The female doctor went undercover as a female anchor in the show for 3 years to write a thesis, and saw the "despair" of the low-level anchor

You can click into a live broadcast room and follow any female showrunner, but it's hard to meet them in the offline world. On the other end of the network, the streamers are like bats living in caves, getting up at night and going live. They are barely visible during the day. Most of the time, only food delivery and medicine delivery workers come in and out of their rental houses. Some anchors have not even gone out of the community for two or three years, except for taking takeaway and throwing garbage.

If you can't get in the sun for a long time, people are a little afraid of light. Because of all-nighters and insomnia, most of the anchors are not in good health, some suffer from myocarditis, and some new anchors faint at home just a month after the broadcast. Removing the thick makeup and beauty filters, the anchors in reality are getting worse than the other.

This is the survival situation of the low-level show anchors that Wang Yilin came into contact with. If they don't work day and night and challenge their biological limits, it will be difficult for them to survive in the highly competitive live streaming industry. Wang Yilin is a PhD from the University of Hong Kong and will become an assistant professor at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College after graduating this year. Since 2019, she has chosen live streaming of Chinese shows as the topic for her doctoral dissertation and started a three-year fieldwork.

If you just look at the guild's recruitment postings, being a female streamer should be the most perfect job in the world. There is no limit to academic qualifications, and there are not many high requirements for appearance, just like a talent scout from a guild said, "If you have a beautiful face, there are no ugly people", "You can broadcast it if you are a person". You don't have to get up early to crowd the subway, and you don't have to run around. Work four hours a day and five days off a month. You only need to put on makeup, sit at home, chat with people, talk, and turn on the live broadcast to collect money. Many unions call themselves "MCN companies". The live broadcast base, also known as the "Internet celebrity incubation base", can easily make amateurs have the reverie of becoming Internet celebrity stars. Wang Yilin saw that some offline live broadcast rooms would have a piece of paper on the wall, which read:

"Turn me into Bai Fumei, and then raise your head and chest in front of your future husband, be upright, and don't spend a penny on him to buy whatever you want!!"

© Wang Yilin

This kind of work attracts many young girls who have just come out of society. These students who graduated from vocational and technical colleges may have gone to factories in the past, but now, they care more about being seen, hoping to become famous and make money quickly, and find a more decent path.

But when you really click into these live broadcast rooms, most of the time, the anchor is saying, "Please give me a like", "Don't go". For a dime, you can get the qualification of "0.1 yuan to flirt with the anchor". A high-level big brother came to the live broadcast room, and the anchors would immediately get up to welcome him. Sometimes, when someone suddenly swipes a gift worth thousands of yuan, the anchor will cry so much that he keeps saying "thank you, big brother", "thank you Lao Tie, I will bow to you".

"It feels like begging". Wang Yilin said. These contrasts and doubts are also the reason why she wants to do this research: does live broadcast meet the wishes of these young people? What impact does it have on their lives? Who is live broadcasting, and why does it have to be live? Can blocking the platform and encouraging people to work hard solve all problems? This is the question she wants to show in her research.

The guild does not welcome outsiders to report on the industry. A staff member told Wang Yilin, "If you know everything that happened here, and tear off the fig leaf, our industry will be over." ”

In March 2019, Wang Yilin sent interviews to 20 female anchors, but only 6 replied to her, and all of them refused to have further conversations. It wasn't until later that a female anchor who was about to leave agreed to the interview. The reason why she left her job was because of her relationship with her "big brother".

After the "big brother" supported her for a while, she never appeared in the live broadcast room again. She became more and more lonely, afraid of the broadcast, and fell into a state of depression and severe insomnia. At the beginning, Wang Yilin didn't understand very much, isn't it normal for people to come and go in the live broadcast room? She didn't reveal the story with her eldest brother, but just told Wang Yilin, "If you are your own anchor, you will definitely be able to experience my feelings."

In order to understand the life, work, emotions and interpersonal relationships of female anchors, in March 2019, Wang Yilin joined a national top 10 guild in Chengdu and became a full-time female anchor.

The following is Wang Yilin's own statement:

Bottom-level anchors

The first step to becoming a female anchor is to know how to use beauty. After signing a contract, all new streamers will receive several "beauty parameter adjustment suggestion sheets": it is best to smooth out no more than 60%, so that the live broadcast picture presents a distorted beauty. The nose is directly raised, the head-to-shoulder ratio must be adjusted, and the slimming face can be opened by 40%-80%, which is not only photogenic, but also does not look aggressive. "School girl" and "pseudo-plain makeup" are the filters that can best show childishness, thinness, and innocence, and Sister Duo, the agent of the guild, said that this is the most in line with the aesthetics of East Asian men.

When I was in Lianmai, I met Xiaoyu from the northeast, a 24-year-old who lives in a small city near the border. Xiaoyu thinks that she looks ordinary, but with a beauty filter, "there is no difference between her and Internet celebrities." Because of the small local population, it is difficult for her to meet a big brother with enough spending power. Even if you live live all night, the income you get is taken by the platform and the guild, which is not enough to pay for electricity and food.

"I earn 50 a night, which is not enough to buy these cosmetics on my face. Lipstick, liquid foundation, concealer, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, blush...... And lotions, makeup removers, creams...... In the future, I will open a beautiful face, no more makeup, no more!"

Cosmetics © for a female anchor Visual China

For Xiaoting, another low-level anchor, what beauty filters out is her embarrassment in real life. 28-year-old Xiaoting is a single mother, her ex-husband suddenly lost his job, and the elderly in the family were seriously ill. She raised the weight loss coefficient to cover her figure that had not yet recovered.

For less than 50 yuan, you can buy a dress online that has a poor texture, but is photogenic enough. She is very satisfied with this, "I have a beautiful face, and I wear brand-name clothes and cheap clothes." The live broadcast only needs to reveal a small area, whether it is a big house or not, and the audience can't tell it. Xiaoting once sent me a photo of her home, and off the camera, there were baby bottles, diapers, toys, medicine boxes and plastic bags piled up in the corner. What can't be revealed is her real life.

Like Xiaoting, the thirty-year-old anchor Lili is also a single mother. She has two children, and because of her debts, she was listed as a dishonest person by the bank. During the day, she gets up at 6 a.m. and doesn't care about dressing, so she has to cook for her children and send them to school. In the evening, she sat in the live broadcast room, put on a mask blessed by filters, and laughed and chatted with the "big brothers". The more exaggerated the beauty, the more secure she felt. Only in this way can she calmly switch between the two worlds without being recognized in front of children, teachers, and parents.

A female anchor © who is broadcasting live from Visual China

After two or three years of following streamers, I've found that a lot of women are surprisingly resilient. What touched me the most was an anchor that I had been following for a long time, but had never met. On her personal account, she will post videos of her confinement and post photos of children who are not yet full moon. But in the live broadcast software, she can be seen painting makeup every night, broadcasting live like a nobody, not even a day off. For a little living space, they will fight hard.

None of the many female anchors I know are Chengdu natives. Most of them come from some underdeveloped areas in the west, even poor counties. Female anchors who graduated from vocational and technical schools already belong to the highly educated group, and many of them dropped out of school early. Some of them are young girls who can't find jobs after graduation, some are divorced single mothers with children, or women who are in debt because of investment or entrepreneurship.

Anchoring is the best choice for them, and as my agent said, "For a divorced woman who has to take care of two children, live streaming may be the only option, because she can live a stable and prosperous life as soon as possible." ”

I was in the guild's offline live broadcast room, and I saw a piece of paper pasted on the wall, which described the common vision of these women: "Let me become Bai Fumei and then hold my head high in front of your future husband, and be bold and don't spend a penny on him to buy whatever he wants!!

However, only when you really step into this industry will you understand that this so-called shortcut to a decent life is nothing more than an empty dream.

Pain available for sale

In the beginning, I was positioned as a "talent streamer". I studied 200 songs, and every person who entered the live broadcast room, I would also use notes to write down what songs they ordered and what they liked.

The staff taught me the rules of survival in this industry. For example, the "five dares": "dare to sing", "dare to shout", "dare to flirt", "dare to blacken yourself" and "dare to connect" (Lianmai).

Lianmai PK is the focus of the work of female anchors. If you just sit in front of the camera and are unwilling to PK the microphone, you will receive a warning from the agent. I've been told that this is the best way to convert a casual viewer into a loyal fan. One player also asked me to "get out of the way": "You think there will be a lot of people watching sitting like this?"

In PK games, you can choose an anchor in the watchlist, or you can be matched by an algorithm to someone else. The two anchors who accept the challenge will be cut into the same live broadcast screen and have three rounds of PK with a total duration of three minutes. Whoever receives the most gifts is the winner, and the loser must be punished.

What PK and how to punish, the anchors will ask their respective big brothers for their opinions in advance to see what they want to see. A mere talent competition is not appealing enough. In order to stimulate male fans to give gifts, some female streamers will include sexually suggestive performances, such as twisting their waists, kissing the screen, shaking their chests, or rubbing their bodies against chairs.

The punishment is also very insulting. I once matched with a male anchor, and after losing the game, he asked me to do as he said, moving down the camera and nodding my head. At first glance, it doesn't sound excessive. But a friend who was watching the live broadcast sent me a WeChat message telling me that the action was sexual. Everyone in the live broadcast room was laughing at me and making me feel like a fool.

The webcamer © who is live streaming Visual China

Once, I had a PK with a big streamer, and she said that if I could afford to play, she would consider becoming friends with me on the platform. "Afford to play" is to ask me to lose the PK and pour a bottle of water into my clothes, and this punishment also has a name, called "high mountains and flowing water". In order to establish contact with the big anchors, I can only accept it. I've experienced all sorts of punishments, such as drawing on my face, putting a garbage bag over my head, jumping barefoot on a bottle cap, taking a sip of water and spitting it out, plucking my hair with scotch tape, and so on.

A female anchor once complained to me that she met a big brother who had a foot fetish. "Big brother" refers to the loyal fans who support most of the streamer's income. When she loses the game, the eldest brother comes up with a punishment and asks her to grab a small ball with her foot. This strange fetish makes her feel disgusting, but she can't find a second man who can spend more money than this big brother. After the punishment, the eldest brother will give her a gift.

Watching the anchor being humiliated is part of the entertainment, so others are willing to spend thousands, or even tens of thousands, on gifts. I interviewed a player on a platform who told me that swearing in front of other male players, teasing female streamers, and manipulating them to do what they wanted them to do in the live broadcast room would make him feel "very liberated and comfortable".

I've found that a lot of male gamers watch live streams and don't make explicit requests directly. Some big brothers will feel that it is "boring" to let the female anchor directly expose the nudity, and "it seems that I am particularly low". Sex is highly hidden, yet ubiquitous. When will it be released? Actually, it's in those three minutes of PK. Desire is hidden in the game, so that players can get pleasure in a grand way. Some people speak very civilly in the live broadcast room, and when they add WeChat, they start to scold and ask the anchor to post nude videos. The side they don't want others to see is actually a kind of twisting psychology of East Asians about sex.

Many people will think that being a show anchor is like sitting there and falling in love with the eldest brother, but it is not so simple.

I once swiped the live broadcast room of a female anchor on the platform. She says she is a mother of three. During the live broadcast, the mother was wearing a clown outfit, and a gift table was pasted on the wall: Careful Heart (0.1 yuan), cheering duck (1.5 yuan), etc., most of which were small gifts of a few yuan. Some can make her croak ten times, and some can make her do 20 squats. When I think about that image now, I still feel sad.

This kind of game has even slowly evolved offline. In Wuyi Square, the most prosperous place in Changsha, there are many outdoor anchors. They not only connected online, but also found anchors on the same street to PK. My collaborator, Mr. Dong Chenyu, once described to me a picture he saw. Two anchors are standing in the rain, one man pouting his ass, and the other woman is spanking his ass, and the spanking is very loud.

In such a gamified situation, people will convince themselves to do something that pushes their boundaries, without even realizing that it has done them a disservice.

But it works. Later, I also met my "big brother" when I was playing PK games. That day, I lost a PK match and was punished for spanking. My eldest brother said that when he saw the painful expression on my face, he felt very guilty. After that, he made up his mind to give me a gift and help me win other PKs.

There is a popular saying on the platform, called "The anchor's mouth, the ghost who deceives people." The fragility of the anchor is the tears of a crocodile".

A love game where heroes save beauty

The platform consumes feelings and creates feelings. It's hard to come across this kind of dramatic situation in your daily life: imagine that when you are about to face the humiliation of crawling on the ground or dancing on a "chair", you are presented with a duke, monarch, or even emperor (the status level on the platform, which means they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the platform). How many gifts have fallen from the sky that the anchor has been looking forward to, and he has exchanged his generosity for your dignity, a day's income, and a romantic experience. Many female anchors I have contacted have been deeply moved by the masculinity of the big brother in this kind of game of heroes saving beauty.

The eldest brother who had made up his mind to let me no longer lose PK spent tens of thousands of yuan to participate in the platform's lottery game and won the first prize worth 4,880 yuan "elopement to the moon". He told me: "What other streamers have, I also hope you can have, be the first to give you this gift." ”

Live screen © Wang Yilin

That night, I sat there without saying anything, watching the special effects bloom in front of me, and I felt the thrill of my heart. There is a saying in the guild called "No female anchor can resist the romance of the big brother, and no big brother can resist the romantic illusion of the lucky draw". Even at the end of the day, I only received 20% of these gifts, and the rest of the income went into the pockets of the platform and guilds.

But the cruel thing about this love game is that the big brothers don't just like one streamer, their freshness can only last for a few months, and some are faster, and they are gone in a month or two.

At first, I thought that female anchors could retain people by relying on their excellent talents. Later, I found out that as long as you are brave and can play, you can make money, but the longer you live broadcast, the more I find that there is nothing I can control.

If you find that the enthusiasm of the eldest brother has decreased, a common trick used by anchors is to "sell miserably" in various ways, including uploading photos of themselves sick, writing sad essays in the circle of friends, and making the most ruthless punishment when losing PK, etc. One of my eldest brothers once said in an interview that every time he saw a female anchor crying, he would feel embarrassed and guilty. "I will give her gifts, everyone in the live broadcast room knows that I am a big brother, I don't want to lose face in front of others, and I don't want others to feel that I don't have money to play on the platform." But he also hates the anchor's tears, "they're pushing me".

If they find that their eldest brother is following other people, many anchors will register an anonymous account to track their eldest brother. Take screenshots every day to save the wealth value of the information on the eldest brother's homepage, and if the number changes, you can guess how much money the eldest brother spent on "other women".

Just as wives find evidence of their husband's affair, they fall out with the eldest brother or ask the older brother for more expensive gifts as compensation. Jiajia, a 25-year-old anchor from Shanghai, deliberately did not broadcast live for a week, blocking the account of the eldest brother, letting him know that he was jealous and angry, and came back to coax her. At even more extreme times, she broadcast live for three consecutive days, using this way of challenging her physical limits to force her eldest brother to return to the live broadcast room - if you have enough gifts, the eldest brother has the right to let the female anchor rest. Some female anchors can't stand the continuous live broadcast and will faint in front of the camera, giving male players the strongest emotional stimulation.

Male fans send flowers © to the anchor Visual China

Many streamers will unknowingly fall into emotional entanglements. Yaoyao was an anchor who joined me at the same time. She is 21 years old, she is very cute, and she used to be a dance teacher who specializes in teaching children to dance. Not long after Yaoyao started broadcasting, her eldest brother, who had known her for less than a month, gave her a virtual gift of 20,000 yuan. In order to let Yaoyao appear on the city's hot search hour list on the platform, the eldest brother will also set an alarm clock to give her gifts and make data before the hour list is updated.

usually dances in the live broadcast room, and someone will say something offensive to Yaoyao, so the eldest brother applies to become an administrator, kicks those people away, and becomes Yaoyao's guardian. With the support of her eldest brother, Yaoyao's monthly income soon reached 30,000.

In the third month, the girl, who had no experience in love, fell. The eldest brother went on a business trip to her city, and the two of them made an appointment to meet offline. Yaoyao, who didn't know that her eldest brother already had a family, became a passive third party.

Most of the offline relationships with big brothers will not last long. Yaoyao soon discovered that without the identity reconstruction of the live broadcast platform that imitated the aristocratic rank, the eldest brother was just an ordinary businessman. Although he has a wife and children, he is very lonely on a long-term business trip, and he can only rely on watching live broadcasts to pass the time when he rests in hotels and guesthouses.

The eldest brother didn't like her as much as he thought. The reason why Yaoyao was able to receive those big gifts was because the eldest brother was addicted to the platform's blind box drawing and playing turntable activities. The platform uses the form of games to hide its gambling nature. Winning a gift is a pleasure, and giving it to your favorite anchor in exchange for their hospitality is the second pleasure.

On the other hand, the relationship between the anchor and the eldest brother is built in the environment of the live broadcast room. The big brothers don't like to transfer money privately, and prefer to give gifts in public in the live broadcast room, they need to be witnessed by other male players, be watched and worshipped, and establish a successful male image.

In the live broadcast room, the eldest brother gave Yaoyao a gift of 200 yuan. But she won't know if it took 20,000 yuan to draw the big brother behind him, and the value of this gift has unlimited imagination. But in reality, Yaoyao received a lipstick, and this gift was obviously two or three hundred yuan. Without an audience, the pleasure is greatly reduced, the giver feels bored, and the person receiving the gift is also bored.

In the end, the main reason for the separation of the two was the eldest brother's reluctance to give up his family. Yaoyao has always felt that her nose is not good-looking, and in order to save her eldest brother, she has tried plastic surgery. He also lent money to his eldest brother when his business was not going well. Once, Yaoyao asked me if I was pregnant with his child and could keep my eldest brother. While the eldest brother was asleep, she used his mobile phone to send a text message to the eldest brother's wife to declare sovereignty. But this has no other effect than to anger the big brother.

You will find that the only remaining warmth and romance of each other have disappeared with the disappearance of the live broadcast platform environment. For young girls, these perceptions of what makes a good intimate relationship can be changed. Yaoyao once told me that she might not be able to like real-life boys anymore.

The guild has never supported streamers and big brothers meeting privately. They know best that the live show is a game of human nature. Some people are greedy, some people are lonely, some people are lustful, and some people love face, and the anchor actually uses these human weaknesses to monetize. Guild people often tell streamers, "Once you meet, your relationship is over."

Who is Big Brother?

When I met my eldest brother in reality, I realized that they were completely different from what I imagined. For research needs, I met offline with more than a dozen big brothers who have been conducting live broadcasts on the platform for a long time. Some are fans of my live broadcast room, and some are introduced by the live broadcast sisters. Of course, they are not all big brothers who spend an amazing amount of money, but they all invest a lot in the live broadcast platform, especially in terms of time and emotion.

What impressed me the most was the man I met in a small town in the Sichuan-Chongqing region. The middle-aged man in front of him is shouting and selling oranges on the mobile stalls in the market, and after selling them for a while, he will have to change places. The T-shirt on his body was washed white and thin, revealing a few holes.

The eldest brother was married, and his wife used to owe money because of playing mahjong, and in order to avoid debts, she ran away with others. Today, he is alone raising two children who are about to enter middle school. During the day, I get some goods from my hometown to sell, sometimes oranges, sometimes walnuts. In the evening, I went to a local factory to drive to pull goods.

Before I left, my eldest brother tore down a few bags, filled them one by one, and asked me to take them home to eat: "You must take it, I don't have anything for you."

I always think of the way he looked when he loaded oranges for me, and it was hard to associate him with the big brother on the platform who was talking foul words and brushing gifts. He has several accounts and has spent 10,000 or 20,000 on the platform.

When I wrote field notes on the subway, I was very sad, how could people who felt that life was so difficult still induce others to consume in the live broadcast room?

Later, many anchors knew that this big brother was not easy, and they would persuade him not to spend money and just accompany him in the live broadcast room. But when the factory pays salaries, the eldest brother will still spend hundreds or thousands of yuan in the live broadcast room one night to brush two sports cars for several favorite anchors. He is very proud of this: "You see that I am a 'rain and dew'. "That moment was very important to him.

For this single father who lives in an underdeveloped area, he is faced with either working to earn money or two children every day, and he lives a lonely life. On the platform, the eldest brother learned that liking others not only earns money to take home, but also gives flowers and gifts. It was a romantic relationship that had never been there before. When he really has no money, he will stay in the live broadcast room, chat with them, and maintain order.

A plush doll © in the room of a female anchor Visual China

Most of the big brothers I came into contact with were in the construction industry. The project money is generally lagging behind, and when they suddenly get a sum of money, the true value of the money becomes blurred, and they will not cherish it, but spend it immediately. There are also people who work night shifts in factories at night, or run long distances, and the business is stressful, but there is also some free time. They all came to the big city from the surrounding towns and villages, and they couldn't integrate into the city life.

Some eldest brothers complained to me about their marriage and family. There is a lot of pressure to raise children, his wife is strong, and his mother-in-law dislikes him for not making any money. Another eldest brother has just set up a company, and in order to win a project in Chengdu, he has to deal with a difficult middleman every day, "I feel like I live like a dog."

The eldest brother who needs to satisfy others and please others has changed from "Party B" to "Party A" in the live broadcast room, gaining the attention and respect they crave. The platform will formulate the status level according to the player's consumption level, as long as you spend a lot of money, you can break away from the civilian status and enter the aristocratic system, becoming a knight, earl, and emperor.

After a long period of contact, you will find that the big brothers are actually very fragile, "glass-hearted", and they will offend them if they are not careful. Sometimes, a high-level player suddenly came to the live broadcast room, and the anchor began to divert his attention and greet the newcomers, and some big brothers would be jealous, "Look, if you have a newcomer, you forget the old one." ”

After the broadcast, I found out that a big brother blocked me. He felt that he had not given a gift and had been left out in the cold. The anchor has to coax them all the time, "Brother will come back tomorrow", "Don't go, love you".

Recalling the days of frantically brushing gifts in the live broadcast room, the big brothers will regret it in the end. One of my eldest brothers has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the platform, so he owes a huge debt. At the last time he met me, he showed me a small essay accusing the live streaming platform, attributing all his failures to being induced to conduct live stream tips, especially live lottery draws.

He wrote in his essay that he was originally a "sunny and healthy" man who opened two companies. When he was on a business trip, a friend recommended a live broadcast platform to him, saying that he could watch a football game and a female anchor sing. He was curious, so he downloaded the software, clicked in and saw that everyone else was swiping gifts. After the anchor taught him to recharge, he was "out of control" from then on.

When there is no money to spend, in order to maintain the image of a successful man on the platform, the eldest brother will also borrow money to spend. The software is embedded with a micro-loan business, and it is easy to borrow money.

Later, because of poor management, the company collapsed, and he also owed debts, so he could only work everywhere. Every time we meet, I invite him to dinner. Usually, he is always reluctant to spend money on meals, and sometimes he only eats one bowl of Chongqing noodles a day. In winter, the two sets of clothes are changed back and forth, and when you get closer, you can smell that the down jacket is already worn.

At the beginning, he still couldn't quit live broadcasting. So he lied to his wife and asked her to give money for entertainment, and then use the money for gifts. It wasn't until the end that the anchors who had a good relationship with him also stopped broadcasting one after another, and finally sold the account.

The eldest brother regrets it every day, why not put his mind on the company's operation, if hundreds of thousands are still there, will life be different now?

Desperate labor

After the fieldwork, I completed my doctoral dissertation. Before I became a female anchor, I also had a similar question about my colleague who left due to depression and pain: Is it so?

Yilin Wang's Ph.D. dissertation © Yilin Wang

In the five months since I joined the company, I can clearly feel the change in myself. At first, as a researcher, I thought that as long as I knew more people in the industry, it didn't matter if I could keep my big brother. Even if I earn only three cents a day, I don't get too anxious. However, as the number of supporters gradually increased, and I began to receive gifts of "sports cars" and "elopement to the moon", at that moment, I felt like a star. These things amplify human desires.

After the broadcast, I was lying in bed, my ears had just been bombarded by those subwoofers for hours, my ears were dullly painful, my hearing was declining, and my brain was becoming more active. I also started to lose sleep, and I was overwhelmed by a huge sense of loss: will those people come tomorrow, will they still receive gifts, no matter what they have gained, how happy they are, and when they wake up, everything can be lost at any time.

Like many streamers, I also started to consciously extend the live broadcast time, from the first five hours, to seven hours, singing and chatting non-stop, and since then, I have suffered from chronic pharyngitis, which has affected me ever since.

Because the live broadcast time was long enough, I also got the guild's monthly "Live Star". The prize is not cash, but a virtual "castle" gift in the live broadcast room. According to the sharing rules, I only get 20%. In other words, I worked overtime, and the guild had to take most of the money from my rewards.

The next broadcast does not mean that the work is over, I moved from the back chair to the bed, continued to open the software, and maintained a relationship with the player: "Big brother, have you gotten up? Have you eaten? What are the arrangements for today? I will start broadcasting at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, do you want to come?"

I used to be unable to accept PK humiliation games, and I also began to teach newcomers who have just entered the industry, how can you sit there and do nothing? If you don't do it, how can you have a chance? In this environment, people will gradually be alienated.

During that time, a friend asked me, why haven't I seen you engage in academics and publish papers after being an anchor for almost half a year?

If you do this for a long time, people's attention and energy will be swallowed up by the platform, and they will not be interested in real life. I feel a huge sense of emptiness every day, but I still turn on the live streaming platform uncontrollably, and I can't even read a book to enrich myself. Many anchors told me that they used to watch dramas and variety shows, but after becoming an anchor, they never watched it again. Four or five months later, even though I was doing well, I realized that I couldn't live this life any longer.

I've lived with anchor Jiajia for a week, and she's the best-bodied and most lucrative celebrity anchor among us. In the past seven days, she has never gone to sleep in her room with me, and when she finishes the live broadcast every day, she sits on the ground, either staring out the window until dawn, or she has been brushing the live broadcast room of the same level anchor to learn how others Xi do it. Even if it's a day off, that's what comes to mind. I went to the female anchor's party and found that everyone was chatting with my eldest brother on their mobile phones or watching other live broadcasts.

Many anchors stay in their rental houses all day long, and in the three years that I have been following them, some have never even gone out to the community except for takeout. An anchor I follow has been posting photos of drips in the hospital on social media for a long time.

The eldest brother spends more money on the anchor, and he will also ask for returns. There is a second brother who supports me, and he doesn't come to my live broadcast room for several days. He clearly knew how bleak the data of my live broadcast was during that time. Later, I couldn't help but ask him, what exactly do you want me to do? He replied to me: "You are so smart, you must know, my brother depends on your performance." "He wanted to come and meet him in my city, or let me fly to his city to accompany him.

In the early stage, when I was live streaming in the guild's offline studio, someone gave me a small gift and sent a private message: "I'll pick you up from work later." "Usually, in order to attract traffic from the vicinity, anchors will turn on positioning. The player will be able to see that the distance between the two sides is 1000 meters, 500 meters, or 100 meters.

The guild's offline live broadcast room © Wang Yilin

Some players can see the window behind the anchor in the live broadcast room, and infer the anchor's location based on the billboard or Street View. When I was live broadcasting, I saw a barrage: "I know you are on the first floor of the XX office building, and it is full of anchors." "At that moment, I was scared, I couldn't see anyone at all, but they knew my specific information.

If the player is obsessed with the platform's lottery game and owes no money, it will be counted on the anchor's head in the end. Some people will find the anchor to collect debts, and they will think, "I spent money on it to draw blind boxes and gifts for you". In fact, the anchor can only get 20%~30% of the gifts here, and the maximum is not more than 50%. An anchor I know, in order to avoid his eldest brother's door-to-door debt collection, canceled his account, moved, changed six live broadcast platforms in a row, and finally had to hide in an illegal foreign platform.

After five months of undercover work on the platform, I quit my job and left the industry in order to meet my interviewees and learn more about their real offline lives. I was free to choose, but the other streamers couldn't retreat. In the WeChat circle of friends, I often see those anchor friends constantly stopping and rebroadcasting. They all mentioned to me that they didn't want to be show anchors anymore and couldn't find any other way to go.

These girls are not highly educated, so they can only find jobs such as the front desk, with a salary of 3,000 yuan, and it is a problem to even cover their own living expenses.

A female anchor switched to the live streaming industry and joined the product selection team. She soon discovered that the job was more tiring than a show anchor. Every day, thousands of products that have been broadcast live are entered into the system, reviews are written, copywriting is written, and the preferential mechanism of each product is recorded. The samples sent by the manufacturer must be tried by themselves first, all kinds of anti-hair loss shampoos, and wipe them on the head one by one. After joining the company, the salary changed from the promised 10,000 to 5,000, which was lower than when she was an anchor. All cooperation is irregular, and there is not even a contract.

Every time I do the sharing of live broadcast industry research, there are always people who criticize the live broadcast of the show and think that these platforms should be banned. But I've found that these kinds of live streaming platforms are at least legal and regulated. If they can't survive on the green platform, they will be squeezed into illegal spaces.

A streamer I know was introduced to a gambling grey platform because he didn't broadcast well. You can only download the software by clicking on the pop-up window that says there is a virus through a specific link. Her job is to be responsible for live football matches, and players will buy balls and recharge balls, and they will be connected by special personnel. It didn't take long for her to receive a call from the "police station" saying that she was engaged in illegal activities and must cooperate with the investigation of funds. In a hurry, she borrowed money everywhere and transferred more than 100,000 yuan to the other party. When they found out that it was telecom fraud, they didn't dare to call the police or ask for help, "people will say that you are not clean".

So, in my dissertation, I came up with a concept called "desperate labor." Anchors must constantly and strategically challenge the rules of the platform in various nested uncertainties, and even resort to self-harm to gain limited living space. They exploit themselves, hurt themselves, and at the same time get some "highlights" that are noticed and loved. When they want to start a new life, they find that live shows are already the best and highest-paying option. I hope that the concept of "desperate labor" will help us understand the industry in which they live and the complexity of human nature and desire.

I often feel powerless when doing this research. A few years have passed, and many female anchors have come full circle and returned to the industry. For them, the live streaming industry can also provide a delusion. Just like an anchor with children at home showed me, her eldest brother spent 90,000 yuan in the live broadcast room in a month. She gets 30% of it, which is a huge amount of money.

When she was a child, she dropped out of high school before finishing because of her family's difficulties. Now she is over 30 years old, she has no strong skills, and in order to take care of her children, she can't be too far away from home, and her life is restricted everywhere.

For these anchors, if they want to break this kind of life that can be seen at a glance, they can only wait for the "gods" to fall from the sky and open a grand prize in this gamble.

◦ Cover image from Visual China.

作者 | 陈晓妍 编辑 | 张瑞 出品 | 腾讯新闻 谷雨工作室

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