My cyber kindness, your sales miracle

In the digital age, live streaming has become an emerging business model, and some anchors attract sympathy and support from viewers by performing tragic stories, thereby driving sales. This phenomenon has triggered people's in-depth thinking about cyber kindness and the miracle of live streaming.

How attractive would it be for an enthusiastic netizen to buy spicy strips from a poor person who is suffering from the hardships of life? You will get the joy of small consumption, the blind box experience of low-priced snacks, and the moral victory of doing good deeds every day.

Although people in real life tend to be more cautious and indifferent, short videos still give us many opportunities to show kindness:

At two or three in the morning, when the eyelids of young people who stayed up late were fighting, a group of grandpas and grandmas were still introducing small commodities. A small piece of cardboard beside them was filled with their misfortunes - they or their children and grandchildren suffered from serious diseases, and could only rely on live streaming to sell goods and fight against fate;

In the beautiful countryside, the daughter-in-law who married from afar has to do farm work and housework for 18 hours a day. The mother-in-law speaks harshly to her and the husband is habitually unfaithful. But for the sake of her son who is a few years old and her baby daughter, the mother in the live broadcast room is very determined to bring goods.

Long-lost relatives reunited in the live broadcast room, and before they had time to go back to their hometown, they walked into Heilan Home. A family that had just reunited and was not familiar with each other would bargain for you skillfully, "Auntie, this 139 piece is too expensive!"

Due to the changes in the business model of dramas and social values, family ethics dramas such as "My Ugly Mother" and "The Substitute" have completely declined, and "Mother's Way" is the last glimmer of their glory. However, the silent demand for these contents in the sinking market has never disappeared. They changed the way of acting and carried it forward in the live broadcast room, satisfying the cyber kindness and achieving the miracle of bringing goods.

1. The wronged peasant woman, day day up

In the morning, she wakes up from her 20 million yuan villa, puts on beautiful village girl makeup, drives her Porsche to a shabby house and plays the role of a miserable woman for a few hours. In recent years, there are countless "wronged peasant women" (fans call them "bitter melon team") anchors who have fallen out of favor. The biggest contrast is probably Fan Xiaohui, who has 13 million fans on Douyin.

I seriously suspect that Fan Xiaohui's script was based on the classic works of Teacher Yan Xuejing. Works such as "My Mother Tian Xiaocao", "Women Are Afraid of Marrying the Wrong Man" and "Women's Village" must be the source of inspiration for Fan Xiaohui's team. As soon as Teacher Yan Xuejing appears, you know who has the most miserable life in this drama. As soon as Fan Xiaohui acts, she can quickly make enough hot money and tears.

Abandoned by her parents and adopted by relatives, she has lived under the eyes of others since she was a child. Although she finally recognized her biological mother, her mother's attitude was extremely cold. After marrying Zhang Haibo, because of her husband's military status, Xiaohui, as a military wife, could only raise her son alone with great difficulty. Her mother-in-law was not kind to Xiaohui, but she could not help but endure hardships and always showed her high morale and optimistic will in short videos.

The most explosive part is that Xiaohui discovered that her husband had cheated on her and went home to visit relatives with kiss marks from another woman. The onlookers advised her to dump her husband and become the only beautiful heroine. It was during the cheating incident that Fan Xiaohui's fans increased by 5 million. After she sorted out her mood, she sold goods through live streaming (December 2023). That night, her sales exceeded 100 million, crushing Oriental Selection. That month, Fan Xiaohui realized a personal income of 34 million. Oh my God, it turns out that what is played in TV dramas is true. Once a scumbag husband cheats, a woman is not far from reaching the peak of her life.

Until July this year, a short essay written by her husband caused Fan Xiaohui's image to take a sharp turn for the worse. It turned out that the two were in a free love relationship, not a blind date. It was also a lie that they had met only four times in eight years of marriage. The two were often together. The mother-in-law has also been helping to take care of the baby and cooperating with Fan Xiaohui's filming. Fan Xiaohui often drinks alcohol and beats her mother and mother-in-law after drinking. The cheating incident that made her a big internet celebrity was also hype. The two separated in 2020 and signed a divorce agreement, but they have not yet obtained a divorce certificate. Xiaohui let her ex-husband fall in love freely, and the "cheating object" was actually a blind date.

Oh my, the smart and tough Song Hye Kyo turned into a full-mouthed Yanzhen in a second, who can stand this. Although we cannot fully believe the one-sided words of her husband Zhang Haibo, the battle between Fan Xiaohui and MCN company boss Dai Yong can more or less show that she is full of nonsense. For example, Xiaohui said that she and her child were threatened by the boss to kneel down and admit their mistakes. Fortunately, Dai Yong had a camera at home, and the video showed that Xiaohui knelt on the ground without saying a word and dragged the child with her. Dai Yong saw it and immediately went up to support her.

After Fan Xiaohui's accident, many people watched the live broadcast and praised her acting skills. "Looking back at this video, I am dying of laughter." Zhang Haibo revealed that the "Meeting Husband at the Station" work that moved netizens was filmed several days after returning home. Because the action of walking out of the station was unnatural, it was re-filmed several times. It really makes Hard Candy Jun comment that her acting skills are not perfect, but she knows what kind of content can make her "online in-laws" feel sorry for her.

Why are people so obsessed with dramas about misery, and why do they want to save the miserable heroines with a sense of immersion? Is it because the bloody plots are so addictive? Is it because they secretly feel happy that they are not the worst off? Is it because they feel superior in morality and intelligence by helping others judge and give advice? Or is it because helping a miserable woman regain her life is like liberating themselves?

2. Searching for relatives over a long distance, netizens instantly become family members

In the past, the search for relatives ended with the family being reunited and the traffickers being punished. Now, the search for relatives has to derive a spin-off - "I sell goods with my new family" to be exciting.

At the end of 2023, Xie Qingshuai, who had been missing for 25 years, reunited with his billionaire father Xie Kefeng. Xie Kefeng and his wife had spent all their savings on the search for their children, so they had to start a business while running around. Although the child was not found, their careers were getting better and better. The couple owned four concrete companies and a construction company, with a net worth of 300 million yuan. Xie Kefeng offered a reward of one million to find the child, and over the years he helped more than 20 families find their relatives, so netizens at the time thought that it was a blessing from his father that Xie Qingshuai was found.

This is a typical family-searching narrative that cannot be more typical. There is even a message from the "new father" that makes netizens envious and jealous: "The new house has been bought, and I will buy you a car tomorrow afternoon. You can get whatever car you want." It can be said that it has both touching tear points and funny points for jokes, so it is hard not to be popular.

It should be said that the popularity of Jie Qingshuai's search for his relatives was also paved by the Mei Zhiqiang incident last year, who was "abducted from a family of tens of millions to a family of hundreds of millions". At that time, marketing accounts joked that "the most difficult hours in his life were the days when he was abducted". It would have been fine if he was born in Rome, but after being abducted, he went to Dubai. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he accidentally fell into a golden rice bowl. With the solidification of social classes and the filter of wealth, the public is more eager to see the script of "rich people looking for their relatives to change the fate of their children".

On the Internet, no one cares how your fans come from. What matters is how to convert traffic. Are the millions of fans gained by finding relatives just thrown away? How did he become a billionaire? The popularity of the family recognition event has not yet subsided. Just after doing charity work with his father, Jie Qingshuai took his family to Heilan Home to promote products. But when Jie Qingshuai shouted 321 to post the link, the mother fans advised tearfully: "Handsome, please stop broadcasting. It has changed. Mom can't stand it."

Although many fans said that the live streaming was not about stealing or robbing, netizens found that the sweater originally priced at 109 yuan was bargained down to 119 yuan by the teenager, which was 10 yuan more expensive than Taobao. No wonder Wang Baoqiang declined when asked if he wanted to make a movie about his family search, saying, "Not all stories are suitable for movies." You can't just start with "Dear" and then shoot a live streaming to sell goods.

You thought he found his family, but in fact he found "family members". People who suddenly realized the truth now suspected that the search for relatives was a show. Careful netizens found that before May 2022, Jie Qingshuai's mother's Douyin was full of singing videos, and there was no search for relatives. After this time point, it was all search for relatives videos, and there was no singing. Why is there such a big contrast in the content of the video? It took less than a month for the recognition of relatives to start selling goods. Who would believe that it was not an advance layout? Insiders also broke the news that they had found it in 2022, and the rest was purely an acting award.

However, unlike Xie Qingshuai's live streaming, Sun Haiyang and his wife, who also became famous for finding relatives, have a very solid public support for live streaming. The first live streaming sold 12 million yuan, and Sun Haiyang donated all the 900,000 yuan commission to help needy families find their relatives. It seems that what the public dislikes is not the use of attention to sell goods, but the rush to make quick money, forgetting the original intention and the way forward.

3. Who does Cyber’s kindness satisfy?

"Although I am not doing well, I just can't bear to see the suffering of the world." Unlike begging on the overpass, where you throw a coin, live streaming to sell misery inspires people's cyber kindness. It doesn't even require you to throw in Douyin coins, as long as you like and leave a comment, the popularity will rise.

There is a kind of traditional begging like this: the child is indeed sick or disabled, but the "parents" around him are not real relatives, but human traffickers or beggar gang leaders. They will hire and coerce children to cooperate in acting, and deceive as many as they can. What's worse, they will break the child's hands and feet to create disability. There is a similar plot in the TV series "South to North", where an old beggar woman brought a fake grandson to deceive the rookie policeman Bai Jingting and moved him deeply, and she was happy in her heart even though she was hungry and poor.

The rise of live streaming has not only changed the traditional entertainment ecology, but also brought profound changes to the begging industry. Practitioners have moved their workplaces from stations, subway entrances, and overpasses to live streaming studios. Those with better conditions rent a shabby house, and those who are lazy even use virtual green screens, deceiving middle-aged and elderly users with poor eyesight and good intentions.

Compared with the post-90s and post-00s who grew up with plenty of food and clothing, the post-60s and post-70s still have a lot of historical memories of suffering due to the times. Therefore, helping the needy in the live broadcast room can not only redeem themselves from the past of eating coarse food, but also confirm the happiness of the present, which is indeed a service that satisfies both parties.

To be honest, every time I see the blackened kettle, honeycomb coal and old-fashioned electric fan in the live broadcast room, Mao Amin's "Desire" will ring in my mind. "The years have passed, and I want to talk about how confused I was back then. It's hard to choose between the real and the illusory." Helping others may not make you a better person, but it will definitely give people a cyber illusion of "becoming a better person."

Of course, it must be pointed out that not all the people in the live broadcast room are scammers. Some of them have real difficulties. Grandma Xiuying, whom I watched, experienced the death of her son and her husband's cancer. In order to take care of the grandchildren left by her son, she had to open an account to live broadcast. But she didn't have professional rhetoric, and the goods she brought were only garbage bags, cotton swabs, and gel pens, which had a meager profit margin. What's worse is that because she was constantly reported, the grandmother had to use a small account to live broadcast, and the popularity of the small account was not high.

Since the elderly are more likely to gain sympathy, many MCN agencies are apparently looking for elderly anchors. It feels like these agencies that take commissions are playing the role of the "boss" of the traditional begging industry. Media progress cannot change the bad nature of human beings. It is an emotionless amplification machine that can bless both good and bad people. ‍

Livestreaming that sells misery does not hurt good intentions, but reduces the chances of people who really need help getting it. Although Xiaoying cried her eyes out when she was suspected of having a script at the beginning of the year, I still don’t dare to empathize with her. I’m afraid she will become another Fan Xiaohui, and I’m also afraid that I’ll be cut off and still try hard to grow up.

The anchor is like the people and monsters encountered on the journey to the West. We need to be suspicious like Sun Wukong. "Three Fights with the White Bone Demon" is a live broadcast of pity. The old woman and the old man appeared one after another to accuse Wukong of evil, scaring the good man Tang Seng into tears.

Author | Xie Minghong Editor | Li Chunhui This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Entertainment Hard Candy], WeChat public account: [Entertainment Hard Candy], 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.