My opinion on Dong Yuhui's sudden deletion of his Weibo account

On the 27th, Dong Yuhui once again became a hot topic because he cleared his Weibo account. This incident reflects the underlying logic of the "Internet celebrity economy" and even the entire Internet economy: those who control the final traffic and have strong user stickiness have all the power. What is the future development direction of KOLs? How can organizations form a healthy cooperative relationship with KOLs? In this article, you can get the answers.

On the morning of February 27, 2024, Dong Yuhui suddenly cleared his Sina Weibo account, which caused the share price of Dongfang Zhenxuan to fall by 5%. However, the market reaction this time was not as intense as the "small composition incident" at the end of last year, because this was most likely a personal behavior and did not indicate any deep contradictions. In a live broadcast the day before, Dong Yuhui said, "I hate hot searches by nature, and I will cancel my Weibo account tomorrow." And then he did it.

This sudden incident once again demonstrated Dongfang Zhenxuan's absolute reliance on Dong Yuhui, and once again consolidated Dong Yuhui's "sincere and consistent" personality; on the business level, this may be just a short episode. However, I would like to use this incident to talk about some of the deep logic reflected in the "Internet celebrity economy" and even the entire Internet economy. In short:

• KOLs have more and more freedom of action, and can ignore capital, platforms, and even some conventions. When KOLs realize that they have freedom, they will exercise it.
• Audiences prefer to see KOLs who are flesh and blood, have personality and are even willful. Traditional KOLs who are stable and completely in line with conventions no longer have a market.
• Some institutions and platforms are aware of the above problems and are willing to cooperate, but many others are not aware and are destined to be eliminated by market trends.

Dong Yuhui's sudden clearing of his Weibo account is unreasonable for a traditional internet celebrity. First, although Weibo has been declining for a long time, it is still an important information distribution center (especially in the entertainment industry), and it should not be abandoned just like that; second, Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Zhenxuan have gained a lot of public domain traffic from Weibo hot searches in the past, and have attracted many fans, so they are beneficiaries; third, even if Dong Yuhui is tired of Weibo and wants to cancel his account, according to convention, he should obtain the approval of the organization behind him and let the organization (Dongfang Zhenxuan or "Yu Hui Tongxing") execute it.

But Dong Yuhui completely ignored the above "conventions". Whether he was impulsive or had long been tired of Weibo, he enjoyed absolute and arbitrary freedom in the issue of clearing his Weibo. Over the past few years, we have become accustomed to the social media accounts of celebrities and Internet celebrities being managed by the team behind them, and their every word and action is carefully planned by the "organization" or "capital". Before clearing his Weibo, Dong Yuhui may or may not have consulted the official opinions of Oriental Selection; no matter what the official attitude of Oriental Selection is, it is unlikely to affect the final decision.

As a result, Sina Weibo's position is very embarrassing, because its positioning is "public domain topic square", and most Internet celebrities are unwilling to give up the opportunity to "go viral" through Weibo hot searches. Now Dong Yuhui said to clear it, it may be really out of personality, or it may be out of weighing the pros and cons (or both). The message conveyed is very clear: at least from now on, Dong Yuhui no longer needs the traffic of the Weibo platform (or thinks that this kind of traffic is more harmful than beneficial). If more KOLs make similar choices, Weibo's position will be in jeopardy. In fact, we have already seen similar embarrassment on platforms such as Bilibili and Zhihu in the past.

For Dong Yuhui personally, quitting Weibo means at most a loss of traffic, but there is no loss to his image, and it may even be strengthened. In the eyes of the audience, this once again confirms his image of "sincerity, words and deeds, and flesh and blood", and once again proves that he is an individual with freedom of action (rather than a puppet of "capital"). After the high popularity of mobile Internet, the increasingly mature audience has long been dissatisfied with the "manufactured" Internet celebrities of the past. The stable and watertight style has long failed to please them. This is why Dong Yuhui has experienced many internal storms, but his popularity has increased - the more storms, the more solid his image.

All successful live streamers have distinct personalities: Li Jiaqi has the personality of a shop assistant, Simba has the personality of a small town youth, Luo Yonghao has the personality of an ancient internet celebrity, Xiao Yangge (in the early days) has the personality of an internet-addicted teenager, and Dong Yuhui has the personality of an intellectual. The reason why most entertainment stars fail to bring goods is that they have been shaped too successfully by the traditional entertainment industry capital that is "stable and in line with expectations", and have long since smoothed out all their personalities and lost the possibility of improvisation and breaking the rules. The audience is eagerly looking for KOLs who they can understand, who can break the rules but not go beyond the rules, and who share the same fate with them. Dong Yuhui is just the latest one.

This reminds me of the evolution of securities analysts: whether at home or abroad, Chinese or foreign, securities research institutes are generally strictly regulated. Analysts take stability and watertightness as their primary responsibility, and the reports they write are all the same, and their opinions are the same as if they were not read. Among them, there are very few people with distinct personalities and unforgettable figures, such as Ren Zeping and Guan Qingyou in those days, who can often quickly capture the market's attention and become influential figures. Of course, such people will bring too much compliance risk and public opinion risk, and it is difficult for them to stay in an institution for a long time, but the rewards of their direct transformation to To C are even far greater than staying in the institution. Analysts and KOLs are two sides of the same coin, and their evolutionary processes that lead to the same destination correspond to the same set of logic!

In the Internet age, those who control the final traffic and have strong user stickiness have all the power - there is no doubt that Dong Yuhui is such a person, and all KOLs with tonality and originality are such people. Traffic seems to be controlled by capital and platforms, but the profit-seeking nature of capital and platforms determines that they must cooperate with KOLs. In this regard, Oriental Selection is considered to be quite fast and cooperated quite thoroughly, which once again verifies Yu Minhong's shrewdness. Compared with those keyboard warriors who clamored to "ban Dong Yuhui" and "Oriental Selection should let Dong Yuhui understand discipline", Yu Minhong's actions are ahead of the times and have also preserved huge interests.

Those who know the times are heroes, but there are always many people who do not know the times. There is still a considerable proportion of organizations that are obsessed with the past dream that "personal ability is nothing without the platform", and believe that "capital" can still hold KOL hostage as in the past. The ending of the above dream is either a lose-lose situation (like Li Ziqi and her MCN), or the organization or platform is forced to give in. "The world's tide is mighty and mighty. If you follow it, you will prosper, and if you go against it, you will perish." As long as the principle of "attention economy" does not change, the change from weakness to strength of KOL relative to organizations or "capital" will only intensify.

In the long run, KOLs who have completely mastered the freedom of action and also control terminal traffic and means of production may transform into the next stage of capital, and even produce similar conflicts with the new generation of KOLs - but that is another issue, and there is no need to take it into consideration at least in the short term.

Author: Pei Pei, leader of the Phantom Thieves

Source: WeChat public account "Internet Phantom Thieves (ID: TMTphantom)"