In recent days, Station B has been quite uneven. Anime was forced to take down shelves, online insults, brand parties terminated activities, and boycotts by the age... All of this happened in the last three days, and the trigger was an anime , "Rebirth without a Job".
On February 7, the Bilibili Opera operation team issued an announcement that the anime "Rebirth without a Job" was temporarily removed due to "technical failures". The next day, Bilibili issued a penalty announcement for upseller LexBurner's breach. The announcement said that LexBurner, the owner of Bilibili UP and the contracted anchor, repeatedly made inappropriate remarks in the live broadcast, involving provoking battles and attacking others. Station B has banned Lex's account and will sue it.
Although the matter has been handled, the dispute between LexBurner's supporters, "Rebirth without a Job" and the general audience has not ended, but has been further expanded by the ban and anime removal. The full title of "Jobless Rebirth" is "Jobless Rebirth ~ When You Go to aNother World, You Will Take Out Your True Ability ~", in the drama, the male protagonist has had improper ideas about his mother, servants, magic teachers, girls of the same age, etc. In episode four, the father cheats on the servant during his wife's pregnancy and makes the latter pregnant with a child, and the male protagonist subsequently matches the father-mother-servant triangle. Because of such a plot setting, before the "Lex Incident", "Rebirth without a Job" had caused great controversy, and its content was accused of pornography, suspected of insulting and morally kidnapping women, and LexBurner's live evaluation only "added fire" to this controversy.
In the Douban group, more discussion is not limited to "Jobless Rebirth", but has risen to the B station platform. The wind of public opinion has fermented from "Jobless Rebirth" to the B station platform suspected of objectifying women.
Since February 9, there have been reports of B station teaching posts in some Douban groups. In these statements, Douban users listed in detail the channels and methods of reporting, and attached reporting materials, pointing out problems such as the B station drama "Jobless Rebirth" "a large amount of soft pornography in cartoons", soft pornography in the live broadcast area/dance area, and the promotion of paedophilia culture.
In the comment area, some Douban users also said that this report appeal can not only stop at the removal of the drama, but also let the B station platform itself take down the rectification" After the fermentation of the matter, Station B was canceled by a number of brands. On February 10, the official microblogs of companies such as Youkesi and Tvket Glasses Network said that they terminated all cooperation with Station B. The official Weibo of the Sophie brand said that Sophie SOFY decided to cancel the cooperation with Bilibili Animation. The above brands emphasize that they oppose and resist any forms of insulting behavior and speech that insult women, respect women, and support women's legitimate rights and interests. In this regard, Station B issued the "Announcement on Carrying Out Special Rectification Actions for the Spring Festival Network Environment" on the afternoon of the same day, saying that "we will not disrespect any user ... Special rectification of the network environment during the Spring Festival will be carried out for a period of one month. ”
After breaking the circle, the B station in 2020 has attracted much attention, and is now in a scolding war. Who did Station B offend?
In the occurrence of this incident, Station B is regarded as "both sides offended". For the "old B station people", "Jobless Rebirth" was taken off the shelves, and the B station is no longer a platform for self-love. For the newly admitted "outer circle people", some of the otaku culture in the second dimension has also caused discomfort.
If you talk about this incident alone, the two sides at the center of the debate come from two platforms, one is B station, and the other is Douban. In the comment area of the Douban report post, remarks such as "moving your fingers to report", "breaking the heart of the lewd man", "the goose group is very hot and has a sense of justice" have also received a lot of likes and support. In the same group, statements such as "it is necessary to engage in B station for the family" and "do not want to let the 'feminist' rush" were attacked by the group. Of course, this kind of whistle-blowing behavior is not worth encouraging, but in the final analysis, the two sides actually represent different niche circles behind them. The fans of the goose group have the attribute of the rice circle, coupled with the fact that Douban users themselves have a high sensitivity in terms of various rights, while a large number of users and content products of Station B have extremely high and sticky otaku attributes. Two circles that originally did not violate the river water clashed because of the "Jobless Rebirth" incident.
After the fourth episode aired, the Douban rating of "Jobless Rebirth" dropped to 3.7 points. As a late-night animation, "Jobless Rebirth" was introduced into China as the main promotion of the B station in the season, and it is necessary to carry out large-scale all-age promotion. Especially after the B station broke the circle, its homepage recommendation was also seen by more people. No matter where the quarrel goes, this anime is not a work that can cater to the tastes of the masses. Even now, when the second dimension is gradually accepted by the mainstream, the content promoted by some of these small circles is still contrary to mainstream values.
Station B may not offend a specific group, but a beautiful fantasy that exists in the user's mind. The old users of Station B are willing to believe that Station B is a self-propelled utopia, while new users have brought some more mainstream judging standards.
This contradiction is a problem that Station B must face after breaking the circle.
The first large-scale circle breaking of Station B as a platform was on May 4, 2020, and Station B's speech to a new generation, "After the Wave", occupied Weibo's hot search and circle of friends. Unlike some previous UP masters, such as the 5G video of "He Classmate" or the popularity of the epidemic video of "Paper Clip" and "THU BiDao", that time it was Station B that went out as a platform. Previously, Station B has always been a small paradise for young people. After "After the Wave", the crowd talking about station B was more post-70s, post-80s, and even post-60s.
At the same time, official agency numbers and celebrity stars have also entered Station B on a large scale in recent years. CCTV News, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and other central and local official propaganda agencies and news media stationed in Station B to play "ghost animals" with young people; major universities and enterprises also played terriers on Station B, and even some international stars, such as Johnson and Vitas Vitas, also settled in Station B. Run your own New Year's Eve party, make your own variety shows, buy independent TV series... All kinds of signs are indicating the breaking of the circle of Station B.
Station B obviously needs to break the circle. Breaking the circle has brought a large number of new users to the platform, followed by a large number of new content, bringing considerable investment to station B. According to Bilibili's 2020 Q3 financial report, Station B's revenue in the third quarter reached a new high of 3.23 billion yuan, an increase of 74% year-on-year. According to CNBC, Bilibili plans to submit an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Station B will return to Hong Kong for a second listing, raising possible US$1.5 billion.
With the expansion of the user base and the diversification of user preferences, the tentacles of station B have gradually extended from the quadratic element to other fields. From the perspective of user self-submitted content, the change in the main submission content of the head UP reflects the change in the preferences of the B station users. From 2018 to 2020, among the top 100 UP masters selected by Station B, the proportion of UP masters in the ghost animal area and the animation area is getting smaller and smaller, while the UP masters of new divisions such as living areas and knowledge areas are emerging.
Judging from the content of the official operation of Station B, in addition to introducing and producing traditional two-dimensional preference content such as animation, Station B has also begun to step into the ranks of producing variety shows and dramas. The variety show "Rap New Generation" has reached 320 million plays and a rating of 9.1 points; the network drama "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" has reached 330 million plays, scoring a high score of 8.2 points on Douban. The most well-known circle-breaking short film "Houlang" was selected to be released on May Fourth Youth Day in conjunction with official media such as CCTV, reflecting the ambition of Station B to get close to and enter the mainstream.
Although the general trend of comments is good, the previous move out of the circle of Station B is also accompanied by a voice of criticism. The increasingly diversified content ecology of Station B has been testing the carrying capacity of this community, and dangerous signals have emerged.
Taking the entertainment area as an example, Station B has planted a heel on dealing with old users and new rice circle users who have joined Station B. In April 2020, in the "Heartbeat Mixed Cut Contest" held in the Entertainment - Star Division of Station B, some users found that Xiao Zhan's inferior mixed cut video was topped to a high ranking, questioning Xiao Zhan's fans for large-scale ticket brushing in the event. After about 3 days of fermentation, the matter ended with the official cancellation of voting activities of Station B, but some core users of Station B believed that the atmosphere of the rice circle was corrupting the platform and left in anger.
The storm of the "Heartbeat Mixed Cut Competition" can be seen as a microcosm of the dilemma faced by the B station breaking circle. The influx of many circles into the platform has stimulated the contradiction between the diversification of platform users and the ability of management to set the tone, which has brought great challenges for the platform to determine a new style. So far, how to balance the original audience with new users and determine the new tone of the platform is still a difficult problem in front of Station B. For old users, the addition of some new users is obviously a destruction of the community atmosphere of Station B. This is also why the move of station B to reduce the difficulty of inbound testing has been criticized by some old users: they believe that the test questions that reduce the difficulty do not provide enough thresholds for new users, resulting in a mix of users of station B.
Although the broken circle of Station B has always been accompanied by old users' doubts about the platform side, it is undeniable that among many video platforms, Station B still enjoys a good reputation. In the process of the development of Station B, the platform has shown great tolerance for the user's demands. In 2014, Station B promised that the platform would never add video ads before purchasing genuine dramas. In 2016, under the pressure of copyright owners, the platform had to add advertisements to the title of the drama, and Station B eventually only added "advertisements" that could be skipped at the title of the drama.
At the same time, a series of humane actions of Station B have also increased the user's good feelings. At the end of 2020, Station B announced the establishment of a commemorative account for the deceased up owner. Although similar measures are suspected of "selling feelings and good feelings", these actions have also made many old users still affectionately call Station B "Small Broken Station", and comment after such incidents are "still the familiar Small Broken Station".
However, after breaking the circle, the promise of non-degeneration is also more difficult to achieve. At the "2020 Most Beautiful Night" New Year's Eve party, the proportion of secondary elements related to the two-dimensional element was greatly reduced, and after finally waiting for the anime songs, the comment of "too many Japanese songs" actually appeared in the bullet screen, which obviously made it difficult for the two-dimensional native users of station B to accept.
The feelings of the B station users for the platform also come from the feelings for the up master. In 2018, when Station B was listed on nasdaq, eight up owners rang the bell for Station B to be listed. This move proves that the core value of Station B is always firmly bound to the up master. In this incident, no matter what my remarks are, LexBurner has always been the "elderly" up master of the B station, pinning on the feelings of some users for the platform. Many up fans believe that Station B banned LexBurner because he complained about a problematic anime, which also offended many old users who supported up the owner.
The contradictions between the various circles within the platform are still unresolved, let alone the satisfaction of the more diverse groups outside the station. In the storm caused by "Jobless Rebirth", the people who pay attention to Station B are more complicated. Station B, affectionately known as "Little Broken Station" by users, has always enjoyed a good reputation because of its non-advertising and relatively high-quality community atmosphere. This time, the Douban Goose group members and Weibo users who vigorously reported Station B refused to target the animation itself, and the spearhead pointed directly at the platform that promoted animation, so that the image of Station B was linked to words such as "insulting women", which undoubtedly added greater difficulty to the circle breaking of Station B.
After this incident, the shortcomings of the platform's circle breaking were once again exposed. In the future, the road to breaking the circle of Station B may be more difficult. In the "Announcement on Carrying Out special rectification actions for the Spring Festival network environment" released by Station B, Gao Zan commented that most of them were "supportive" and "it is necessary to change". Looking forward to a broken circle of the B station after rectification.