Either decline or overturn, in 2023, the Internet will not have a top stream

定焦（dingjiaoone）原创

Author | Jin Yufan

Edit | Wei Jia

2023 has passed, what new Internet celebrities do you remember that are popular all over the Internet?

is a representative of amateur Internet celebrities: Teacher Huang, a beautiful kindergarten teacher who relied on a song "Dig Dig Dig Dig" to attract millions of fans; The "middle-aged and elderly top stream" talent who became popular again this summer and fell into the city with a smile; Yu Wenliang, who "collapsed" in less than a month in October, and the middle-aged man born in the 70s who has just become popular in the past two days "Wen Shen"?

Or are the star representatives of the platform: Dong Jie, the phenomenal goods carrier at the beginning of Xiaohongshu, Zhang Xiaohui, the "new favorite" anchor of Double 11, and Wu Xin, the star who has recently become popular?

Or those old Internet celebrities: Dong Yuhui, who was out of the circle last year and made a "small composition turmoil" this year; Li Jiaqi, the top streamer with goods who was caught in the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident and the price control turmoil; Liu Genghong, the top fitness streamer who recently talked about "traffic decline", and Li Ziqi, the top "Chinese style" who had disputes with the company and stopped for more than two years......

Data doesn't deceive, the popularity of old Internet celebrities can't escape the fate of cooling, and this year's new Internet celebrities are even more "debuting", that is, the peak, and they failed to become popular until the end of the year for various reasons.

After 2023, why is it difficult for platforms with huge traffic to win the top stream? This is a question worth exploring.

The new Internet celebrity is less than the second year of popularity

Internet celebrities have long been an economy, and they are accessible to all ages. Among the Internet celebrities who will be out of the circle in the first half of 2023, Xiucai, Yixiao Allure, and Teacher Huang can be called "middle-aged and elderly harvesters".

During this year's May Day holiday, a magical children's song "Dig in a small garden", a set of kindergarten teacher's finger dance, attracted countless netizens to remake, and also "dug up" a phenomenal celebrity who attracted 3 million fans in 5 days "Teaching music flowers bloom and become rich". She is said to be a music teacher at an educational institution in Wuhan and is known as Teacher Huang by netizens.

"Appearance is justice", Mr. Huang stood out among many remakes because of his sweet and lovely image, and was coaxed by many institutions. Teacher Huang's follow-up live broadcasts, selling goods, and the "digging, digging" trend that became popular all over the Internet made her popularity soar. "Dig and dig" is not only popular in China, but also in the United States, Germany, and the mainland and Taiwan.

And Xiucai from Bozhou, Anhui Province, and Yixiao Allure from Heze, Shandong, will be the top of the aunt circle and uncle circle in 2021, but this summer, with the help of Douyin, the two Internet celebrities were "onlookers" by young netizens on a large scale for the first time. Young people can't figure it out, just lip-syncing and singing, coupled with signature actions such as covering their mouths and laughing, raising their eyebrows, and pulling their hair, how did they capture nearly 30 million uncles and aunts?

There are aunts who run thousands of miles to find Xiucai, and some uncles say that they want to divorce and marry a smile, and young people don't understand why those "fake" copywriters can make middle-aged and elderly fans crazy to hit the list? Interestingly, after Xiucai and Yixiao fell out of the circle, they even set off an imitation boom among young people.

In the second half of the year, the wind of the Internet turned to young people, and the phenomenal Internet celebrities Yu Wenliang and Wen Huijun are all ordinary people who meet the aesthetics of young people.

In October this year, Yu Wen, an 18-year-old guy from Yantai, Shandong Province, became popular. Most of his short videos are clips of himself eating, cycling, and playing football, and the whole highlights one word, ordinary.

People describe him as a representative of thousands of ordinary people: he looks ordinary and his hair is ordinary, but he sees in him the state of "so ordinary and so happy" that he has been pursuing. Some netizens said that Yu Wenliang cured his "ordinary shame".

Soon, a kind of "Yu Wenliang phenomenon" appeared, and netizens posted selfies in the Wenliang comment area. His account gained millions of followers in 10 days.

Towards the end of the year, another uncle swiped the screen in the circle of friends of young people.

This person's name is Wen Huijun, and he is a driving school instructor from Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. The starting point of his popularity is that some bloggers strung together the three accounts he opened on Douyin and the "stalks" of his three lives: Li'an Wen in the morning (responsible for doing business, promoting the business of the driving school, and earning tuition for his son), Wenshen at noon (responsible for being funny, dancing "subject three"), and Wen Huijun in the evening (responsible for deep, the content is a selfie with emo copywriting).

Many young people describe that Wen Huijun has the appearance of the post-70s and the thoughts of the post-00s, especially his psychology of being crazy during the day and emo at night, especially like the appearance of the post-00s after they get old, so they all take his face-to-face selfies to the circle of friends, and add a sentence of copywriting.

The swiping screen of the circle of friends made Wenshen really popular on Douyin. In less than a day, the two accounts of Wenshen and Wenhuijun added up to 3.6 million fans.

The Internet celebrities who will stand out in 2023 will account for the vast majority of ordinary people, but the grassroots Internet celebrities who are selected by traffic will also expose a commonality: they are very easy to overturn.

Mr. Huang attracted millions of fans because of the trend of "digging and digging", but he also fell into controversy due to song copyright issues, relying on live broadcast rewards to receive millions of gifts, etc. She appeared at an event in late May, and was photographed by netizens on the scene of "losing her beauty", and was complained about being judged by the two in the short video in the live broadcast room, so she was also called "the fastest overturn in history".

Xiucai, who once sparked cross-age discussions, has an even more embarrassing ending. The realization of him and Yixiao Allure all rely on fans' live broadcasts to reward and brush gifts. In September, Xiucai's account was blocked, and the reason for the ban was related to suspected tax violations. Yixiao Allure has stopped updating since August 20th, and has been updated again since November, the style of the short video has not changed, but the popularity is not as good as one-tenth of a few months ago.

Yu Wenliang's "collapsed house" was faster. After becoming an Internet celebrity with 3.8 million followers, he began to broadcast live frequently and connect with other anchors. Once, the anchor on the opposite side bluntly said: "I'll come to the live broadcast to circle money", and Yu Wenliang responded: "Is it so true?

As soon as these words came out, Yu Wenliang quickly lost millions of fans. Netizens said that they used to think that Yu Wenliang was a clear stream in the Internet world, but now they are disgusted: he was still a beautiful character of "being happy even if he has no money, not coming for money" last month, but this month he was crazy about asking for gifts in the live broadcast room. Recently, Yu Wenliang issued an apology video, explaining that it was related to his mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer and being harassed by cyberbullying.

Towards the end of the year, for various reasons, except for Wenshen, who had just become popular, everyone else had disappeared into the sea of traffic.

The old top class, eventful

The ceiling of amateur Internet celebrities seems to be not high, and now those who can be called top are probably those "old Internet celebrities".

Let's take a look at the live broadcast first. "Lipstick First Brother" Li Jiaqi, the crazy Brother Yang who is constantly talked, and Dong Yuhui, who has recently been promoted by rockets, have become popular in 2017, 2018, and 2022, but without exception, 2023 will be full of controversy.

In recent years, Li Jiaqi has always been the top stream of the "live broadcast industry", but this year's two major e-commerce festivals, he has not had a peaceful time, 618 stopped broadcasting, and Double 11 was questioned about losing the "lowest price on the whole network" because of an oven.

In fact, the L'Oreal incident on Double 11 in 2021 and the Shiseido incident on Double 11 in 2022, no matter how the brand and anchor explain it, they have already formed the impression that Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room may not be the cheapest. The essence of live streaming is to screen people who have time and are price sensitive, and when the anchor who started from this loses the mentality of "the lowest price on the whole network", his status will inevitably be affected.

In addition to facing the turbulent reefs of live broadcast e-commerce, Li Jiaqi also has to deal with the emotional influence of consumers. In the "79 Yuan Huaxizi Eyebrow Pencil Incident" in September this year, he was planted. Although he finally apologized for his offense, his reputation was greatly affected and he once lost millions of fans.

The 2023 year of "Crazy Brother Yang", who has more than 100 million fans on the whole network, will be even more "crazy". For example, he has been punished by relevant agencies and complained by consumers for product quality problems and false propaganda for many times, and many suppliers have been ordered to rectify, and his apprentices have been accused of "vulgar" bringing goods......

Many people know Brother Xiao Yang because they watch the short videos he shoots about family scenes. Brother Xiao Yang relied on his nonsensical funny image to complete the first wave of fan accumulation, which became popular in 2018, and started to bring goods to cash in the second year, and later developed a "family-style" delivery matrix.

This year, Brother Xiao Yang tried to bring big brands and transform to high-end, but there were various unsuitables. White label and low-priced products are still frequent visitors in the live broadcast room.

At the end of the year, the most popular person may be Dong Yuhui. In December, topics related to him dominated the hot search for many days: from the editor and Dong Yuhui scolding each other, the CEO (Sun Dongxu) apologized, Dong Yuhui stopped broadcasting, the stock price and fans fell together, and then to the CEO stepped down and Dong Yuhui "appreciated". Finally, the series of turmoil in Dongfang Selection came to an end in stages.

The turmoil helped Dong Yuhui increase his popularity, and his fans skyrocketed to 22.75 million in the past few days, which is equivalent to as much as seventy percent of Dongfang Selection. Netizens said that Dong Yuhui's experience angered the workers, and he also cut his road to fame into a video, and corresponded to the key nodes of Dongfang's selection and development.

To put it simply, in June 2022, half a year after Dongfang Selection's transformation into live broadcast e-commerce, Dong Yuhui's knowledge output style of bringing goods suddenly became popular on the whole network, and the popularity of Dongfang Selection once overwhelmed Liu Genghong and surpassed the live broadcast room of Make a Friend, the number of account fans skyrocketed, and the company's stock price nearly doubled compared with before the education and training storm.

In the "Small Composition Turmoil", the outside world accused the editor of "provoking trouble" and Sun Dongxu's improper public relations, but the essence lies in the fact that the thinking of the management team of Dongfang Selection, a subsidiary of New Oriental, has not been reversed: it is still to manage employees with traditional thinking and communicate with netizens in the way of "class", which is not suitable for the "Internet celebrity economy", but makes the surging public opinion more intense. If this problem is not completely solved, Dong Yuhui's "workplace crisis" will not be completely resolved.

In addition to bringing goods, let's take a look at the clear stream among the two top streams: Li Ziqi, who became famous in 2016, and Liu Genghong, who became famous in 2022, and Liu Genghong, who is popular in 2022.

Compared with the vast majority of Internet celebrities who are still active in front of the stage, Li Ziqi has made many netizens unforgettable. Although she has been out of action for more than two years, her name often appears in the public eye.

Recently, the turmoil between Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection reminded the outside world of the contradiction between Li Ziqi and the operating agency Weinian. In April this year, according to media reports, Li Ziqi, who had stopped updating YouTube for more than a year, was still able to get 780,000 advertising revenue per month on this platform. This data is unconfirmed.

This not only surprises Li Ziqi's influence on YouTube, but also regrets the damage to IP caused by disputes and suspension of updates.

In 2016, the name Li Ziqi became famous in one fell swoop because of the video "Lanzhou Beef Noodles". Her works with both ancient style and pastoral colors are widely popular, with a total of more than 100 million fans on major video platforms.

According to Weinian, the contradiction between the two sides lies in equity. The monetization method of Li Ziqi's IP is mainly to sell goods (Li Ziqi snail noodles, lotus root noodles, etc.), but the Taobao store that sells goods is opened by Weinian, and Li Ziqi himself does not hold shares in Weinian.

According to Weinian, in December last year, the two sides reached a settlement. Tianyan check shows that Li Ziqi took back control of Sichuan Ziqi (Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd.). The operator of Li Ziqi's official flagship store is still Hangzhou Weinian (Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Company).

This dispute has taken more than 800 days, and there is no answer to when the disappeared Li Ziqi will return.

Recently, Liu Genghong has rarely appeared on the hot search, and the topic is that he "talked about the decline in traffic after more than 1 year". Recalling that in April and May last year, during the epidemic at home, Liu Genghong became popular and gained 30 million fans in 6 days, which is a veritable "national private education". When he taught shuttlecock and dragon boxing, the slogan "The fat on the side clicks off, and I want the mermaid line and vest line!" is undoubtedly the voice of all "Liu Genghong girls".

It is undeniable that Liu Genghong's attraction of fitness newcomers and the cultivation of fitness Xi habits of newcomers are phenomenal, but the core of fitness requires the user's time and physical investment, and as work and life return to normal, Liu Genghong girls are difficult to persevere, and cooling down is also an inevitability.

Why can't you make a top stream?

Why is it so difficult for Internet platforms to create new top-notch streams? It depends on who owns the traffic and how it is distributed.

Li Ziqi, who became popular in 2016, represents the change of traffic from the Weibo era to the short video era. Li Ziqi switched from Meipai to Weibo in 2016, and switched to Douyin in December 2017.

From 2018 to 2020, as long as you talk about the growth of Internet traffic, short videos are an industry that cannot be avoided. When personal expression is gradually short-videoized, this more intuitive and low-threshold way than the era of graphics and texts has begun to be ubiquitous, occupying the duration and activity of our mobile phones, and new Internet celebrities are emerging in an endless stream. From September 2018 to September 2020, the number of monthly active users of short videos increased from 518 million to 865 million.

In the era of short videos, while the traffic giant Douyin was born, it also brought out national Internet celebrities like Brother Xiaoyang. The year 2018, when Brother Xiao Yang became popular, was a crucial year for Douyin.

Since 2020, we can still see the frequent emergence of new Internet celebrities on short video platforms, but it is difficult to see the top national stream, which is related to the slowdown in the growth rate of monthly active users of short video users, the traffic mechanism of the platform, and the use of traffic for commercialization by the platform.

Wu Kang, the operator of the short video platform, told Dingjiao that after 2020, the market pattern is basically stable, and most of the incremental traffic of short videos flows to the head platform Douyin. Douyin's strategy is to support different IPs, as long as any account is interesting or has attention, it will immediately give traffic. Liu Genghong and Dongfang Selection are all top Internet celebrities who run out under this traffic mechanism.

And Liu Genghong and Dong Yuhui are not fighting alone, they have grown from Internet celebrities to top streamers, and three major elements are indispensable: excellent content, creativity is the foundation, capital operation is auxiliary, and there are unavoidable dividends of the times such as epidemic home and emotional resonance of workers.

Wu Kang said that Douyin's traffic distribution mechanism is highly centralized, which results in a relatively low degree of control over fans by Internet celebrities, and in order to maintain popularity, they must not only grasp the content characteristics of the platform, but also be good at traffic operation.

In other words, ordinary people have the probability of relying on content to suddenly become popular, which is not only in line with the platform's traffic mechanism, but also allows creators to see that there are still opportunities to make stars on the platform. But without the latter two elements, the scope of influence will eventually be limited, let alone the attention of the national level.

The amateur Internet celebrities who became popular this year have either declined or "collapsed", showing the cruel side of the Internet celebrity economy. Being pushed to the cloud by traffic in an instant, and even the wealth that is accumulating day by day, it is easy for people to fall into controversy and get lost.

Nowadays, Douyin's traffic is more decentralized. "In addition to short videos, commercial businesses such as live broadcast e-commerce and local life services have more abundant traffic. Wu Kang said that short videos can also bring out newcomers and Internet celebrities, but the life cycle will become shorter and shorter.

In addition to short videos, live streaming is another business model born in the mobile Internet era. Since 2019, traffic has shifted from the former to the latter.

If short video is the traffic reconstruction of content value, then live e-commerce is the reconstruction of traffic and transaction models, which can instantly turn traffic into "gold", so it is the main form of Taobao, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and other platforms to create top streams in recent years.

Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, the top performers in the first round of goods, created sales for Taobao that no one can match, and also represent Taobao's absolute right to speak in the first stage of live broadcast e-commerce.

The epidemic in 2020 accelerated the live broadcast e-commerce into the second stage, Luo Yonghao at that time to Douyin, and Dong Jie to Xiaohongshu in 2023, behind which are the strong entry of new platforms.

Different from short videos, platforms can take huge profits from live streaming. Therefore, Taobao and Douyin, which have the "top stream" of bringing goods, have to face the problem: super anchors are the result of the platform's god-making, but the super anchor's ability to contain the platform and fans, and the possible increased risk management, have always made the platform like a fish in the throat. The flow of the top streamers began to be redistributed.

And Xiaohongshu, which entered the game late, has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to create topics, and focuses on selecting people from celebrities to recreate the top stream, such as Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, and Wu Xin, but because of the late timing and limited audience, the volume cannot be called the top stream.

In the past two years, live e-commerce has entered the third stage. When the major e-commerce platforms no longer shout "GMV" and Double 11 begins to "quietly", when merchants no longer "lose money and make money" in exchange for explosive sales, will the super platforms still be able to bring the next top stream with goods? At least not yet.

In 2023, not only will part of the traffic within the platform be used for commercialization, but the traffic of the entire Internet will also be redistributed.

When Douyin's head Internet celebrity Liu Genghong's wife vivi, Dongfang Selection, and Make a Friend entered Taobao Live, it was not only a manifestation of the Internet platform's "tearing down the wall", but also meant that the short video platform and the e-commerce platform had encountered the bottleneck of the peak of user increment, and reached the stage of sharing traffic and advantages with each other from traffic to "retention".

In addition to the above-mentioned platforms, the rising WeChat video account has shown the potential to create hot topics on the whole network, and platforms such as Kuaishou and Bilibili also have their own areas of expertise.

In the future, we will have the opportunity to see more "Wenshen" from one platform to another, but the real top stream will only become more and more scarce.

In addition to the factors of platform and traffic, whether it is the top stream in the era of short video or live broadcast e-commerce, it has encountered a common contradiction that is difficult to fundamentally solve - the stability of IP.

The story of Li Ziqi and Dong Yuhui tells us that the personal attributes of strong IP are extremely strong, and there is a natural game between it and the company's brand attributes. Chen Zheng, the founder of the MCN agency, said, "Unless the Internet celebrity himself is the boss, even the marriage between the boss and the Internet celebrity is unstable."

The essence of this contradiction lies in the fact that the Internet celebrity economy is a model that relies on individual intelligence, hard work and charm, as well as the operation and assistance of the company. From a business point of view, the company behind it believes that influencers are replaceable, but fans and consumers recognize influencers as individuals. From the perspective of commercial stability, it is inevitable for the operation of the company to remove the head Internet celebrity, but once the company starts this action, there is another problem: how to weigh the influence of the fan group.

Chen Zheng told "Fixed Focus" that Dong Yuhui is not completely irreproducible, but the real crisis is that when the company cannot solve the stability problem of strong IP, and a Dong Yuhui leaves, it may be difficult to come out again. "It's hard to appease internal streamers or deal with external fans," he added.

In 2024, the Internet is still looking forward to the story of an overnight explosion, maybe more people will be pushed to the cloud by traffic, and at the same time, more names will no longer be mentioned, allowing us to witness the madness and cruelty of the traffic economy again and again. Isn't this a new starting point for the Internet?

*The title picture comes from @Wenhuijun. At the request of the interviewee, Wu Kang and Chen Zheng are pseudonyms in the article. Note: The "current number of followers" in this article is as of December 24, 2023.