16 hours a day, and had no personal life at all, because of high-intensity live broadcasting, he suffered from bronchitis, and it was difficult to breathe during the attack, and he carried medicine to save his life. He couldn't rest for a day, and as soon as he did, fans were sucked away by other streamers.

Meijian relied on non-human efficiency and Li Jiaqi's desperate efforts to defeat opponents and become the top of the industry, but this also laid the groundwork for their biggest crisis in 2023, and the whole company has only Li Jiaqi as a head Internet celebrity, and there is no anchor matrix. The three major accounts of Meijian have 2.739 million fans of "All Girls" and 1.639 million fans of "All Girls' Wardrobe", which is a long way from the 75.1514 million fans of "Li Jiaqi Austin". Li Jiaqi can fight, not only because he has many fans, but also because he has a huge database in his brain: "I have a lot of data in my head that Alibaba wants, and the data I collect is more accurate than the machine." "If Li Jiaqi retires, the beauty wrist loses its only competitiveness and will be wiped out by the wolves in the e-commerce jungle in an instant. Therefore, Li Jiaqi now whether he is free of wealth or burnout or not, he still has to sit in the live broadcast room as a salesman, even if the pressure is so high that he is chased by fans and is chased and scolded by the whole network, he cannot take the opportunity to rest or resign, but cry and apologize and then continue to live broadcast, until the beauty wrist completes the big project of "de-Li Jiaqi", with new competitiveness, Li Jiaqi can breathe.

In the e-commerce industry that follows the law of the jungle, how Meijiao and Li Jiaqi used to crush their opponents with wolf nature and become the first in the industry, they now have to withstand what kind of wolf nature of their opponents.

Who can save the next "Li Jiaqi"?

Li Jiaqi's jungle waited for Liu Qing's teachers to enter

Seeing this, the jungle where Li Jiaqi lives seems to be full of vicious wolves. No, they are very complex contradictions, and even the most ferocious wolves retain their good side.

After Li Jiaqi's fan incident, crisis public relations issued many press releases highlighting "Li Jiaqi from apology to public welfare". Li Jiaqi has indeed participated in many public welfare undertakings over the years, such as the establishment of the "Li Jiaqi Love Fund" in September 2020, which donated 10 million yuan mainly for the construction of 20 hope primary schools in 52 poverty-stricken counties across the country.

Egoistic sea cucumber frequently outputs toxic views: "Don't be a craftsman, it will make you bankrupt" "As an entrepreneur, you must be simple, that is, copy and find the right case to copy directly." Many of the ideas he gave entrepreneurs clearly had the problem of objectifying women. But the corporate culture written on the wall by Vladivostok is "Don't be evil." Most of his well-known IP team is women over 35 years old, and in the video, he enthusiastically introduces entrepreneurs to how capable female employees over 35 are.

Many of the cases in this article come from Jiang Hui, but outside of business, I have to say that Jiang Hui is a good person. Li Jiaqi was besieged, and Jiang Hui was one of the few colleagues who posted on Weibo to speak for Li Jiaqi. According to a survey by China Public Network, only a very small number of people have raised their salaries in recent years, and Jiang Hui will also post on Weibo to express sentimentality. I don't know how he feels that the ultimate SOP management model he advocates will inevitably depreciate most people?

Jiang Hui has a good reputation in the industry, and Liu Siyi, an entrepreneur who graduated from Peking University, said: "Jiang Hui has always been very grateful, the eldest brother who can give me emotional value when I am the loneliest and most helpless." He walked through all my business models, and every time I asked him when I was confused, I always got some insight from him. As an e-commerce training owner, Jiang Hui's management thinking has influenced many entrepreneurs, and some of them have also begun to do e-commerce training, such as his "student" Liu Siyi, who established a community of traffic traders, influencing 8,000 bosses and business leaders from all walks of life. The KOLs listed at the beginning of our article: Brother Sea Cucumber, Jiang Hui, Da Lan, Lone Wolf, Yinuo Lao Wu, Liu Siyi... Everyone has millions of followers, runs business classes, and starts private boards. In the case of Vladivostok, his business school helps more than 500,000 students from all walks of life solve business problems a year, the private board membership fee is as high as 80,000, about 2,000 people join, and the business experience they exchange is shared online in the form of short videos to share with millions of fans. As entrepreneurial mentors, they influence a large number of practitioners in the e-commerce industry, and if they are good, the industry is good; They fish as much as they can, and the industry catches the fish.

The new e-commerce group has a strong learning spirit, but the information cocoon makes their knowledge structure very narrow. In another cocoon, we are equally narrow-minded. Jiang Hui, Brother Vladivostok, Lone Wolf... With Liu Qing, Xiang Biao, Shi Zhan... Also taught online as a tutor, but never met, never intersected. Who can save the next "Li Jiaqi" in the e-commerce jungle who is about to go crazy and the ordinary migrant worker who is trapped in the extreme SOP system and will inevitably reduce his salary? Until the two cocoons open the door and establish contact, I am afraid that no one will be able to rescue them.

The jungle survival method that e-commerce KOLs are good at cannot remove the crazy sword of Damocles hanging over Li Jiaqi's head, and even that sword is hung up by the law of the jungle.

The existing courses and books in humanities and social sciences cannot be rescued for the time being, because the problems of the new e-commerce industry are too new, the roll speed is too fast, and the benefits are too great, and it is difficult for e-commerce practitioners to rely on humanities and social science books to diagnose and prescribe drugs for themselves. What's more, at an astonishing rate of iteration, who would dare to take the time to read an "idle book" that has nothing to do with business growth?

It is hoped that more professionals in economics, journalism and communication, sociology, philosophy and other fields will pay close attention to this industry and find a solution in a targeted manner to help the next "Li Jiaqi" who is about to go crazy and ordinary migrant workers who are trapped in the extreme SOP system and reduce their wages more and more. Whether it is the personal interests of practitioners or the public interest of society, this jungle needs help. (Please insist on seeing friends here, share more, click to watch, so that more people can break through the cocoon house and pay attention to the jungle ecology behind this industry, rather than the prosperity on the surface.) ）

Why is "journalism and communication" involved? E-commerce has entered the stage of content e-commerce and live broadcast e-commerce, closely tied to self-media, short video and live broadcast are the necessary carriers of new e-commerce, all the problems mentioned above are both the dilemma of e-commerce and the dilemma of self-media. In the business course of Vladivostok, a very important one is to teach merchants to transform into short videos, his "short video traffic operation cognitive course" daily price is 10,000 yuan, limited time discount is 5,980 yuan, the course shows that 5,033 people have learned. As a short video mentor, Brother Vladivostok himself is often banned by the platform for content violations.

Finally, I also discussed with teacher Zhang Xuefeng, considering that everyone can do self-media now, it is not recommended to apply for journalism and communication. On the other hand, if everyone is eating the bowl of rice from the media, but no one studies journalism and communication, and allows the wild development of the self-media, is it possible that everyone will end up eating all the rice until everyone can't swallow the bowl of rice? If the curriculum of journalism and communication is out of date, then optimize the curriculum, instead of choking on food, in the era of national self-media, dissuade an important subject that concerns the broadest interests of the public from the college entrance examination volunteer list.

postscript

As a cultural media practitioner, I learned short video traffic operation for work reasons, searched around on the Internet, inadvertently crossed the cocoon, and entered the new e-commerce industry that also attaches importance to short video traffic operation, so I saw this world of rapid iteration, crushing all value with efficiency, and the anti-heavenly means to improve efficiency: the ultimate SOP entered the content field. Therefore, in my video "77 Wild Morning Notes", I continue to explain the unpopular concept of SOP, hoping that everyone will be wary of the potential risks of excessive SOP. When the video was posted to episode 5, the Li Jiaqi incident broke out, which is not a coincidence, it is the inevitable result of excessive pursuit of efficiency, exhaustion and fishing, and the accumulation of contradictions to a critical point.

The 5 episodes of the SOP series of "77 Wild Morning Notes" have ended, and I should have moved on to the next series of aging and parent-child relationships, but the Li Jiaqi incident made me think more about the issue of efficiency and felt the need to write an article to share with everyone. This article has been written for a long time, which has caused the video of "77 Wild Morning Notes" to be interrupted, and the article is too long and not conducive to dissemination, which is very unwise from the perspective of efficiency. But isn't this the responsibility of journalism graduates and media practitioners, if I also pursue efficiency in this article reflecting on "efficiency", then the journalism department really reads in vain, such as teacher Zhang Xuefeng said that the journalism department does not read it.

"77 Wild Morning Notes" SOP Series Episode 1: The Story of the Sailor and the Ropeman

"77 Wild Morning Notes" SOP Series Episode 5: The Story of a Crushing Victory