The dimensional wall is disappearing.
The so-called millet is transliterated from "Goods", which refers to the two-dimensional periphery. According to the price, millet is usually divided into Pu Valley, Lakeview Valley, and Seaview Valley. As the name suggests, the price of a sea view valley is comparable to that of a sea view room. According to 72,000 yuan, a limited edition "Bar How" (two-dimensional term, that is, badge, transliterated from badge) with a diameter of 75mm and a weight of 20g is worth 3,600 yuan per gram. That's more than 6 times the current price of gold.
Nowadays, the "millet economy" brought by the second dimension is rapidly spreading to the three-dimensional world. This trend of "frying grain" has not only saved many offline traditional shopping malls that are on the verge of decay, but also passed through this sluggish consumption cycle. A proprietor who owns a millet shop in Tianjin and Beijing took a video of each row of shelves in the store being crowded with people, and proudly concluded: "The whole mall is in the millet shop." ”
The sense of smell of capital has also accelerated the rise of millet shops. "The two-dimensional money is easy to earn" has almost become a tacit consensus in the industry. For many years, as part of the subculture, millet shops have been curled up in a corner outside the mainstream business world, but now, they are moving upwards from B1, B2, and even beginning to reinvent the format of the entire mall and appear in the sun.
Text | Zheng Sifang
Edit | Yi Fangxing
Operations | killer whale
Auctions
It was a jaw-dropping auction for outsiders.
In an auction with 16,000 views, 9 participants, and 99 bids, a small iron piece with a diameter of 75mm was successfully auctioned at a price of 72,000 yuan.
"Little Iron Piece" is just a self-deprecating statement for the people of Guquan, but it is actually a "bar", that is, a "badge". The scope of millet is very broad, including posters, stands, badges (bars), colored paper, figures, cards, pendants, dolls, etc., different millet has formed a unique pricing system according to the quality, number of issuances, character IP, etc.
If you want to join this auction, you must pay a deposit of 300 yuan, and the price increase is 100 yuan each time. Three days before the auction, the bid for this piece of iron was only 5,900 yuan, and on the night of the transaction, in just one hour, the opening price rose from 33,000 yuan to 72,000 yuan, and was finally auctioned.
▲ Nishitani Xi JW flash trading page. Picture / Screenshot of Xianyu
The post-00s SRT became one of the owners of this global limited edition of 5 bars. As early as before the auction began, she had publicly posted a collection post, saying that "it doesn't matter how much the price is". In June last year, she entered the pit "Volleyball Boy", and thus opened the door to collect the illustrated book of Xigu Yuguzi. And the full name of this bar is "Volleyball Boy Nishitani Yu JW Flash".
It must be explained here that the cartoon "Volleyball Boys!! , adapted from the manga of the same name created by Japanese manga artist Haruichi Furudate, it can be understood as a volleyball version of "Slam Dunk", and Nishitani Yuki is one of the popular characters. It officially aired in 2014 and has been ten years since then.
In the eyes of outsiders, it was for 70,000 2 to buy a palm-sized anime iron badge.
▲ Volleyball teenager Nishitani Yuki JW flash. Photo / Volleyball Junior Official
In the matter of buying grain, SRT has spent more than 100,000 yuan in total, and regularly takes out 1-2 hours of resale information every day to brush the grain circle. Her belief in life is that "life is incomplete without receiving it".
The auction at the beginning of this year, because of the extremely high transaction price, suddenly became an anecdote among the people in the valley circle. Some people jokingly said, "The thieves in the family don't know that this is the most valuable", "A monthly salary of 4,000 yuan needs to go without eating or drinking for 15 months before you can buy a small piece of iron".
The two-dimensional element has its own monetary system. Even when compared to house prices, valley prices may be far ahead. In a 36,000 participant "Would you buy Seaview Valley for self-promotion?" In the voting (self-push, referring to supporting their favorite characters), nearly 13,000 people voted for the "yes" option. The blogger who initiated the vote himself just recently spent 26,000 yuan to buy a piece of mahjong valley (referring to the rectangular acrylic material periphery) of "Volleyball Boy".
▲ Volleyball junior mahjong valley. Diagram / Network
Like all investment speculation targets, Guquan is also limited.
"Good looks are not worth anything, but global limited editions are worth money" This has almost become the consensus of the valley circle. The piece of bar that srt auctioned was first selected through a complicated and difficult lottery, and it was necessary to play the mini rides of volleyball teenagers in the J-WORLD anime theme park in Tokyo, Japan, to get different experience tickets. Then use the various experience coupons you get to exchange for a lottery application form. In the end, it may not be able to be drawn.
At the same time, the bar itself must be distinctive enough. The so-called "JW flash bar" is to add a layer of flash technology, but also increase the size. It can be simply understood that one is the zodiac Moutai and the other is ordinary Moutai.
Finally, it's a limited edition.,This JW flash bar chirps.,Limited to 5 worldwide.。 In addition, on February 17, 2019, J-WORLD, which had been in operation for 6 years, announced its closure, which means that this millet released in 2018 has become out of print.
In the valley circle, SRT single-handedly pulled the price of the bar to 72,000 yuan, which also reminded the people in the circle of fear of being dominated by "valley price crazy". This is not an isolated case, at the beginning of last year, the Dazai Osamu Demon Standing Card (2013 Japanese anime), which is limited to 50 copies in the world of "Writer's Wild Dog", also shocked the people of the valley circle with a transaction price of 72,100 yuan.
The trading method of the valley circle is beyond the imagination of outsiders. Some people even sell the grain and the house in a package, calling it a "bundle house".
The bundle house is a symbol of the development of the millet economy to a certain stage. When some popular characters' millet does not want to be sold separately, it will be bundled with other unsalable goods, called bundles. Generally speaking, the bundle will be a slightly less popular grain, but sometimes it will be paired with something else, such as a quilt, a rice cooker, or even a house.
For example, the original price (16 yuan) of Xiao Yi's millet (a game character), the bundle is a suite in Jinhan Green Port in Shunyi District, Beijing (9.6 million), a certain animation concert millet (1000 yuan), bundled with a Guangxi loft-style finely decorated single apartment...... Although these are more in the form of "revitalization" in the form of second-hand trading platforms, they are also proof of the hot economy of millet.
"The whole mall is full of people in the millet shop"
With the boom of the millet economy, this niche culture, which originally appeared in the two-dimensional world, is gradually entering the mainstream world.
Now, if you walk into the second basement floor of Beijing Wangfujing Joy Shopping Mall, this city, which has always been known as the "two-dimensional desert", will refresh your cognition.
Passing through a passage full of two-dimensional millet exchange stalls, several millet shops such as Cuckoo Society, Ganle House, and Dimensional Cat gather together, and beyond this passage, there are a bunch of traditional gold jewelry stores, which can be called the perfect fusion of two-dimensional and three-dimensional.
▲ The millet store in B2 of Wangfujing Joy Mall in Beijing. Photo / Photo by Daily People
In order to warm up the chain millet store that will open at the end of May, there is also a small-scale two-dimensional exchange market in the atrium open space on the basement floor during the May Day period, and upstairs, the Chiikawa and MINISO co-branded pop-up store that has just been open for a month has just been sent away.
At one point, the queue at the Chiikawa pop-up store filled the entire floor.
▲ Beijing Chaoyang Joy City Chiikawa pop-up store. Photo / MINISO official website
Under these backgrounds, there are more and more two-dimensional users, and the former niche group is becoming a consumer force that cannot be ignored. According to the data of the "White Paper on China's ACG Content Industry", preliminary statistics show that the number of ACG users will reach 490 million in 2023, of which 120 million will be core ACG users. It is the demand of this part of the population that feeds more and more millet shops.
Uncle Zhong, who was born in 96, entered the pit in middle school, and during the May Day period, Uncle Zhong also clearly felt that the two-dimensional concentration of Ningbo shopping malls was stronger than before, "There are two stores that are still in a hurry to open urgently." ”
In his impression, from the second half of 2022 to the beginning, in less than two years, 20 millet shops have been opened in major shopping malls in Ningbo. Originally, many clothing areas that did not have popularity and passenger flow suddenly ushered in a major renovation on the entire floor, turning into a two-dimensional area.
The most abstract thing is that Uncle Zhong found that even a flower shop has opened up a special area for millet and began to sell millet.
▲ Millet shelves in the boutique. Photo / Photo by Daily People
An example of copying homework in Ningbo is in Shanghai. Located on Nanjing East Road, Shanghai Bailian ZX Creative Fun Field, which is the first two-dimensional commercial complex in China, has become a "two-dimensional check-in mecca" since its opening at the beginning of last year, and is also known as "China's version of Akihabara". (Akihabara, the place with the highest concentration of two-dimensional elements in Japan, is located in Tokyo)
Behind the popularity is real sales. According to the public information of the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, as of December 31, 2023, the sales of Bailian ZX Chuangquchang reached 300 million yuan, received 9.5 million customers, and had 200,000 members.
After the transformation of the second dimension, the customer flow of this shopping mall has skyrocketed by about ten times at its peak.
Also saved by the millet economy is the "Trend Box • Wuhan X118" located on the pedestrian street of Jianghan Road in Wuhan. It has become the first two-dimensional themed commercial mall in Central China. In terms of revenue, it also increased by an average of 32% compared with before the transformation.
SRT has been here too. In her impression, "In the past, this was a dilapidated building where no one went at all", but as the concentration of the second element rose, there were more people, "the second element saved X118 on Jianghan Road".
In all parts of the country, there are also Chengdu Tianfuhong and so on. A bunch of malls are lining up to embrace the second dimension. For example, Wuyue Plaza in Shenyang Middle Street, Yintai in Xi'an Xiaozhai, Baolong Plaza in Fuzhou, Nanjing Aqua City and so on.
The most important thing is that as a group that generates electricity with love, the ACG group will bring the most coveted "offline customer flow" to today's offline shopping malls. In this era when everyone buys online and orders takeout, perhaps only the second generation will endure hours of transportation for love, and even cross the city and walk into an offline shopping mall to buy something.
And as long as there are people, there will be sales. For example, during the May Day period, in a newly opened trendy toy collection store, the millet shelves were directly snapped up by the second yuan, and even the boss himself did not expect that the millet business would be so hot.
The most absurd thing is that before opening the millet shop, this boss was selling building materials and didn't know anything about the second dimension.
It is better to speculate on stocks than to speculate on grains
The millet economy is a long chain. After the transaction is completed and the sale is changed, it is far from the end, and how to dry the grain and the beauty of the valley is also a ritual thing.
SRT installed three pain cabinets for the millet she collected. With a total length of 190 centimeters and a height of 173 centimeters, the bar worth 72,000 yuan was thrown into a painful bag covered with a transparent shell under the circle of delicate orange-yellow lace and sunflowers.
▲ The "Volleyball Boy" worth 72,000 in the pain bag is Xigu Xi JW flash bar. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
In the words of ACG, "power generation with love".
In order to collect millet, Sumi in 96 even flew to Japan and bought a house in Beijing.
"If you like a character, you want everything." Sumi said. During her college years, she flew to Japan almost every month for special forces-style procurement, went on Fridays, and returned home on Sundays. She bought a single-room apartment in the 6th Ring Road in the southeast of Beijing, which now serves as her warehouse for most of the grain, and the walls and cabinets of her own room have long been filled with grain.
With the help of the spread of social media and the boost of the UP masters in the two-dimensional field, the millet economy has also spread rapidly.
For example, every time a popular two-dimensional character has a birthday, it will be an annual feast of grain. Especially like in the fan circle, fans celebrate the birthday of the star.
In 2022, an UP master of station B once celebrated the birthday of Shuoma Zero (a character in the mobile game "Idol Dream Festival"), and filled the room with 11,020 pieces of rare grain, forming a valley array of unprecedented scale. This not only means that this character has a "high concentration of love", but also another form of "showing off wealth".
The total price of these millets, which cover the floors and walls of 60-square-meter rooms and range from 300 yuan to 50,000 yuan, is millions of yuan, and the battle is so exaggerated that people exclaim that they are called "Nagoya".
When the two-dimensional people passing by saw the birthday video, they would also offer their blessings one after another, saying "Congratulations on my marriage to a wealthy family". (I push, it means that it is the character I like) and the grain of the role of Shuoma Zero has become a hard currency-like existence in a special period, and some people describe the laser ticket of this character (a bit like Ultraman flash card): "I can change to Bingdundun in February 2022 and Lianhua Qingwen Capsule in December."
▲ Shuo Ma zero birthday formation. Picture / B station @ Lan Xi Xi Xi w
Because of this, millet has also become a financial management method for the post-00s.
Tata, who was born in 05, mainly promotes (mainly loves) Lone Claw grinding, which is also a character in "Volleyball Junior". She likes this character because it has the qualities she values most - calm, intelligent and super decisive.
So, she began to collect character guides. She sees eating grain as a way of investment, and her love makes her willing to pay a high price to start, and at the same time, the constantly refreshing high prices on the second-hand market also make her decide to give it a go.
She said: "The second-hand recycling price of luxury bags is discounted, and the second-hand millet has doubled." ”
For example, a friend announced that she would retire from the pit, and among the grains she sold, there was exactly the rare model she wanted, which was limited to 40 in the world. So Tata bid 20,000 yuan and took over this heart-to-heart bar.
"20,000 is considered a friendship price, and if you take it out for auction, the price will only be higher." In her opinion, the price of other unpopular characters has reached more than 10,000, and her main role is a popular role, and the price of 20,000 is not expensive. More importantly, she firmly believes that "it will definitely be very profitable to withdraw from the pit one day".
▲ Lone claw grinding. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
"Two-dimensional money is easy to earn"
When the wind comes, pigs will fly, but the question is, how long will the wind of the millet economy blow?
For millet, relying on the price of limited quantities and stories can hardly hide its essence after all.
In the case of a piece of bar, compared with the auction price that exceeds the cost by tens of thousands of times, the iron piece and the cost of making the bar are almost negligible. Even Tata, who spends a lot of money on grain, admits that "luxury bags have at least the addition of production technology and rare leather goods", but this does not affect more two-dimensional yuan to join the ranks of eating grain.
Like millet, people often think of another thing that is skyrocketing today, but they can't think about the cost - Bitcoin.
As of May 13, Bitcoin was quoted at around $60,000 a piece. There is also a piece of iron, Bitcoin doesn't even have a physical body, Satoshi Nakamoto has built a beautiful decentralization story, successfully attracting people's attention to the future, when everyone feels that something is valuable, then no matter what that thing is, it has value.
The same goes for millet.
At the end of March this year, MINISO joined hands with Chiikawa, a "new top streamer", to hold a themed pop-up store in Jing'an Joy City, Shanghai, and set a sales record of 2.68 million within 10 hours, causing passers-by to sigh, "The money of the second yuan is easy to earn".
In the eyes of some, millet has also become a naked monetary unit of measurement. "The millet factory became a money printing machine." A millet shop owner posted the production line of the millet factory in the circle of friends, and rows of bars and chirps were neatly crossed from the assembly line, and the two-dimensional world began to bow to the efficiency and money of the three-dimensional.
With the entry of capital forces from all sides, the valley circle is also sliding to the uncontrollable side.
With the popular sun-drying grain array on the Internet, the lively demolition, the sale of grain in the live broadcast room, the sky-high price of rare limited valleys on the second-hand platform, and the controversial contradiction between the valley circle on social media, the valley circle is becoming more and more chaotic. For example, the entry of domestic manufacturers has accelerated the production and iteration speed of products, but it has also triggered negative events such as quality overturning and counterfeiting. The live broadcast of grain dismantling and harvesting the second dimension of impulsive consumption has also become the hardest hit area for underage refunds in e-commerce.
At the same time, the two-dimensional attribute has derived controversial events such as "Mommy", "Pair Light Shooting", "Naked Mail", "Running Order Fee" and "Hanging People", which have also frequently sparked discussions on social media platforms.
But driven by desire, capital will still roll forward. Whether it is a shopping mall, a millet shop or a grain eater, almost all of them have created a thriving "money scene" of the millet economy. According to incomplete statistics, at present, more than 20 major cities in China are building two-dimensional consumption landmarks in core business districts.
▲ The Mengmeng store called "the light of the national valley" by the two-dimensional group. Photo / Storm BOOMCOMIC
This kind of heat is also reflected in the millet shops in the shopping mall, which are becoming more and more mixed. Uncle Zhong observed that millet shops are opening in many shopping malls in Ningbo at a rate of opening one new one almost every month. "But the followers account for the majority, and those millet shops that are really composed of the core two-dimensional have become non-mainstream existences."
Uncle Zhong witnessed the rise, chaos and unification of the millet market. In his impression, ten years ago, it was the era of the rise of transnational daigou, and the purchase of millet also relied on "human flesh back" in Japan, where there were relatively few millet and the price of millet was relatively expensive.
Later, domestic cottage millet began to appear gradually, which disrupted the market, and at that time due to the lack of genuine products, these replica valleys still had a market at that time. And now, more and more domestic factories have been authorized, and genuine domestic millet has begun to rise. Now the fire of the millet economy is also a product of the times at this stage.
But when there are too many competitors entering the game, the second dimension is a little insufficient.
For example, in Ningbo, Guyan Club is one of the few professional two-dimensional teams composed of subtitle groups and comic exhibition guests. The millet economy is booming, but they are still facing operational difficulties and worries about uncertainty.
▲ Gukensha store. Figure / AutoNavi map business page
In terms of operation, subject to the long-term booking cycle of millet, the payment may be pressed for several months, and the store must ensure sufficient cash flow to operate healthily, and the financial problem has become the biggest difficulty in operation.
In terms of management, there are more and more thieves, and three cameras are set up in the 60-square-meter store, and three thieves have been caught since it opened in October last year. Some millet shops will stick anti-theft magnetic strips, but the actual effect generally does not meet expectations, and theft can only be avoided by manual tracking.
The pressure of operation also appeared in a millet shop in Wuyue Plaza in Shenbei. Within four months of the store's opening, the number of millet shops in the surrounding area increased from 3 to 10, and each store began to roll up prices.
The owner has calculated that the store needs to sell 2,000 pieces of consignment millet in a month to spread out the rent cost. On the one hand, the high cost and the lower and lower prices make this store open even on a deserted snowy day, because "the cost is hundreds a day".
Just like many people place their spiritual emotions in the two-dimensional world, millet has become a carrier of this spiritual power, so it has gained value. But for individuals, people will always grow up, and the people in the second dimension will come out sooner or later to face the beating in the third dimension.
Outsiders look at the rise and fall of grain prices, like a bubble that bursts when poked, but in fact, even Tata himself knows that without love and pursuit, these grains, which were once more expensive than houses, are "just a piece of iron". It's just that when the craving is generated, once you start eating grain, it's hard to stop, because the anime characters on the grain may carry the ideal self that you can't reach.
Spend 70,000 2 to buy a limited edition of the srt, and recently plan to collect a Nishitani Xi's lucky bag round bar, "If you see it, you will take it, and there is no psychological price."
There are also some people in the valley circle who choose to carry the bucket and run away. "The valley circle is finally crazy" and "Fortunately, the pit is early" has become some people's declaration of retreat. For example, Zhou Zhiwei, who is still a student party, only takes two weeks from entering the pit to exiting the pit, but within two weeks, she actually spent more than 1,000 yuan, just to buy a few bars.
When she realized that her love for the character had slowly become a tool for others to make money, she was already preparing to leave the valley circle.
She finally concluded that she was like a leek.
(Names have been changed)
Resources
[1] "Constructing a New Commercial Space, Bailian ZX Creative Fun Field Drives the Younger Transformation of the Business District with the Two-dimensional Culture", Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission
[2] "Top 10 ACG Events of 2023", ACGx
[3] "2024 "ACG Trend Consumption" Trend Report", reliable ACG
[4] "So, is your blue-eyed white dragon worth anything?" Youyansha
The article is the original work of Daily People, and infringement must be investigated.