"Soft Rice Man" bravely ventured into short videos, gaining 1.04 million followers in 30 days

In the short video field, three male bloggers, "Suddenly Fantasy", "Liu Meili's Daily Life" and "Laohei", successfully opened up the "soft rice man" track by showing the life of being "supported by rich women". They attracted a large number of fans by providing emotional value and showing idealized love life. Among them, "Suddenly Fantasy" increased its fans by 1.04 million in 30 days.

I didn't expect that the joke of "living off rich women" would actually become the real traffic password.

Recently, three "rich woman killers" have emerged in the short video track.

Different from other handsome guys who rely on their good looks to attract people, the three male bloggers "Suddenly Fantasy", "Liu Meili's Family's Daily Life" and "Lao Hei" have successfully opened up the market for gigolos. Relying on their understanding of life, self-discipline and ability to provide emotional value, they have lived a life of being "kept".

According to statistics from Xinbang's Douyin data tool Xin Dou, "Suddenly Fantasy" gained 1.04 million followers in the past 30 days, "Liu Meili's Family's Daily Life" gained more than 500,000 followers in July, and "Laohei" gained 340,000 followers in 15 days in September.

Many netizens left comments: "My friend, the quality of Douyin is really high, I dare not miss a single frame."

1. On the self-cultivation of men who live off their husbands

How good is the life of a gigolo? "Tu Ran Fantasy", who calls himself "the first person on the Internet to eat Japanese women's gigolo", said: I don't have to go to work to make money, I can just play games at home every day. Even if it's a hobby like Gundam model that burns money, my wife doesn't mind.

My wife pays for all the daily expenses at home, and there is a jar of 260,000 yen for living expenses, which she puts in and out whenever she wants. When I want to work, my wife won't let me, so I just sit there and play games. I can't pay my wife back, otherwise she will cry.

"Tu Ran Fantasy" is not a handsome guy in the general sense, and even his family is somewhat different from that of his wife Fenghua. "Tu Ran Fantasy" said that he is an ordinary Beijing hutong boy, and his wife Fenghua not only has a good education and job, but also comes from a typical wealthy Japanese family. Her mother traveled all over the world as early as the last century.

Initially, "Suddenly Fantasy" did not want to develop a romantic relationship with Fenghua, but when he was at the lowest point in his life and could not even afford to eat, Fenghua not only brought a lot of food to "Suddenly Fantasy", helping him through the most difficult months, but later also helped pay for his tuition.

Finally, after two and a half years of living together, they successfully got married. This story can be made into a male drama called "The Domineering Daughter Falls in Love with the Useless Me".

Of course, it takes time to become a gigolo blogger.

At the beginning, the video characters of "Suddenly Fantasy" were quite random. Sometimes he was a couple blogger, sharing the sweet daily life of Chinese and Japanese cross-border couples; sometimes he was an emotional blogger, sharing cross-border love strategies; sometimes he was a popular science blogger, sharing details about social life in Japan.

Until this year, because he quit his job and stayed at home, "Tu Ran Fantasy" had to live the life of a gigolo supported by his wife. It was also by sharing a series of videos on "Self-cultivation of a gigolo" that "Tu Ran Fantasy" officially became a gigolo blogger.

Unlike what some people imagine, men who live on gigolo incomes are not just eating and waiting to die, but there are many things to pay attention to:

Don’t get up when your wife hasn’t gotten up yet, otherwise she will feel guilty about being lazy.

The room must be clean and tidy, because what makes women most angry is that after a tiring day at work, they come home from get off work and find the house in a mess.

Before going to bed, I massage my wife until she falls asleep. My wife is very comfortable and relaxed when she is with me, which is the most perfect state.

"Suddenly Fantasy" also emphasized that these things must be done conveniently rather than deliberately, otherwise they cannot be persisted for a long time. He gave an example: "Breakfast does not have to have three dishes and one soup, but you must be able to stick to it. If you suddenly stop doing it, your wife may think, 'Do you not love me anymore?'"

These details shocked many men, who called the "Sudden Fantasy" video "Tutorial for Gigolos" and "Insights into Female Psychology."

Regarding the "attitude" and "sense of security" that men often don't understand, "Suddenly Fantasy" also gives a very accurate demonstration: What attitude do women want?

Cut the sandwich into one big and one small, and give the big one to my wife Fenghua, so that she feels that "at home, you are the one in charge, and you are the best"; when my wife Fenghua is working, I must stand by her, so that she feels like she can be called upon and sent away at will.

What sense of security do women want? When my wife Fenghua goes to work, I cannot close the door first. I have to let her close it first, otherwise it seems like I am trying to drive her away. When I go to sleep, I have to hug my wife Fenghua, even if my shoulders are numb.

In the eyes of some men, although "Sudden Fantasy" shares details of life, they are all practical information and clearly explain the psychology of women.

Some people even put the tutorial into practice and used it on their own mothers, which successfully won a wave of praise. Not only men, the "Suddenly Fantasy" video also stimulated many women. Someone left a message: "To be honest, if my partner can do this, I am willing to spend money."

According to the statistics of Xindou, female fans of "Suddenly Fantasy" account for 35.02%, and the proportion of female fans has been increasing recently. According to the 1.32 million fans, it means that at least 460,000 women are following the videos of "Suddenly Fantasy". In the comment section of "Suddenly Fantasy" videos, women are also more active than men.

One netizen summarized why "Suddenly Fantasy" can be recognized by female users: "It is essentially providing emotional value, not pure labor value."

Emotional value has always been a sensitive point for women. On Xiaohongshu, which is dominated by female users, there are more than 1.1 million notes on the question "How to provide emotional value?"

From the feedback in the comment section, it can be found that many of "Suddenly Fantasy"'s observations hit the female psychology, such as "typing on the keyboard causes women to lose hope" and "washing dishes immediately after a meal will make women irritable".

Oftentimes, the comment section of “Suddenly Fantasy” has become an emotional tree hole: some women never expected that they could be treated so gently; some women frequently wished, “No kidding, I really want to keep a man like this.”

Looking back on the popularity of "Sudden Fantasy", one of the main reasons is that he used very lifelike videos to show the life of men who live off their wives, and also made certain theoretical sublimations, which made his videos rarely loved by both boys and girls.

2. The popular gigolo and his secret intimate relationship imagination

Why can the gigolo videos capture both men and women? Let’s take women as an example. If “Suddenly Fantasy” satisfies women’s expectations for emotional value, “The Daily Life of Liu Meili’s Family” satisfies women’s desire to be liberated from housework, and “Lao Hei” is the exquisite and handsome husband that strong women expect.

According to the statistics of Xindou data, female fans of "Liu Meili's Daily Life" account for 54.22%, and female fans of "Laohei" account for 45.37%. The video of "Liu Meili's Daily Life" shows a house husband who is willing to happily buy groceries, cook, wash dishes and do housework after getting home from get off work every day.

In the traditional division of labor in a family, most housework is done by the wife. It is rare to find a husband like the one in "Liu Meili's Family's Daily Life" who not only takes care of all the housework but also does not complain.

In real life, "I asked my husband to clean the refrigerator, and he could do it in 4 hours, and he even showed off to me how good he was", which could be considered a model husband. "Laohei"'s video shows "a vlog of a 27-year-old out-of-date male internet celebrity being kept by a rich woman", from fitness and beauty to housework and cooking, he is a gender-transformed rich wife.

As more and more women achieve success in their careers, they also hope to "support a lovely wife" like men. This is both a great sense of accomplishment and a real sense of happiness.

On Xiaohongshu, which has a majority of female users, sister-brother relationships where the woman is strong and the man is weak have even become a traffic code, with female bloggers happy to show off their handsome and well-behaved younger boyfriends. Women look forward to gigolos, and men don't seem to reject them either.

In traditional concepts, the social evaluation of "gigolos" is generally low, but with the changes in the external environment, social concepts have quietly changed: for some men, learning frame by frame from gigolo videos is no longer a shameful thing, but a legitimate "employment guide for college students."

Recently, because he was believed to have missed out on the "support" of the internet celebrity "Stefanie Zheng" who has tens of millions of fans, the beauty blogger "Han Yi Hyi." even became a negative example in this wave of gigolos becoming popular. Many netizens joked that if Han Yi was sensible enough, he would have gotten luxury cars such as Ducati long ago.

It is worth noting that a gigolo is not the same as a bootlicker. Many netizens believe that the reason why "Tu Ran Fantasy" is willing to take care of his wife's emotions in great detail is that his wife helped him when he was in the most difficult time and is willing to help her husband share the housework. "Tu Ran Fantasy"'s gigolo life is actually the result of the joint efforts of two people.

Strictly speaking, gigolo bloggers belong to a sub-category of couple bloggers.

Since the rise of short videos, a large number of bloggers have attracted countless fans by sharing the lives of couples. Some focus on happiness, such as "Zhang Baiqiao"; some focus on like-minded people, such as "Zhang Xinyu Liang Hong"; some focus on Chinese and foreign identities, such as "Kainuo Monroe couple"; some focus on being rich, such as "Guoyue couple"...

Couple bloggers are essentially selling an ideal love life. The special thing about gigolo bloggers is that they keenly grasp the subtle changes in the mentality of men and women: unlike the popular concept of men being rich and women being pretty, women begin to expect to become providers, just for a perfect lover who understands them better;

Men are also trying to accept the traditional female role in the family and are willing to contribute more to the family. Male bloggers who live on their own are actually the product of changes in the emotional concepts of men and women.

Of course, the change of concepts is always tortuous and complicated. After "Suddenly Fantasy" became popular, it aroused a lot of discussion among netizens: some people did not approve of the reversal of the economic status of men and women, and thought that "Suddenly Fantasy" was a gold digger; some people did not like the cleverness of the gigolo, and felt that "Suddenly Fantasy" was too good at grasping the psychology of women.

Perhaps, exploring new possibilities in relationships between men and women and trying new forms that are acceptable to all parties is something that is more worth thinking about after the gigolo becomes popular.

Author | Yun Feiyang Editor | Xiaoba This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Xinbang], WeChat public account: [Xinbang], original/authorized to be published on Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.