The million-dollar hit video gained 300,000 followers. Is the music section of Bilibili finally welcoming a "hard-working" UP host?

The music section UP @BBoxer Chieftain gained over 800,000 followers in just three months. He became famous overnight with a "ventriloquism" video, and many of his videos have been played over a million times, making him the first person to "make a living" in the music section of Bilibili at the beginning of the year. What exactly did BBoxer Chieftain rely on to attract fans and become popular in the lonely music section? Does his "alternative" way of gaining followers mean that the "aesthetic of ugliness" culture is popular again?

There hasn't been any serious activity in the music section of Bilibili for a long time.

In the first list of the top 100 up-masters on Bilibili in 2018, the music section was one of the sections with the largest number of up-masters, with a total of 13 people on the list. But in 2020, this number has dropped to 6.

Although the number of top 100 UPs in the music section has risen to 10 in 2021, Phoenix Legend, May Tree, and Liu Qingyao are not native UPs. In the latest selection of the top 100 UPs in 2022, the music section still does not have many highlights to talk about.

The veteran music area is like an elder who has retreated behind the scenes, giving the mainstream position to the young and potential-filled living and knowledge areas.

Surprisingly, at the end of last year, the music section UP host @BBoxer Chieftain gained over 800,000 followers in just three months, and became famous overnight with a "ventriloquism" video. Many of his videos have been played over a million times, making him the first person to "make a living" in the B station music section at the beginning of the year.

So, what exactly did Chief BBoxer rely on to attract so many fans in the lonely music circle and become popular? Does his "alternative" way of gaining fans mean that the "ugly aesthetic" culture is becoming popular again?

1. “Ugly” is the biggest label

When watching the videos of BBoxer Chieftain, a UP host on B Station, most people's first reaction may be "eye-catching". To some extent, his videos are full of pretentiousness and ugliness. Although his video style is very curious and may even make some people feel uncomfortable when they first watch it, he still attracts some people with his "surprising" topics.

Looking through BBoxer Chief's past videos, it is not difficult to find that the visual impact of the video cover is very strong. Some netizens helplessly expressed their affirmation of the chief: "Your cover is so amazing that I can't help but click in to see it", while some netizens said they couldn't accept it: "Do you have to make a cover like this? Is it difficult to have a normal expression?" Some netizens even said "How many days has it been since the zombies turned into corpses?"

For example, in the video "Screenless Performance of "Voice Imitation" to Restore Classical Chinese", the video cover shows him putting one leg on the table, which is very weird. And the cover of the video "Voice Imitation Gunshot Tutorial "Shotgun"" shows him rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue. And the cover of the video "Introduction to Facial Art Tutorial "Rolling Eyes"" is different from the previous ones, but he squinted his eyes, and with the "death-style lighting", it was like watching a horror movie. It can be said that most of the covers of Chief's videos are quite "eye-catching", which can be regarded as playing with the curiosity of B station users.

In fact, this phenomenon can be understood as the "aesthetics of ugliness" phenomenon on the Internet, which refers to a special form of people or things that subvert tradition, are weird, unconventional, and irrational and gain a lot of attention resources in a short period of time.

From the audience's perspective, the reason why the "ugly aesthetic" phenomenon is so popular is that these topical figures satisfy the netizens' curiosity and sense of freshness. In aesthetics, there is a theory of "aesthetic needs", which means that people will develop new aesthetics for novel things due to aesthetic fatigue in the long-term consistent aesthetics, thus shifting the existence and definition of "beauty". And these users who are attracted by ugliness are, to a certain extent, trying to relieve their own "aesthetic fatigue".

Obviously, Chief BBoxer is also well versed in the traffic code of "ugly aesthetics". Whether it is a funny video cover or video content that challenges the audience's bottom line, his purpose of gaining attention is very obvious.

For example, in the video "Performing "Voice Imitation" without a Screen to Restore Classical Chinese" mentioned above, he rolled his eyes and made exaggerated movements everywhere, and netizens commented that "UP gave every zombie I saw in apocalyptic novels a face", "It seems that a screen is indeed necessary, otherwise the performance would become pure comedy", "It surpasses the original because there is no screen"...

In addition to his extremely exaggerated facial expressions, Chief BBoxer's image is indeed another major factor that makes him popular. From the video, we can see that his masculine characteristics are not obvious, and with the blessing of long hair, his personal style is very obvious and has a clear memorable point.

The unique personal style has won the chief many fans. One netizen made an insightful comment on the routine of his videos: "The first step is a wicked smile; the second step is to roll the eyes; the third step is whoosh~pop~." Another netizen joked in the video "Traditional Ventriloquism Teaching "Sheep": "Chief, take care of yourself, your comrades are waiting for you to get better and dress up as a woman."

In fact, Chief BBoxer's video style has not always been like this. In March last year, his video content was still normal BBox teaching. There were no obvious flaws in the video cover or title. However, judging from the number of video views, there were significant differences between the two videos from different periods.

For example, the early "Ultra-Detailed BBox Tutorial" video series had only about 100,000 views, but after the style was changed, the video views increased several times, with some videos even reaching a million views, and the video "Screen-free Performance of "Voice Imitation" to Restore Classical Chinese" had a view count of 14.59 million.

2. Is it the “eye-catching effect” or “facial expression”?

Admittedly, the strong personal style is the primary reason for BBoxer Chief’s popularity, but the solid BBox strength and video production capabilities cannot be ignored, which is the guarantee of "substantial" content.

In terms of BBox capabilities, he can not only use BBox to imitate various sounds in life, but also mix and cover popular songs; in terms of video production capabilities, BBoxer Chief's fancy editing techniques and expressiveness add a lot of color to the video. For example, in the two videos "I am a mouse! !" and "I ran away with my tail between my legs! !", he used various editing techniques to make the video style more trendy and cooler, and his BBox and personal singing skills were fully demonstrated. In addition to winning nearly one million views, he also captured a large number of fans.

Through these carefully produced videos, fans also discovered that Chief BBoxer is not as "ugly" as he appears. On the contrary, after fans watched the videos many times, some of them slowly began to become "fans of his looks". They called Chief BBoxer's videos "the best in the world of facial expressions" and believed that "he is trying something new."

As for why Chief BBoxer suddenly changed his style, we don’t know the reason, but one thing we can be sure of is that after the sudden change in the style of the video, Chief BBoxer did gain more attention and more netizens saw his skills on BBox.

In the video with the highest number of views, "Screen-free Performance of 'Voice Imitation' to Recreate Classical Chinese", his ventriloquism was recognized by some netizens, with one netizen commenting "It's really awesome, this is really awesome. Although it's impossible to make all the voices at the same time, it's really lifelike. I was stunned, especially the sounds of a baby crying and a mouse. They're so similar! I'm trembling with fear and almost want to leave."

Another user commented, "Up is really amazing. It completely restored my imagination when I was studying this classical Chinese text in junior high school. At that time, I was wondering if there really is such a "ventriloquist" in the world. Even if it is possible, the art must have been lost long ago. Now seeing Up's video, I am really surprised and amazed."

We seem to judge that if it weren't for the exaggerated style, the mediocre "Voice Imitation" performance would not have had the possibility of fermentation, the number of views would not have reached more than 10 million, and it would not have been ranked first in the site. In summary, the explosion of BBoxer Chief is a combination of topic selection, strength, style and "eyeball effect". Based on a deep understanding of the culture of B station, he finds topics that users are interested in and fully demonstrates his expertise, and finally makes the audience "start with the cover, fall in love with the talent, and be loyal to the character".

However, although netizens praised his ventriloquism, they still could not escape criticism for his "appearance". "Now I know the importance of screens in ventriloquism. UP's ventriloquism is so good, but I can't fully appreciate it." "Is there an ophthalmologist in there who can help me wash my eyes?" Perhaps in future videos, Chief BBoxer will have to show more "facial expressions" to change the public's impression.

3. Why is it so popular on Bilibili?

At present, Chief’s fan growth data on Bilibili is gratifying, but the response on other platforms is mediocre. The reason is closely related to the community culture of Bilibili.

There is no denying that ghost animal content is a major feature of Bilibili. Users with a high acceptance of ghost animal content have given it a certain development space on Bilibili, and the ghost animal content continuously produced by UP hosts makes the ghost animal culture of Bilibili even stronger.

It is in this kind of content ecology that some music ghost UP hosts have emerged, such as TØm and Gun Bullet Trajectory.

Currently, @枪弹轨迹 has 3.16 million followers on Bilibili. From the content point of view, his materials are mostly derived from popular online videos, which are more likely to resonate with users. For example, in the video of "Qiang Qiang Qiang Qiang Qiang Qiang Qiang Qiang Tribe Little Evil", he pieced together various videos and emoticons of Yang Di, and accompanied them with magical music, which made many netizens addicted.

In the video "Back, Back, Back", he re-interpreted the words of the old lady in the confrontation with the urban management, which attracted many netizens to watch. @枪弹轨迹's secondary creation also triggered a lot of discussion. Some netizens commented that "a person who understands the law and a person who understands magic are fighting each other." At the same time, the secondary creation also brought a certain amount of traffic to itself. The video has been played 8.88 million times so far.

Although @TØm does not have as many fans as @枪弹轨迹, it has also produced some popular content, such as the video "I LOVE YOU" in collaboration with Mixue Bingcheng. The magical melody made the lyrics more popular and triggered a lot of interaction from netizens.

It is not difficult to find out from observing the content of the two that they both use hot topics to make ghost videos, which makes the content easier to spread. BBoxer Chief also has a certain ghost nature, but he regards himself as the material of ghost content, which makes the video have a strong personal attribute on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also brings more realism due to his personal appearance, and is easier to attract fans.

Up to now, the UP hosts of Bilibili have undoubtedly become more and more competitive, especially in the music section. Without distinctive personal characteristics, it is difficult to stand out among the crowd of UP hosts. It can be said that the music section of Bilibili today is not short of talents, but lacks ways of expression.

The sudden popularity of Chief BBoxer also brought a revelation to creators, that is, "constantly tossing" is the eternal proposition of working as a content creator.

Author: Aries ;

WeChat public account: TopKlout (ID: TopKlout)