In these anchors, malice is like a wave. Sweep everything when you come, leave no trace when you go.
Intern Editor 丨Chi Cheng
This article is the second in a series of articles on the "BoatIng Project". A boating project that chronicles games and eras, collecting only the best articles related to games.
"When a person decides to become an anchor, he is already mentally preparing." Psychologist Li Songwei told me.
Not long ago, Etika, a well-known Game Anchor in the United States, left her backpack on the Brooklyn Bridge and jumped down. He has been plagued by emotional illness for the past two years. His death caused an uproar, and it was suspected that the tragedy was related to his profession.
Hesenberg, the "most popular national blog docent" with more than 4 million followers on Weibo, also said that the probability of bloggers who enjoy huge traffic around him having a good mood is "zero". He argues that "the correlation between high traffic and bad moods is so strong" and attributes the problem to a kind of "mental overload" – when the small circle of interpersonal communication in the past is forcibly broken by traffic, "people face millions of people with psychological hardware that handles hundreds of people's interpersonal relationships."
This time, we want to set our sights on game streamers. The anchors always show the best in front of the camera, but what kind of life do they live behind the camera? What kind of problems are you facing? How did they solve it?
<h1>1</h1>
The eldest cousin (yesyanbaby) was once attacked by a male anchor. At that time, she was angry and anxious, her emotions were out of control, and she "cried bitterly in front of the audience in the live broadcast room."
That was when the eldest cousin first started live streaming in Douyu. At that time, the live broadcast platform was not standardized, and some anchors would attack other anchors for popularity. Later, she looked back and thought, "In fact, it is also his program effect, I was just used as a cannonball."
She spoke of it in a relaxed tone. "I was quite resistant to being on the air during that time, after all, that rhythm has been with me for a year or two." She said, "Later I reflected this problem with the platform, and the male anchor also apologized to me on the live broadcast... It's been a long time. ”
"It's only been two years." I say.
"This kind of thing can be forgotten in a month." The rhythm is something that's fast — you don't forget, and the audience forgets. "I remember I wanted to give up, but that emotion can't be mobilized now." It's hard for me to get back to that mood, and I can't describe it in words. ”
Big cousin in the live broadcast
Many streamers will use "rhythm" to summarize the malice they face. The term was first used to describe experienced players leading teammates to launch an attack, and now it is mostly used to refer to some people making inflammatory and controversial remarks, causing the ignorant masses to follow the trend - in the anchor circle, the spearhead of the attack is of course always directed at the anchors with many fans, a certain voice and influence.
The eldest cousin feels that her current state has been relatively stable. Occasionally, when she is in a bad mood and sees a bad bullet screen, she will also go back to vent, but she knows that this will not relieve her anger. "After that, the problem gets worse, and he'll keep arguing with you."
Striking back is useless and often only makes the malicious counterattack more violent. "So I know, it's better not to do that." Rather than arguing, she is more concerned about whether she can show herself in front of the audience with a better face, "practice singing well, practice your talents, and improve your level of playing games."
She is no longer the girl who will cry in front of everyone because others are "rhythmic", and her own mentality has long been flattened. "If an anchor can't even face these things and can't resolve them, he is not suitable for this profession."
"Is it the price this profession has to pay?" I asked.
"It can't be said to be a price, that's what you need to live with when you work in this industry."
<h1>2</h1>
Xia Yike is 28 years old and has been in this line of work for more than 10 years. Before becoming an anchor, she was a die-hard fan of Blizzard Games, making a series of game commentary videos based on Blizzard games, and became famous in the circle with a rather personal style of interpretation. "The original 'capital accumulation' has been completed before, so the transformation as an anchor is very smooth."
In the ever-changing field of live broadcasting platforms, countless people pour in every day, and countless people quit. Xia Yike's live broadcast career is relatively smooth, and unlike those female anchors who are arbitrarily commented on because of their appearance, Xia Yike never shows her face in the live broadcast, but this does not prevent her fans from affectionately calling her "Queen".
Xia Yike's cartoon image
Although popular with many fans, in private, Xia Yike often feels that he is "in a state of mental health problems."
"It may be related to the characteristics of the anchor's work, our anchor's schedule is very unhealthy, he can't see the sun all year round, he always stays indoors, and he is also a little disconnected from society." She felt that these problems were piled up and would always erupt en masse at some point in time. In those days when bad emotions came, the only thing she could do was to try her best to protect herself until she felt like she was "quietly gone."
"Acceptable, acceptable." Xia Yike said to me, "Those who can't accept it have already left this business." ”
<h1>3</h1>
Stress is almost inevitable. In the view of psychologist Li Songwei, for anchors with a huge fan base, being scolded may not be a character problem, a appearance problem, a level problem - just a probability problem.
Anchors and traffic owners are like commodities in circulation. "For example, if there is a product, its praise rate is 95%, the middle rating rate is 4%, the bad rating rate is 1%, this is already a very good product, you will not feel that this product can not be wanted for the 1% of the bad reviews, because you also know that even if you do a good job, some people will give bad reviews." 」
Are these bad reviews directed at the object itself? "The older generation, after being criticized, will feel that the person being criticized is themselves, so they have to reflect." Their lives are highly dependent on people's evaluations. "But now traffic owners are being scolded as stupid ×, and they just think it's part of normal work." Normal work involves being consumed by some people. "People's malice is just one of the ways they are consumed, essentially no different from other ways of being consumed.
The reason is very simple, the anchors have been in this line for a long time, and they have thought clearly. But in reality, when anchors encounter gossip, they still have to learn to digest it in a variety of ways — anger is digestion, silent acceptance is digestion, avoidance and forgetting are also digestion. Experienced anchors, in order to continue to do in this industry, do long, they have their own way of coping.
There are also considerable differences in the situation between anchors and anchors. They enter the industry for different reasons, pursue different goals, meet different people and things, and face different degrees of pressure. Problems are always there, and they usually seek self-consistency in two ways: one is to solve the problem, and the other is that although the problem is not completely solved, there is still what they want on the road.
<h1>4</h1>
For some streamers, the problem can be solved. For them, things are not so complicated. They play well in the game, so they live. Regarding malice, about the future, about the hardships at work, these questions occasionally strike. They will also be unhappy, but they can forget the unhappiness and continue.
Xia Yike introduced me to Nostalie, who was also broadcast live on Douyu. "He said he loves to play games very much, and he is more 'liver' than me every day, and can broadcast for more than ten hours." Xia Yike told me, "He is known as a 'stagnant water friend' ... But people just really like this game to do it, he doesn't feel that it is a burden. ”
"Actually, I'm still quite tired." No always said to me, "People are definitely tired, and occasionally their hearts are a little tired." ”
His sources of pressure are similar to most of the anchors: number of people, flow, content, effective time, all kinds of bullet screens... Xia Yike told me that No always achieved the status of "Storm Brother" when he played "Heroes of the Storm". But then Blizzard didn't pay attention to the project, canceled the game, and Heroes of the Storm also entered a low period. "No always had to transform into a self-propelled chess and console game streamer, but storm fans definitely scolded him — he experienced a lot of online violence during that time."
No always lightly used "a change of live content" to summarize the event. One of the phrases he repeatedly said was, "Just get used to it." For online violence and daily psychological pressure, he is more open:"To do this business, you can only endure." Adjust your mindset yourself, otherwise you won't be able to do it. ”
In four or five years of his live broadcast career, he almost never got tired of gaming. "Playing games while live streaming is equivalent to turning what you like to do into work, and you can make money to support your family, in fact, it is still possible." Before doing the live broadcast, he used to work for a company responsible for 3D modeling outsourcing, which was not satisfied for him. "You can't play games at work, that's the conflict."
Also getting more happiness in the live broadcast is the long meow of the B station. He's only 20 years old, but he's been live streaming for 4 years and he's very sophisticated. "I'm still quite humorous in terms of live broadcasting, basically the whole live broadcast room is laughing from morning to night." He said to me happily.
Nor did this state exist in the first place. "I used to be a troll when I played League of Legends, and I scolded anyone who dared to scold me, but after the fans slowly increased, I didn't want to bring negative energy to them." Perhaps because of The age and style of Long Meow himself, the fans who watched his live broadcast are also relatively young, and Long Meow feels more responsible for them. Not only will he not be intimidated by the attack, but when there is infighting among his fans, he will sincerely apologize to each other for the fans on both sides.
Long Meow sometimes participates in some tournament commentary activities
He will broadcast for more than the guaranteed time signed with the platform party every month. "I broadcast for 359 days last year." Under such a high live broadcast intensity, Chang Meow felt that his life was somewhat occupied by live broadcasting.
"I feel like I'm out of touch with the whole world — it's not just social circles. How long has it been since the subway mobile payment was made? It's been a long time, but I didn't know about it until the first half of the year. So this year, he also made appropriate adjustments and tilted a little towards his daily life.
<h1>5</h1>
In other streamers, the struggle is more complicated. For those obvious pressures, such as gratuitous malice, caution in speaking, depression at work, they may not be able to completely dissipate, but they have gained more and more important things in the live broadcast, and this has become the reason why they must go down.
For Xia Yike, being liked by many people is the most fundamental motivation for her to be an anchor.
"I've always had a desire to be noticed." Xia Yike said, "The most important thing for me is that someone likes me. Nothing can resist this temptation... Or this desire... You let me live the life I love, and I'll tell you that the life I like is being liked by a lot of people. ”
She has been liked by many people. The platforms add up to more than 4 million followers, a loud reputation in the circle, a tidal wave of pursuit, but she said, "people will become more and more dissatisfied."
"Our anchor has something called 'Bullet Assistant', which has become my biggest source of stress every day. When I was broadcasting, I was faced with two monitors, one of which showed in real time how many people there were in the live room. When your numbers keep falling, the anxiety is indescribable. Xia Yike said to me, "You will keep trying to show the effect of the show." You'll cry out inwardly, 'Please don't go, I'm still funny!' ’”
The solution is to be interesting and more interesting, and Xia Yike is already familiar with this. "For most of our anchors, how to interact with the audience, how to tell interesting passages, how to make this thing interesting, this has become our instinct."
Xia Yike has a lot of anchor friends, and sometimes they will get together. She found that people at parties have the same ability to make people laugh anytime and anywhere. "I think the people who do a good job of live broadcasting, they must have slowly trained themselves into a funny soul."
She said lightly: "It's a professional skill, nothing difficult. ”
<h1>6</h1>
In Xia Yike's mind, Huang Xudong is the state she hopes she will have after reaching a certain age. "He's a man who thinks straight, he knows what to stick to and what not to care about."
Unlike the anchors who only poured in when the live broadcasting industry was booming, Huang Xudong stayed in this circle early in the morning. He first became popular as a starcraft event commentator, and after the rise of the live broadcast industry, he naturally became one of the first anchors.
Huang Xudong is the earliest batch of anchors to enter (picture from "People")
"I do live streaming entirely to make money." Huang Xudong said to me.
Now he has his own brokerage company and has signed a lot of anchors on hand. He also knows that these anchors may be in a very lonely and miserable state when they are broadcasting, but Huang Xudong does not have this kind of trouble.
Maybe it's because he's not live alone. He usually goes on the air with his partner Sun Yifeng, and the two have been working together for more than a decade. Live streaming together allowed him to find a "state of being with friends," which he believes alleviates the boredom of his daily routine, and live streaming is even the happiest moment of his day.
Huang Xudong feels that the biggest problem he faces is that the "StarCraft" series is becoming more and more niche in China - the heat is not high, it is easy to encounter bottlenecks, and the relevant players and anchors do not get much benefit. He wasn't sure when starcraft, which he had been broadcasting for so long, would really be "cool."
"I wake up every morning and think it's time to come." He said to me, "In the end, the meaning is that the environment is gone." For example, Blizzard no longer does 'StarCraft' matches, or there are no players outside, and live broadcasting can't make money. ”
But Huang Xudong probably didn't really worry about "ending up" at the end. He has already built an "industrial chain" with live broadcasting. He has his own public account, his own forums, communities and offline activities – he knows how to maintain his audience. When most anchors are highly dependent on the platform for their income, and platform sharing is their only source of income, Huang Xudong has built a decentralized and stable income structure. The direct income of being an anchor is part of it, and business cooperation is another part, and even Taobao B2C monetization has not fallen. "Even if the live broadcast is gone, or even the platform is gone, it is not fatal."
While stress doesn't go away on its own, a person's ability to withstand stress grows stronger with age and experience. "When I was young, I cared about too many things, and I quarreled with people every day, and every day was a big 'rhythm'. Now that I'm older, I'll just leave it alone. Huang Xudong told me, "As long as you do something worthy of your heart." ”
<h1>7</h1>
Firewolves seek self-actualization on live streaming platforms. He is a game media person with a traditional print media background, and after the wave of paper media layoffs a few years ago, he set up an online media, wrote articles and made videos, and lasted until June last year, declaring failure. "To put it bluntly, I lived a miserable life, the company went out of business, and I was riddled with foreign debt."
Huya found him at that time and offered very good conditions. "With my actual live streaming popularity, this salary is completely approved." Firewolf said, "They are not looking at how famous my live broadcast can bring to the platform, but more about my influence in the media, or as an 'opinion leader'." ”
He has been doing live broadcasts in Huya since August last year. For the first six months, he groped in confusion. The matter of live broadcasting is "a little too young" for him, from the form of expression to the operation of content to learn from scratch, but he feels that he has now found a state of being a media person on the live broadcast platform. Not long ago, he and Huya continued for two more years.
Firewolf once produced a game live talk show "Uncle Wolf Says Game"
He positioned himself as a "game media person who does content on a live broadcast platform." From print media to online media to live broadcasting, his mentality has changed, but he does not think that he will make compromises on content in order to "please the audience", "it should be said that it is a service", and he constantly learns to output in the form that people are more accustomed to.
But the effect of "service" is not ideal. "The biggest annoyance at the moment is the lack of popularity." He said sadly, "Sometimes I feel like I'm playing well, but I don't see many new fans after the show." ”
After signing up for the live streaming platform, he has been trying to adapt to his new life. Between a large number of inputs and outputs, he tried to find a balance. "At least four or five hours a day to put on the live broadcast, it will really have some impact on the data collection, so I don't play games outside of the live broadcast."
"I set a rule for myself, you can't spend the night on the WeChat public account every day." He followed more than a hundred public accounts, and the content they posted every day, he had to read before going to bed. "Otherwise, the next day when I was broadcasting live, I was playing drums in my heart, and I was afraid that there was something that everyone said I didn't know."
He asked himself to "grasp the trend at any time", and after a year, he felt that his state was not bad: "The audience asked me to talk about this, talk about that, and most of the time I can still pick up the conversation." ”
Although he had experienced several failures during the transition period and was under great pressure both economically and psychologically, he still chose to believe in the potential of the live broadcasting platform. "I want more people to know that live broadcasting can do a good job."
Also wanting to do a good job of content is Xia Yike. As a creator, she cherishes feathers. She demands that her work be good and responsible to the audience.
She used to care a lot about what others said. Later, she thought that this was useless, or that she should stick to herself more. "I want to be a self I like first, and then see if this I like myself will be liked by others."
Xia Yike's video creation
She is extremely demanding of herself. "It could be a matter of my personal character and most of my stress comes from myself. Maybe the audience doesn't think that my live broadcast effect today is not good, but I feel that my live broadcast effect today is not good, I will be very uncomfortable... I'm going to be very sick all day. "I would ask myself to do better every day than I did yesterday... I can never balance, I can never be satisfied. ”
"If you hadn't done that, would you have a better life than you are now?" I asked.
"No, absolutely not." She answered emphatically.
<h1>8</h1>
Station B anchor Old Ba1 didn't think so much. In his view, any kind of life has to pay a price, and the anchor is only one of them.
Lao Bai fights harder than most anchors. The live broadcast area of Station B recently engaged in activities, and he almost threw himself on the live broadcast, and every time he replied to my message, it was early in the morning. Later, in the course of the interview, Lao Bai apologetically explained to me: "Because I only went down at that time." ”
Lao Bai's fans took the initiative to find us and introduced us to this "ordinary boy in a small city in Shandong". Fans told me that Lao Bai started as a bank escort and later became an anchor. He became popular during the live broadcast of "The Fifth Personality", accumulating more than 600,000 fans in a short period of time. "At the end of last year' B station's lesson fund activities, he ranked second among the B station anchors."
Lao Bai believes that these achievements are all earned by hard work. "I used to broadcast it on holidays or weekends, sometimes for 12 hours a day, from 12 noon to 12 noon, while eating, basically broadcasting except for going to the toilet."
"12 hours?" I asked him, "Isn't that very hard?" ”
"In fact, it's not just bank escorts, I've also worked on the assembly line that produces parts." Lao Bai said to me, "At that time, a stop was 12 hours, and at noon there was also an hour of eating and resting time. ”
"I did it for two days and my feet were all blistering." He added, "If you say that live broadcasting is tired, compared to this, the work I did before is really tired and bitter, and I earn less." I don't think live streaming is tiring. ”
Lao Bai participates in offline activities
Lao Bai's fans told me that because Lao Bai jumped red too quickly, he played the role of captain when the anchor formed a group game, and he was immediately entangled in black material. Although the black material itself is mostly nonsense, what is more excessive is that "his tieba has become the anchor black material bar in this circle, all of which are pickpocket posts for anchors on various platforms."
Lao Bai did not mention these details in the interview at all, and he covered it up with "cyber violence" in general. "When I first encountered online violence, I couldn't sleep for more than half a month, but then my mentality was calmed down. Ignoring it, I slept in my sleep. ”
"I didn't look at myself as an anchor, and it was natural to chat with everyone, but then there would be a bullet screen jumping out, saying that I had low emotional intelligence and couldn't speak, and I didn't take care of others... We are all normal people, and suddenly a bunch of people say you're not good, but you're obviously not like that, you're definitely going to be uncomfortable, but you can't argue, you can only slowly digest this pressure yourself. ”
Lao Bai pushed himself very tightly. The 12-hour live broadcast left him physically and mentally exhausted. "After the broadcast, I just want to lie in bed and do nothing." But he also refused to relax in the slightest, "I am already a full-time anchor, and I feel that there is no way back." ”
<h1>9</h1>
Among the anchors I came into contact with, the only one who was diagnosed with depression in the hospital and taking medication was Xiao Ningzi, who was the owner and anchor of Up. She already had some depression before, until one day 3 months ago, she made a video about the cartoon "Love, Death, Robot" and put it on the Internet, and was put on the recommendation position by the platform - the video unexpectedly met with a lot of bad reviews.
"Probably because I posted it late, and the video was a relatively shallow Amway orientation — but that site had laid out a lot of in-depth articles about it before." Xiao Ningzi analyzed, "It is also possible that users prefer to read articles and listen to radio stations, and do not like videos." Not quite right anyway... But I just did it. ”
The video was scolded as "rubbing heat", "too superficial" and "messy", and the scolding was so strong that even a certain "boss" in the station came out to help her speak.
On the same day, she broke down and cried, took a leave of absence from the company, and went directly to the hospital.
After receiving treatment, Xiao Ningzi felt that her state was much better than before. She learned to "reduce her burden" on herself. "I used to feel that I had to be responsible for others for every word and deed, but after I got sick, the doctor told me that the phrase 'the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility' is problematic." She said, "I now think this sentence is a fart - everyone is human, the greater the ability is the greater the ability, maybe things can be done more, but the responsibility can not be greater, otherwise it will be crushed." ”
Xiao Ningzi's Chinese cover song "Once I Thought About a Hundred"
Because of the timely treatment, her condition has now been controlled. An important lesson she learned from the illness was: "I just have to be myself, as long as I am responsible for myself." Now, Xiao Ningzi tries to use the identity of the anchor and the Up lord as a channel to express herself, "in fact, it helps me recover from my personal illness." She made 3 Vlogs about depression, hoping to help more people.
<h1>10</h1>
In Li Songwei's view, most anchors can eventually deal with their emotions, which is actually a very normal thing. "If you look at this from a particularly traditional perspective, you will feel that these people are actually bleeding inside, or they are defensive, or they are numb and can't feel it." 」 He told me, "But you actually have daily contact with them, and you'll find that maybe not." ”
Xia Yike once asked, "Why is people's malice so inexplicable?" In fact, it is precisely because these malicious intentions have no cause at all — not against the anchor himself, but only as an outlet for someone's emotional catharsis — that there is no need to worry. Viciousness does not contain any rich connotations, viciousness is pure viciousness, a "flattened" emotion in contemporary life.
"This viciousness is the tax that the anchors have to pay." Li Songwei said. He believes that if you want to understand this, anchors can often adjust their mentality.
In Li Songwei's view, after malignancy was "flattened", the depression caused by viciousness was also "flattened". "Where are the traffic masters unhappy?" They were very happy. Li Songwei said, "Just like modern people often say that they are depressed or unhappy, this is already the norm of life - who does not?" Right. It's not easy for everyone to live, but sometimes we talk about this emotion very movingly. ”
Li Songwei told me that a traffic owner he knew was once scolded very badly for his remarks in an article, and directly scolded the hot search. When I went to the company the next day, the employees were all very low air pressure, but he didn't care at all, but he easily asked the employees: "What is the benefit of being on the hot search for us?" ”
According to his observation, he is referring to the psychological preparation that these anchors will increasingly regard the "I" as an object, rather than as the "I" itself — a kind of "separation of the self."
In the live streaming industry, switching your "mask" freely is a professional skill
"How to build your own personality, how to interact with his fans, in fact, these things have slowly become professional and professional management." Li Songwei said, "The so-called 'I' may be an object to be operated in their minds in their profession, and have become the so-called human design." ”
This kind of "human design" is not a role different from that of oneself, as people usually understand, but more like a "state that should be at work" - "self separation" allows anchors to switch between the two states freely.
"For example, I'm very unhappy today, but I'm going to tell jokes to make people laugh later, so I'm going to tell jokes — well, I'm done, I'm going to turn around and cry." It's okay. Li Songwei described it this way, "But when I work, I want to be worthy of the people who give me money, and I want to be worthy of my customers." This is the mentality of the so-called professional people. ”
"It's a bit... Like alienation? I said. The most straightforward explanation for the so-called "alienation" is that human beings materialize themselves as instruments of production and become part of the capitalist system, and obedience to capitalist logic can bring tangible benefits on the one hand, but also risk losing themselves on the other.
"I don't think it's alienation." Li Songwei said, "People of the previous generation look at the next generation and always feel alienated. But when you stand by their side and understand, you don't use the word alienation. You'd think it was an evolution. ”
<h1>11</h1>
Perhaps every anchor is ready for what they have to face before deciding to turn on the camera. But even then, they still encounter moments that make them feel down. Not everyone can complete what Li Songwei calls "evolution." Even for experienced anchors, it is still quite difficult to cut a certain degree of self out of their bodies, turn it into a product that can be evaluated or even vented, and ignore any malice caused by that "self".
Life goes on. As night falls, people return home from the day's work, and the anchors start working at this time. From seven or eight o'clock in the evening to the early morning, this is their golden hour. The anchors sit at their desks, turn on their computers, adjust their cameras, and enter their own live rooms. The number of people online climbed little by little, and the bullet screen flew in front of them like snowflakes, and they smiled and greeted the fans.
The nights that await them are still long.
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