Chao News client trainee reporter Wu Fumei reporter Wu Yue intern Lan Xinyu
"Honey, get closer, I'll hold you" "If you want to hear the blush little plot, brush a small gift"...... At 12 o'clock in the evening, in the live broadcast room called "Pillow Girlfriend", the loud "girlfriend tone" with the intimate cartoons of men and women attracted thousands of netizens to watch at the same time.
"The anchor sometimes looks like he rolls over in bed, accompanied by a rapid wheezing sound...... Zhang Xiaoming, a third-year student in Hangzhou, often receives such live broadcast room pushes after searching for "insomnia" on his mobile phone. He said that the virtual "pillow girlfriend" who quietly went online late at night was not an exception. On multiple short video social platforms, they have a similar "business" - under the slogan of "sleeping together" and "sleep aid", producing and disseminating "soft" sounds, QQ group numbers pop up from time to time in the live broadcast room, accurately hunting customers, and selling more explicit "small lessons". According to the third-party platform's attention to group portraits and comments, there is no shortage of students in the audience.
After an investigation by Chao News reporters, a mature virtual "pillow girlfriend" industry chain surfaced: recruiting voice anchors to develop "pillow girlfriends", specialized training institutions to teach relevant courses, and organizing fans to join the community for "operation and maintenance", and an anchor can earn up to 30,000 yuan a month.
Ding, "Pillow Girlfriend" was launched late at night
In the virtual "Pillow Girlfriend" live broadcast room, one o'clock in the morning is more lively than during the day. The reporter entered a virtual "pillow girlfriend" live broadcast room and found that as many as seven or eight hundred people were following online in real time. The anchor was interacting with netizens, and said angrily, "Come and kiss one, Mua" and "Brother's instructions are too good"......
During the live broadcast, the scantily clad virtual animated character, with his chest close to the screen, his lips appear more plump and moist, trying his best to imitate the emoji sent by the "big brother on the list". Along with the action, there are also the gasps and teasing voices of the live anchors, the words full of sexual innuendo, and the barrage of frequent brushes by the audience.
Screenshot of part of the virtual "pillow girlfriend" live broadcast room.
The body instantly went limp, and the whole body seemed to have an electric current with just the right strength to pass through, and the scalp was crispy and numb. Zhang Xiaoming shared his feelings in the barrage, and after listening to it for less than ten minutes, he felt his face red and his heart beat.
Ambiguous and lingering love words, soft voices, and AI characters scratching their heads and posing...... Late at night, the virtual "pillow girlfriend" captured the hearts of a large group of "lonely people", and some fans have reached more than 100,000. And this kind of live broadcast is not uncommon on short video social platforms.
Chao News reporter investigation found that the virtual "pillow girlfriend" generally starts broadcasting at about ten o'clock in the evening, and before midnight, it is mainly chatting and singing, and it begins to show its "true face" late at night——
From time to time, the sound of kissing, gasping, and swallowing saliva is heard, and through "explicit" and "sexually suggestive" words, the audience is lured to brush gifts for them. The deeper the night, the greater the margin of contact with pornography.
Netizen barrage in the live broadcast room.
The reporter learned that the more common virtual "pillow girlfriends" are "voice-activated girlfriends" and "command girlfriends". The former will play the roles of sister-in-law, nurse, little secretary and other roles under the reward of fans, and improvise the sitcom of rubbing edges, while the latter is to release a list of actions, and fans can ask the anchor to complete themed actions such as "just turned 18 years old" by rewarding a certain amount.
The live broadcast room will also emphasize that swiping a gift can only do one action, if you want to change the action option, you can swipe high-value gifts such as airplanes and sports cars. Or guide fans to "accumulate the number of gifts to a certain level" before they will start "soft" sitcoms, etc. There are even anchors who directly said, "If you don't give light signs, don't brush gifts, we will kick people directly".
The third-party platform displays the data of the "Pillow Girlfriend" live broadcast room.
Even so, there are still a large number of loyal fans squatting in the live broadcast room. Some virtual "pillow girlfriends" conduct more than a dozen live broadcasts every month, with more than 100,000 fans. There are also new anchors with less than 10,000 fans, and 48 broadcasts have been launched this year, with an average of 12,000 viewers per game, and the highest number of viewers has reached 29,000.
In addition to the virtual "pillow girlfriend", there are also a large number of "virtual boyfriends" and "voice-activated boyfriends" on short video social platforms, which also use the slogan of coaxing sleep and helping sleep, and the "business" routine is the same.
The industrial chain behind the doxxing "virtual girlfriend".
In fact, in the entire virtual "pillow girlfriend" chain, the live broadcast room is just an entrance to drainage, and there is a larger and more complete support system behind it, including software support, recruitment organization, fan operation and maintenance, etc.
In order to maintain the relationship with the "gold owner", anchors often build communities outside the platform for daily interaction and deepen emotional connections. The Chao News reporter entered a community and saw that the scale of QQ group chat content is larger than that of the live broadcast room, and many fans do not shy away from using "rubbing emojis", and the anchor often "opens his mouth" when interacting.
Explicit content and group members in QQ groups.
There were 823 members in the group, with 62 new members from April 14 to April 15 alone. According to the above-mentioned QQ group member portraits, the group members are mainly young men, and 56% of them are post-00s.
In addition to stabilizing fans, the community also has a more important "business" - selling "small lessons" (i.e., larger-scale live broadcasts). This brings additional income to the anchor in addition to the live broadcast tipping.
Take the anchor "Gentle Amo" as an example, its cheapest oral small course is 10 yuan per time, and each lesson lasts 1 hour. The "small lesson" video is full of coquettishness, wheezing, moaning, and the sound of rubbing thighs and chests. If you want to have more "hot" content, you'll need to pay more. If the consumption in the live broadcast room reaches a certain amount, you can also receive audio recordings and videos from the private chat host.
The virtual "pillow girlfriend" is not really a "sleep aid", behind it is a hotbed of "soft pornography". Even now, this has developed into a complete industrial chain.
The Chao News reporter learned through unannounced interviews that many MCN institutions have virtual "pillow girlfriend" business, and the live broadcast room and some recruitment platforms are under the banner of "recruiting voice anchors", but in fact, they are developing virtual "pillow girlfriends" - starting from the anchor's personal newly registered account, the company teaches live courses, and then accurately pushes it to the audience.
It is understood that the threshold for becoming a virtual "pillow girlfriend" is very low, only a computer, a sound card, and can speak Mandarin. Job seeker Wang Lei told the Chao News reporter that the MCN agency said that "rubbing the edge with eroticism, the income is higher than that of other types of anchors." The best traffic is from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m., we have teaching materials and free training."
Wang Lei showed the reporter a textbook called "Voice-Controlled Boyfriend and Girlfriend Outline", which listed detailed interactions, likes and words, list games, and live broadcast avoidance words. Through the polishing of teaching materials, the new anchor of the virtual "pillow girlfriend" can be launched in three or five days at the earliest.
Mature templated live streaming brings high profits. According to an MCN organization, 45% of the revenue share of the "virtual girlfriend" live broadcast room belongs to the anchor, and the new anchor can get 500 yuan in income if he starts broadcasting for 3-6 hours a day. "The anchor who is more familiar with the business can earn 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a month. ”
Where does the virtual "pillow girlfriend" go?
In response to the chaos of virtual "pillow girlfriends", multiple platforms are continuing to supervise and rectify, mainly in two mode: machine and manual. According to a platform, from March 11 to April 11, an anchor for "Nanci Voice Control" was marked 10 times with "sexually suggestive voice" and banned for a total of 7 days.
The Chao News reporter learned that taking a mainstream social platform as an example, the maximum ban for "sexually suggestive voice" violations is 1 day. At present, it disposes of more than 35,000 violating users every day, of which more than 2,000 are banned. However, according to the comments posted by many netizens on such videos, "Is the supervision asleep?", it can be seen that the governance is still insufficient, and creating a clear cyberspace is where the public demands.
Judging from the above pictures and comments, this kind of virtual 'pillow girlfriend' is actually a side game with pornography. Xing Yan, a senior partner and head of the compliance department of Shanghai Zhongdao Law Firm, told Chao News that the adverse impact of such behavior on the social atmosphere and the physical and mental health of minors should be fully considered. If left unchecked, it may lead to minors being easily approached or improperly imitated, seriously affecting public order and good customs, and may even induce violent crimes such as indecency and rape.
"Once such audio is identified as sexually oriented, the virtual 'pillow girlfriend' is suspected of constituting the crime of disseminating obscene materials for profit under Article 363 of the Criminal Law. Lawyer Xing Yan told the Chao News reporter that the object of the crime of disseminating obscene materials for profit is the country's management order and the good customs of society, and the sentencing standards for the crime of disseminating obscene materials for profit are mainly based on the amount of dissemination, the amount of profit and the harm to society. Even if the amount of transmission and illegal gains do not meet the standards for filing a criminal case, the public security penalty of 15 days of administrative detention can still be imposed.
According to Article 363 of the Criminal Law, "the crime of disseminating pornographic materials for profit refers to the production, reproduction, publication, sale or dissemination of pornographic materials for the purpose of making profits, and shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term detention or controlled release, and shall also be fined; if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined; and if the circumstances are especially serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years or life imprisonment, and shall also be fined or confiscation of property." In addition, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued Gongtong Zi [2008] No. 36 once again clarified that "for the purpose of making profits, the use of chat rooms, communication software or voice radio stations to publish or disseminate obscene voice messages, if one of the circumstances of disseminating it to more than 100 people or illegally obtaining more than 10,000 yuan shall be prosecuted." Of course, non-cash tips can also be used as evidence of their erotic transactions.
Article 7 of the "Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem" issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) identifies content that is sexually suggestive or sexually provocative as negative information on the Internet. In addition, according to the "Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services" and other provisions, the names of Internet users and platforms must not imply or provoke information, and must not disseminate obscene and pornographic information, and network service providers have responsibility for the operation and management of information content.
Guo Bing, executive director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Association of Zhejiang Law Society, told Chao News reporters that to rectify the chaos of virtual "pillow girlfriends", on the one hand, it is necessary for the platform to self-discipline, strengthen auditing, and guide the anchor to conduct norms;
"More importantly, social industry organizations and regulatory authorities should formulate corresponding standards to provide a basis for remediation for major platforms. Guo Bing said that relevant departments should also carry out centralized rectification of virtual "pillow girlfriend" illegal audio in a timely manner to curb industry chaos and promote the healthy and orderly development of the Internet.
(At the request of the interviewee, Zhang Xiaoming and Wang Lei are pseudonyms)
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