New top streamers in October: became popular overnight, and then collapsed in an instant

This article starts from the changes in the top streamers on Douyin, analyzes the reasons for Yu Wenliang's downfall and Guai Ge's resurgence, and summarizes the methods of gaining traffic. It is recommended for those who want to start their own media.

Just after Double 11, the October limited edition top-tier product was caught up in public controversy and faced the crisis of "personality collapse".

In October this year, Douyin influencer @于文亮 emerged out of nowhere. His followers increased by over one million in seven days and over three million in a single month, making him the top influencer of the month.

A rapid rise in traffic to a peak often means a faster fall. Yu Wenliang was trapped in a dilemma of needing to prove his identity because of his "outrageous remarks" during a live broadcast. Even though he is still updating his videos, Yu Wenliang's content interaction data has shrunk by more than 90% compared to the peak period; as of press time, his account has 3.08 million Douyin followers, with a net loss of 684,000 followers in the past seven days.

When ordinary people unexpectedly become popular and reach the peak of traffic overnight, how can they deal with the sudden change of identity? And how can they find the right way to express themselves - to satisfy their own monetization needs without hurting the feelings of fans and causing large-scale loss of fans?

1. “Ordinary People” Spokespersons Promoted by Platforms

In October, Yu Wenliang, who was still being praised by Douyin netizens, was considered a "representative of ordinary people."

Without filters, editing skills, or content that does not belong to a certain vertical category, his works are like a casual record of a bored person - eating, riding a bike, playing football, watching a game with roommates, with simple editing and background music such as slow motion, and sometimes just simple life photos. He can post several such videos a day, and at most, he posted 6 a day.

The protagonist of the video is Yu Wenliang himself, a Shandong boy with a simple crew cut and mustache, dark skin, and a height of 168 cm.

@Yu Wenliang Tik Tok video screenshot

In the early days of his popularity, some of Yu Wenliang's remarks seemed to be intentionally cultivating the image of an "ordinary person". In an interview, he said that there was no team behind his account, and the only device he had was a second-hand iPhone 11, without even a stand, and that he filmed whatever he wanted at random. He also said that he really felt unworthy of being liked by so many people.

Kas believes that there are two important reasons why Yu Wenliang was able to attract so much attention in a short period of time and generate a large number of videos with more than 1 million likes.

1. Netizens who are tired of exquisite content hope to gather together under Yu Wenliang’s content for warmth

His content can resonate with ordinary users, allowing more netizens with appearance anxiety to boldly show themselves. To some extent, Yu Wenliang's appearance seems to have brought Douyin back to 2018 - in March of that year, Douyin changed its slogan to "Record a Beautiful Life", the number of users increased significantly, and the content also transitioned from the initial "technical flow" to everyone being able to post Douyin.

2. The “invisible hand” of the TikTok platform is fueling the trend and increasing its exposure

There is no reason for the platform not to recommend influencers who can bring new users to Douyin and increase user time.

After becoming famous, controversy followed.

Some netizens pointed out that Yu Wenliang was wearing Balenciaga and his house was full of Nike and Adidas. In a short video he posted, he was wearing Nike Pegasus 39 worth 821 yuan, Nike Pro leggings worth 209 yuan, and Nike Pro tights worth 169 yuan. In response, entertainment influencer Giao Ge commented: "Yu Wenliang's living conditions, food, clothing, entertainment, and family life are definitely better than 80% of people."

In addition, Yu Wenliang modified the profile of his Douyin account, which roughly means: My father is still the mainstay of the family. If one day my parents can no longer support me, I will definitely take advertisements to make a lot of money. This seems to reveal a message: I will not take advertisements to make money in the short term. However, not long after, Yu Wenliang's account profile was modified again, becoming "Happy every day", which seems to be a hint that he is ready to start monetization.

On November 1, Yu Wenliang started his first live broadcast showing his face. The maximum number of people online in the live broadcast room was nearly 80,000. The top streamer of Douyin @疯狂小杨哥 dropped in and gave him dozens of carnivals.

According to public information, a carnival is worth 3,000 yuan. In the profit sharing with the platform, excluding additional rewards, the Douyin anchor can get up to 50% of the live broadcast reward amount. The live broadcast income belonging to Wen Liang that night can reach tens of thousands of yuan.

According to the live broadcast dynamics, Yu Wenliang started a total of 10 live broadcasts from November 1 to November 8, most of which were live broadcasts of PK. A live broadcast recording of him and anchor @陶渊明 showed that the other party said: "I came to the live broadcast to circle." He responded: "Is it so real? You said everything in my heart, so let's circle together brother!"

Yu Wenliang's live slicing video edited by netizens

These remarks immediately sparked heated discussions among Yu Wenliang's fans and onlookers.

Some users believe that there is nothing wrong with monetizing live streaming; some users think that they were fooled by Yu Wenliang; and some netizens commented, "The money Yu Wenliang makes from one night of PK is enough to buy an A6. Only by looking in the mirror can you tell who is a truly ordinary person." At present, it seems that what fans care about is that Yu Wenliang's personality seems to have collapsed.

In the early days of his popularity, he showed his love for life and acceptance of his ordinary identity, but now he seems to be "eager for quick success and instant benefits" and can shout in the live broadcast room without any shyness: "Brothers, give us gifts and help the anchor defeat the opponent." Now, netizens who feel they have been deceived and fooled are making fun of Yu Wenliang and @Tao Yuanming's comment area, saying: "You are Yu Wenliang's lifelong benefactor."

@Tao Yuanming Tik Tok video comments

In response to the change in public opinion and netizens' doubts, Yu Wenliang released a video but did not give a clear explanation, such as his family situation, his own consumption level, and the reasons for inappropriate remarks in the live broadcast room. Therefore, he did not gain the understanding of his fans and continued to lose fans.

@Yu Wenliang Tik Tok video screenshot

Who defines “ordinary people”?

While Yu Wenliang was rapidly losing followers, another “grassroots” blogger became popular again.

Because of Yu Wenliang's character overturn, a blogger mentioned, "Weird Pigeon is a truly ordinary person." Four years ago, @朝阳冬泳怪鸽 was well-known by netizens for the phrase "Come on! Oli give." After the heat, his account also returned to calm. After becoming famous, Weird Pigeon did not start live streaming to sell goods to "make money" and did not actively ask fans to give gifts. Instead, he continued to record his life, insisted on daily winter swimming, and showed a positive and optimistic side. Judging from the scenes of his live broadcasts, his family situation has hardly improved much and is still considered poor.

@朝阳冬泳怪猪TikTok video screenshot

Recently, a large number of netizens have been checking out @朝阳冬泳怪鸽’s videos, helping him gain 1.679 million followers in the past 15 days. His current number of Douyin fans has reached 5.886 million.

Kas checked the fan portraits of Yu Wenliang and Guai Ge's accounts and found that a large part of the people they attracted were similar or overlapping, namely, mainly users in third- and fourth-tier cities and young people aged 18-23.

Left: Portrait of a fan of Guai Ge; Right: Portrait of a fan of Yu Wenliang

Yu Wenliang’s “car rollover” accident proves that people with a buzz cut and no beard are not necessarily “ordinary people”.

“Ordinary people” are the group that is most difficult to represent and does not need to be represented. There is a considerable risk in using this as one’s “personality” or the biggest feature of an account.

The lower limit for ordinary people is very low, but the upper limit cannot be too high. In China, a country with vast land and abundant resources, the development conditions and living customs of each region are different.

In this diverse society, we cannot give a specific definition of ordinary people. It is just a general concept:

The days are more or less the same, there are no exciting adventures and travels, no dramatic plots, just an ordinary life. This is probably what ordinary people are like.

So, what about ordinary people who are worse off?

They believe that they are NPCs (non-game players, that is, tourists in video games who are not controlled by real people) in this world. When others show off their happy families, they describe themselves as "like rats in a sewer." When they see content sharing about luxurious lives, they will say, "I'm competing with you rich people" and "Can you rich people write a Little Golden Book for yourselves?"

What kind of spending power, consumption habits, family background, and social relationships should ordinary people have? How should these information, which will be more or less exposed in the video, be presented and selected? When creating an account with the label of "ordinary people", these issues have to be considered.

Obviously, Yu Wenliang had not thought it through.

When self-media success studies begin to wholesale the personalities of ordinary people, the label "ordinary person" is no longer easy to resonate with.

2. How can “ordinary people” avoid collapse if they want to cash out?

Yu Wenliang is not the only one. There are many examples of ordinary people who became famous overnight and then failed because of cashing in. Kas concluded that the reasons for their failure are nothing more than being too eager to cash in, not being good-looking enough, and their behavior making fans question the authenticity of their personality, etc.

The difference is that Yu Wenliang aroused public anger due to his rude and outspoken remarks during an entertainment live broadcast, while other influencers made more mistakes in the product selection and explanation stages of the live broadcast.

In the previous article, we analyzed @牛爱芳’s Xiaochunhua’s fan loss incident.

In October 2021, the influencer started live streaming to sell goods, and subsequently lost more than 1 million fans. At that time, @牛爱芳小春花's live streaming with goods had more than 20 million views. Such a huge traffic was probably beyond the expectations of the anchor, and there was no crisis plan prepared in advance. It has become a trend for short video content influencers to transform into live streaming to sell goods, but this still requires a high level of quality for the anchor and the quality of the supply chain.

Another influencer who suffered a decline in reputation due to live streaming sales is Duck Head Brother who became popular this year.

In the first half of this year, Zibo was very popular and tourists came in an endless stream. A young man selling duck heads in Zibo Badaju Market choked up in a late-night live broadcast, saying, "Many people only look at his shop but don't buy anything. As a result, his shop seems to have a lot of traffic, but the turnover is the lowest in the whole street." "I am now an unemployed vagrant."

The relevant content was once on the hot search list on Weibo, prompting many netizens to speak up for him.

Later, Duckhead became a local "traffic star" and his Douyin account gained hundreds of thousands of followers. Soon, Duckhead put his offline duckhead business on hold and turned to livestreaming. At the end of May, Kas had counted Duckhead's sales performance, and his average sales per session was 100,000 to 250,000 yuan.

Because Duckhead sold products he was not very familiar with during the live broadcast and his explanations were not professional enough, his fans’ trust in him was greatly reduced and his score dropped. As of press time, several months have passed since the live broadcast, and Duckhead’s number of fans has stagnated at 481,000.

Under the premise of insufficient preparation such as insufficient professional ability and product selection not matching personal characteristics, it will not only be difficult to convert one's own traffic into more substantial profits, but it may also damage the fragile popularity and accelerate the demise of traffic.

Can amateurs/ordinary people find a balance between fan reviews and monetization capabilities?

Cass believes that the two actually complement each other.

Being more sincere, less routine, and enhancing professionalism and verticality are the foundations for content entrepreneurs. Kass suggested that content experts should not try to monetize live broadcasts easily before they are well prepared. Traffic is a double-edged sword. After a live broadcast attracts millions or tens of millions of viewers, if there is a slight mistake, there is a high probability that it will cause a larger area of ​​attack and complaints.

Author: Kasi Data, WeChat public account: Kasi Data