Northeast Rain Sister has fallen into trouble again. How many people can this "crab" drag into the water?

TikTok influencer “Northeast Rain Sister” has sparked controversy over a video of a crab, an incident that highlights the challenges faced by content creators in the country circuit between pursuing commercial benefits and maintaining the authenticity of their content.

The downfall of the TikTok celebrity with 24 million followers was caused by a crab.

On September 4, @东北雨姐 posted a video of rice field crabs. In the video, she and her companions stood in the rice field, catching crabs from the mud, and shouted in her signature loud voice, "Mid-Autumn September, Panjin river crabs have a good harvest!"

Image source: TikTok

However, the video soon sparked controversy after it was released. Netizens questioned whether Sister Yu was posing for the video from various angles, such as "rice field crabs are not that big" and "crabs should be caught on the shore after dark." Local people from Panjin also pointed out that Sister Yu from Northeast China should have caught bathing crabs or crabs from other places.

After the incident, @东北雨姐 removed the video.

In the live broadcast on September 7, she further responded to the controversy: the crabs were indeed released into the rice fields, and they were not rice field crabs, but crabs from the Panjin Reservoir.

The reason for the posing was that she was invited by the platform to promote river crabs in Panjin, her hometown, but due to time and scene constraints, she had to take some measures to shoot. In the two live broadcasts that day, the cumulative sales of Northeast Yujie reached 10 million to 15 million.

At the end of 2023, Northeast Rain Sister became an Internet celebrity with the title of "Wolf Warrior version of Liziqi" and quickly became a top star in the rural track. Users liked her spirit of working hard on the farm, "as if she had endless energy", but when the shadow of posing and falsification loomed over the expert, even @东北雨姐 could not avoid being caught in controversy.

1. Northeast Rain Sister, "turns over" again

Even users who have not watched @东北雨姐’s short video may have been brainwashed by Northeast Rain Sister’s “personal work song” - the "Great Northeast My Hometown DJ Version" that has become popular on the Internet.

In early 2022, @东北雨姐 switched from Kuaishou to Douyin.

In the first video, Yu Jie, who has a braid tied at the back of her head and shaved all the hair around it, stir-fried four dishes with great fanfare. Then, she sat on the kang and pulled Lao Kuai out of the camera, scolding him, "Why are you such a complete idiot?" She said in a loud voice, "This is Yu Jie's only account on the Douyin platform. Yu Jie will show you the most authentic daily life in the countryside."

In the following video, Sister Yu from Northeast China "charges" into the rural food market with great momentum, and at the same time demonstrates to the public with her own actions what it means to have full talent for farming, and to have maximum mobility and strength.

Image source: @东北雨姐TikTok video

When eating copper hot pot, Sister Yu carried a copper pot that was more than half a person's height by herself, and she could wave her hand and say "Let's go!" When she got home, she threw the pot on the base with a bang, and then began to measure the size, saw the table, and then put large pots of prawns, conchs, and meat rolls on it;

When doing farm work, he would first kick open the wooden door, then rush up the mountain to chop branches, carrying bundles of firewood on his shoulders and walking faster than anyone else. He would often say, "It only takes a short time to finish this trivial job."

Building pig pens, cleaning chimneys, catching pickles with ice water, making soybean paste, and digging toad ponds, Northeastern Yu Jie can do these farm chores smoothly. Her strong execution and sense of strength can scare any fragile young man at random.

Image source: @东北雨姐TikTok video

In contrast to her generosity and capability is her husband "Lao Kuai" who acts like a "spoiled husband". When Sister Yu is working vigorously, Lao Kuai is often drinking Wahaha, petting kittens, sleeping on the kang, and shrewdly calculating how to avoid labor.

As "Yu Jie's little toy", when he went out to the market, Lao Kuai would wear a big flowered jacket and sit on the crossbar of Yu Jie's bicycle. He didn't dare to ask the big brother who put the fish in the pond to eat fish, and he would call Yu Jie in a cowardly way, "You ask him for it."

The combination of a strong woman and a weak man, coupled with Sister Yu's strong personality charm, has quickly attracted a large number of fans to the account. As of press time, Sister Yu has released a total of 240 videos and attracted 24.48 million fans.

Image source: @东北雨姐TikTok video

Not only is she popular, Northeastern Yu Jie has also gradually formed her own "family universe", including @雨姐家大乔, @雨姐家大亮子, @雨姐家大宝贝, etc. These people who appear in Northeastern Yu Jie's videos have each attracted traffic on Douyin with their food and life content.

At the same time, a number of slicing accounts have appeared on Douyin, slicing and distributing clips of Northeast Rain Sister’s live broadcasts, such as @雨姐(好物店), which has accumulated nearly 490,000 followers;

Similar accounts include @雨姐甄選, 雨姐家(精选), 雨姐家小超市, etc. These accounts all have "Yu姐官方授权" marked in their personal profiles.

But when @东北雨姐 was making great strides in monetization, risks also quietly arrived.

First of all, some netizens pointed out that the content of the video was suspected of being deliberately staged and fabricated, such as the multi-camera shooting technique and deliberate scene arrangement and use.

In this regard, Northeast Yujie admitted that her videos are indeed scripted and performed, and the members of the team also have their own responsibilities. They are not relatives or people from the same village. The chief screenwriter is Lao Kuai, "but the work is real and the meals are real."

If similar scripts and staged shots only shook the authenticity of the video, the failure in the live streaming of goods had a blow to her personal image and the trust of her fans.

In fact, the "rice field crab" is not the first time that Yu Jie has been suspected of counterfeiting. At the end of last year, some netizens "exposed counterfeiting" that the "99 yuan native Northeastern geese" sold in Yu Jie's live broadcast room were actually African geese. Not only were they suspected of being mismatched and false advertising, but the actual products received also contained a lot of ice cubes, and were suspected of being "injected with water".

To this end, @东北雨姐 specially held a live broadcast to prove herself, respond to online doubts, and assure the audience of the reliability of her own goose, but netizens further pointed out the contradictions in the "Quarantine Certificate" posted by Sister Yu. For this reason, Sister Yu suspended live broadcasts for a period of time.

Afterwards, some netizens further "exposed counterfeiting" the sweet potato vermicelli in @东北雨姐's live broadcast room, claiming that the vermicelli advertised in the live broadcast room were "pure sweet potato vermicelli, no glue added", but after receiving the goods, they found that the vermicelli could not be cooked, which was not like what Sister Yu showed in the live broadcast room.

It is difficult for rural experts to monetize, on the one hand because of the problem of the survival of their personalities, and on the other hand because of the instability of agricultural products. Experts cannot control the quality of the supply chain, and any disturbance in the live broadcast will affect the image of the experts in the hearts of their fans.

Regarding the rice field crab incident, some users believe that Northeastern Yu Jie did not hang the crabs on the shared bikes, but only wanted to promote her hometown, and it cannot be simply defined as a "collapse of the house"; but some people believe that placing ordinary river crabs in rice fields to impersonate rice field crabs has constituted deception.

Image source: TikTok

However, the "rice field crab staged incident" has not yet caused serious damage to his account.

On September 4, @东北雨姐’s followers gained more than 200,000. It was not until public opinion fermented that her number of fans showed a slight decline.

In the live broadcast on September 7, she sold 125,000 to 300,000 pieces of soft dates, a specialty of Northeast China, and the sales of the two live broadcasts reached 10 million to 15 million, a slight decline compared to the live broadcast at the end of August. Not long ago, @东北雨姐 was awarded the annual breakthrough award by Douyin e-commerce.

2. It’s hard to create a new god in the rural track

Although the "rice field crab staged incident" has not yet caused serious damage to @东北雨姐, it is an indisputable fact that she has encountered trust crises and reputation collapse many times. This is not only a case of risk control failure of a single blogger, but also reflects the dilemma of a content track.

From the second half of 2020 to now, we have witnessed the liveliness and prosperity of the rural track. But behind the huge traffic, undercurrents have long been surging. On the one hand, the overall growth rate of the number of fans of rural talents has slowed down, and some rural talents have already begun to lose fans.

On the other hand, although many "successors" have appeared on the short video platform since @李子柒 stopped updating, from @张同学, @八零徐的老佬, to @东北雨姐, the top streamers in the rural food track have not had a smooth journey in live streaming and selling goods, but have encountered constant problems.

In Kas’ long-term observation of the short video and live streaming e-commerce industries, there are three reasons why rural influencers are prone to failure after starting to monetize:

First of all, although many fans are willing to support talented people to monetize, when some people take this step, they will still attract many questions and dissatisfaction from users, and their accounts will also be at risk of "changing".

Judging from many past cases, authenticity and simplicity are the biggest demands of the majority of viewers for rural-themed content. Users hope that their content and personality are real and not artificial, and they also hope that the account can remain simple and pure. Once these two elements are broken, the influencer is likely to be backlashed.

@牛爱芳的小春花 is a typical example. On October 30, 2021, @牛爱芳的小春花 launched her first live streaming show.

After the live broadcast, negative comments came one after another, and the account began to lose followers. Kas once analyzed the reasons for the decline in its reputation. In addition to "disappointing" the previous promise of not bringing goods, and the goods in the live broadcast room were more expensive than other brands, more importantly, it was questioned for "fake personality". Not only was the identity forged, but many plots were preset scripts.

After encountering a serious crisis of trust, @牛爱芳's Xiaochunhua lost more than 1 million followers in half a year.

@Niu Aifang's Little Spring Flower Tik Tok video screenshot

In addition, due to complex rules and high-intensity competition, Douyin e-commerce has long been an industry with high barriers to entry. If rural influencers want to make a long-term career through live streaming, they must rely on a professional team to control content risks and business risks.

For example, in January this year, the rural food expert @八零徐老佬, who has 9 million fans, started her first live broadcast to sell goods. The estimated sales of a single show were 10 million to 25 million, and many product links were sold out, which was a good result.

Today, @八零徐老佬 is still a top influencer in the rural market, but the speed of her followers and sales has declined significantly. In the past 30 days, @八零徐老佬 updated 6 videos and gained 230,000 followers, a much slower pace than before; she also conducted 3 live broadcasts, with an estimated sales of 1 million to 2.5 million, less than a fraction of her previous sales.

@张同学TikTok video screenshot

In addition, due to complex rules and high-intensity competition, Douyin e-commerce has long been an industry with high barriers to entry. If rural influencers want to make a long-term career through live streaming, they must rely on a professional team to control content risks and business risks.

For example, in January this year, the rural food expert @八零徐老佬, who has 9 million fans, started her first live broadcast to sell goods. The estimated sales of a single show were 10 million to 25 million, and many product links were sold out, which was a good result.

Today, @八零徐老佬 is still a top influencer in the rural market, but the speed of her followers and sales has declined significantly. In the past 30 days, @八零徐老佬 updated 6 videos and gained 230,000 followers, which is much slower than before.

After three live broadcasts, the estimated sales volume was 1 million to 2.5 million, less than a fraction of the previous amount.

@八零徐老佬TikTok video screenshot

@东北雨姐 has actually established a company and has a dedicated content team, but in a highly involuted competitive environment, it still cannot avoid "crashing". The reason is probably that "it cares too much about commercial benefits and dissemination data and ignores the legitimacy and rationality of the operating process."

Looking back, are the influencers who are rooted in rural areas destined to have a difficult time swinging between reputation and monetization? Not really, some influencers have found a way to balance.

Some rural influencers have achieved relatively good sales through short video trailers and window displays, and their products are deeply related to the characteristics of their accounts.

For example: @乡愁 sells many kinds of tea in the window, and also attaches product links in the videos. In the past 90 days, it has released three trailer short videos, with estimated sales of 1 million to 2.5 million. However, compared with its more than 20 million fans, the sales are not outstanding.

@周周(周莫) has conducted live streaming to sell goods for three days in the past month, with estimated sales of 2.5 million to 5 million. The best-selling products are Sichuan soft-seeded pomegranates, Xinjiang thin-skinned walnuts and Guizhou dry rice noodles.

In summary, compared with other tracks, rural influencers have more prerequisites for short videos and live streaming to sell goods, and there are many difficulties to overcome in the future. With platform traffic peaking and user preferences becoming more and more dispersed, it is becoming increasingly difficult for rural influencers to become dark horses in increasing fans and selling goods.