©️ Deep Sound Original · The author | Zu Yang
On the evening of October 22, M-net's "GirlsPlanet999" ushered in the final live broadcast. After 3 hours of public performances and competitions, China's Shen Xiaoting ranked ninth, and eight other Korean and Japanese players debuted in the name of Kep1er, with an activity period of two years and six months.
"GirlsPlanet999" is m-net's new global talent show after the "Produce101" series, 99 young girls from China, Japan and South Korea compete on the same stage for the TOP9 seat, and the audience can vote for the girls they like in the official channel, of which South Korea accounts for 50% and the rest of the world accounts for 50%.
Kep1er
Compared to the Produce101 series, GirlsPlanet999 clearly has greater ambitions. The selection of contestants is extended to China and Japan, and the contestants from the three countries are placed in the same training environment to accept the survival of the fittest; the audience with the right to choose is no longer limited to South Korea, but anchors the global market.
For China, the biggest significance of this show is that after the internal entertainment draft was stopped, Chinese players found a stage to show themselves overseas, and their performance broke the stereotype of "the strength of internal entertainment idols is not good" and was re-evaluated from the Korean idol market.
Chinese idols are being loved by audiences around the world for their charm from those of Japan and South Korea. This can be seen from the previous rankings, when the first pick was released, Shen Xiaoting, Su Ruiqi and Cai Bing won the second, sixth and seventh places respectively; the second time the release, Chinese players occupied four debut places, surpassing South Korea and Japan; to the third time, Shen Xiaoting won the first place, and the total number of global votes and South Korean votes far exceeded the second place.
Shen Xiaoting's third and fourth rankings
Although the final results of the finals were outraged, only one Chinese player debuted, but after one season of the show, Shen Xiaoting, Su Ruiqi, Cai Bing, Fu Yaning and other Chinese players contributed many famous scenes on the stage. Shen Xiaoting's "Snake" stage direct shot on YouTube released more than 400,000 plays in a day, #Shen Xiaoting direct shot # topic appeared on the domestic Weibo hot search; the theme song stage Su Ruiqi threw the poker card moment once became the symbol of the show icon; the first stage Fu Yaning group performance of the full open wheat stage "Helicopter" was praised by the mentor, and its harsh words to the predecessors (CLC girl group member Cui Youzhen) became the biggest hot topic of the early program.
The Chinese idol industry has always been an "imitator" image, once popular in China "Idol Trainee", Qing Series, Chuang Series are all launched with reference to the Korean draft, and also refer to the Korean model in the training of trainees. But in the big container of "GirlsPlanet999", the performance of Chinese players has refreshed the stereotype and achieved a reverse output to the Korean market.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > Chinese idol and went to sea successfully</h1>
In the previous Korean program "Produce101" series, Chinese trainees who participated in the draft and successfully debuted already existed. For example, Zhou Jieqiong in the first season of the show debuted as the sixth place to form I.O.I.; Lai Guanlin in the second season of the show, as a trainee of the Korean agency CUBE, finally formed a group as the seventh place.
I.O.I
But "GirlsPlanet999" is the first large-scale sea trip of Chinese trainees. Although there are regrets about the final result, judging from the ranking and popularity in the schedule, the Chinese trainees won the best result so far in the Korean draft.
33 girls of different ages, different personalities and different training levels went to neighboring countries to participate in the competition. They represent the idols cultivated under different systems in China: trainees trained under the SNH48 system, trainees who have undergone short-term intensive training in the domestic talent show creation series, qing series, and children of Tomorrow, and trainees who appear in the state of vegan people.
In a sense, this show is a test of the training results of the domestic idol industry from the perspective of the Korean market. Shen Xiaoting's three rankings, the initial stage of Fu Yaning's group, and the stage performances of Su Ruiqi, Xu Ziyin and Cai Bing have all verified that the contestants have qualified idol strength after years of training and systematic training, in other words, China's idol star-making ability is levelling with South Korea.
Looking at South Korea, from the 101 series to today's 999, they are also facing the embarrassing situation of trainees.
Different from the situation that the domestic idol industry is dominated by the platform, the three major entertainment agencies of South Korea's SM, YG and JYP are mainly based on their own idols, and do not need to use the power of the program. Brokerage companies in the middle waist such as CUBE and RBW also keep excellent quality trainees to debut at home to protect greater interests. Moreover, the practice length of Korean trainees is as short as two or three years, as long as seven or eight years or even ten years, and the annual draft has long hollowed out the good seedlings in the hands of small companies.
Therefore, the organizer can only continue to dig out the resources of trainees. For example, "Produce303" chose to cooperate with Japan's AKB48, 48 Japanese players and 48 Korean players competed on the same stage, and finally selected 11 outstanding performers to form a group debut.
In the fourth season, South Korea continued to choose to seek trainees from Japan and China to participate in the show, but it was also in this season that the producer of the show, An Junying, was arrested and imprisoned for fraudulent votes, and the 101 series draft, which had hit the peak of ratings, officially ended.
After a year of blanking, M-net launched the "GirlsPlanet999" of China, Japan and South Korea, and on the whole, the players in this season are still mainly "back to the pot meat" and minors. According to statistics, of the 33 Korean players, 14 are underage (born after October 2003).
Moreover, this season's program focuses on the full open wheat stage, and half of the trainees are lagging behind in strength, and there are times when they forget the action, grab the film, and run out of tune mistakes in the performance stage. This is indeed a bad signal for South Korea, where the idol industry is developed.
On the other hand, because the Hallyu has formed a complete industrial system, its influence has spread to China, Japan and other countries in Asia, and the standard unified style will also cause aesthetic fatigue to the public. The audience wants freshness, which is also one of the reasons why Chinese and Japanese players are emerging.
For example, in the first program, the original singer of the song prepared by the Chinese player Fu Yaning, former CLC member Cui Youzhen was also in the program, and when the mentor asked for harsh words, Fu Yaning said "even beyond the original singing", which caused a huge controversy. But then, as the program progressed, Fu Yaning's domineering and self-confidence, which was different from other contestants, attracted a group of overseas netizens and gave him the nickname "Puya Lord".
During the broadcast of the second season of "Youth with You" last year, the stage pure enjoyment version of "Play" received nearly 7 million views on YouTube, and Anqi's "girl crush" style was well received; the appearance of atypical girl group idols such as Liu Yuxin, Shangguan Ai, and Lu Keyan was greatly welcomed on overseas social platforms; even the camera of the cameraman who was criticized in China also commented: Unlike South Korea's photography, this has reached the level of doing evening parties.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > international draft, new window for observation</h1>
As an international program for the world, "Girls Planet999" weakens the existence of agencies, and instead divides three groups according to nationality: C (China), J (Japan), and K (Korea), each with 33 contestants. Because there are players of different nationalities, in addition to the performance of strength, the cultural differences between the players have become one of the highlights of the show presentation, and it is also the center of the audience's discussion.
On domestic social networking sites, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean players have derived many interesting topics in terms of sitting posture, lifestyle, and hand decoration, attracting a group of passers-by fans to join the discussion. For example, in a tug-of-war competition organized by the program group, the Korean players are knee-bending and waving with obvious K-POP style cheering action; the Japanese players are cross-legged, smiling, biye, cute and full of flavor; and when the Chinese players are squatting, the second row is compact, and then with Bruce Lee's classic gestures with the "xiongqi" of the Chongqing dialect, familiarity and laughter are full of fruit.
The internationalization of the draft is a new trend, but the deviation of "Girls Planet999" in the process of cultural presentation and editing has led to frequent doubts.
For example, when Cai Bing ran for captain in "Snake", his expression was that the Korean players as captains can play a harmonious role, but the English direct translation is that I support you to give up the captain; The Chinese player Liang Qiao also mentioned during the live broadcast that he cried because of poor ranking and high pitch in the program, but was edited by the program team to be cried by his twin sister, Liang Jiao, who is also a contestant.
B station UP master's analysis of the vicious scissors
Moreover, the impact of the "Produce101" series of program votes is still there, and many viewers on social platforms at home and abroad have a skeptical attitude towards M-net, the producer of the program.
Looking back at M-net's last international women's group talent show, there were only 3 Japanese players among the last 12 debut members of "Produce303", and many popular players from Japan were left out in the cold. The highly questionable results were confirmed when the South Korean draft was thoroughly investigated, and "Produce 303" did have a vote fraud.
In "GirlsPlanet999", the preferential treatment of local players by the program team has once again aroused controversy. Shen Xiaoting, who was ranked first twice and second once, was upset in the finals and only ranked ninth; Cai Bing, a Chinese player who was twice ranked within the TOP9, fell to 26th in the third ranking and did not qualify for the finals. In the end, the top six of the nine people in the group were all won by The Korean players, and the result surprised most of the audience.
The lesson of "Produce303" should not be forgotten, a talent show that focuses on internationalization should be more cautious when dealing with overseas players and overseas markets, rather than blindly tilting to the resources of local players, otherwise all it gets is to eat back.
"GirlsPlanet999" started with a rating of only 0.46%, lower than the ratings of any episode of the previous 101 series, and since its inception, the national ratings have averaged no more than 1%. The continued sluggish broadcast performance clearly does not match its global ambitions.
Before the disappearance of domestic talent shows, iQiyi and Tencent Video also made an attempt on the road of internationalization.
The international nature of Tencent Video's "Creation Camp 2021" is obvious, with more than 20 players from Japan, Thailand, the United States, Russia, Ukraine and other countries, and students from these different countries show the "difference of the world" in collision and exchange, while broadcasting simultaneously on overseas WeTV in English, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian and other overseas Chinese, and opening official accounts on overseas platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to update the tidbits of the relevant players. After the first episode was broadcast, eight students were listed on Twitter's Overseas Regional Trends List.
In contrast, iQIYI's "Idol Trainee" and "Youth with You" series are more Korean in presentation, for example, in the choice of mentors, zhang Yixing, the national producer representative of "Idol Trainee", dance instructor Cheng Xiao and Zhou Jieqiong, Rap tutor Wang Jiaer, Xu Minghao, Cai Xukun and Lisa of the "Youth with You" series, all have korean group idol experience and provide mature idol templates; the program is mostly K-POP style in song selection. Or some of the songs are produced by Korean music producers.
Whether it is a domestic or neighboring country, the new trend of international draft internationalization is actually providing an observation window to observe the cultural collision between different countries and the comparison of the strength of different national players.
The stage performance of "Girls Planet 999" is making the strength and performance of Chinese players a new reference, suggesting that the strength of Chinese idols should be re-examined, and China's star-making system has also been verified by certain effects.
Mainland idols have performances in terms of strength, personality, audience popularity, etc., compared with South Korea and Japan, where star-making is developed, the gap in strength is not as big as in the impression, and gradually realizes the combination from imitation to local characteristics.
Of course, this is not the end. As an idol, you need to constantly polish your business ability and give full play to the power of example; as the behind-the-scenes promoter of idols, you must also judge the hour and size up the situation, and work together to build a positive and benign internal entertainment environment.