Losing millions of fans overnight, what minefields did the internet celebrities step on as they were hit hard by the backlash of traffic?

Traffic is the key to success and traffic is the key to failure. What are the minefields that these influencers who have been overturned by traffic have stepped on? And what should we do to protect our account traffic?

"Kong Kong Diary" may be the internet celebrity who has lost followers the fastest this year.

He is a lifestyle blogger with more than 5 million fans on Douyin. Just because a netizen expressed his dislike for him, he made personal attacks on the netizen in the live broadcast room with words such as "You must have cancer" and "If you are sick, reincarnate quickly", and even disclosed the ID of the amateur netizen, apparently inciting fans to engage in cyber violence.

After the incident fermented, the ordinary netizen cancelled his ID account, and "Kong Kong Diary" also released an apology video under accusations and criticisms from many parties, stating that "in the future, I will work hard to improve my personal qualities and regulate my words and deeds."

However, this video, which was not edited smoothly and had obvious frame skipping, was not forgiven by most netizens. Some controversial remarks made by "Kong Kong Diary" in the past were also dug up, and it was pointed out that the character setting was fake. The topic #Kong Kong Diary Character Setting# was once on the hot search on multiple platforms including Weibo and Douyin.

At the center of the storm, "Kong Kong Diary" turned on protection for the video comment section, but it still couldn't stop netizens from unfollowing it out of anger.

According to Xinbang's Douyin data tool XinDou, "Kongkong Diary" has been losing followers since July 16. On July 20, it lost nearly one million followers in one day. In one week, the number of followers dropped from 5.5 million to 3.44 million today, a loss of 2 million followers, and is still losing followers.

There is no further news on how the "Kongkong Diary" scandal ended. However, "Kongkong Diary" is not the first internet celebrity to lose fans this year. Before that, "Wang Ma" backstabbed a worker, which caused a sensation. Luo Wangyu announced his retirement from the internet last week and paid 150 million yuan in compensation for his scandal of promoting CSS olives.

As Internet celebrities continue to fail, many mainstream content platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Video Account, and Xiaohongshu are also taking the initiative to "take action" to deal with various content violations, fake personalities, and controversial hot issues. Due to touching the red line of rules, some Internet celebrities not only lost fans after failing, but were also banned from all platforms, such as "Shan Ge" and "Shakespeare of One Person".

Starting from the failure of "Kong Kong Diary" and the loss of fans, we discussed the creative minefields that internet celebrities have to avoid when shooting videos and live broadcasts at this stage, and how to avoid them?

1. Losing millions of fans overnight, what minefields did "Kong Kong Diary" step on?

The fuse of the "Kong Kong Diary" controversy was actually his "mental breakdown" towards Internet comments.

On July 14, the Douyin account "Happy Hulusi" with 167,000 followers posted a video titled "How to Demystify Internet Bloggers". Many netizens left a divergent discussion in the comment section, pointing out bloggers they disliked. One of them mentioned "Kong Kong Diary."

Not long after, "Kong Kong Diary" followed the voice and replied two times in a row: "It's okay, I don't like you either." "You can also tell me directly, because I don't like you either."

Afterwards, he blocked the netizen, and the original video author "Happy Hulusi" was also implicated and blocked by "Kongkong Diary".

This netizen also shared his experience of being replied to and blocked by "Kong Kong Diary" on Xiaohongshu, joking that "we hate each other, so how can it not be considered a two-way relationship?" and said "the blogger did nothing wrong, and I did nothing wrong too, anyway, I just hate him."

However, it is not uncommon for Internet celebrities to surf the Internet and reply to netizens. Occasionally, there are tit-for-tat situations, but the smoke of war usually dissipates quickly, so most netizens just watch the fun and do not expect things to get out of control.

On July 16, "Kong Kong Diary" released a video about some bad comments he encountered online. During the live broadcast that day, he saw the note of the netizen who was blocked on Xiaohongshu. In anger, he directly typed out offensive words such as "You must have cancer" and "If you are sick, reincarnate quickly" and exposed the netizen's account ID.

Some netizens in the live broadcast room thought that he was "broken" and could not accept being scolded. "Kong Kong Diary" also responded: "Someone here just hates me, then block you, so what?" "I don't have the courage to be scolded, what did I do, the key is"...

According to the new Douyin data, the average number of viewers for each live broadcast of "Kong Kong Diary" exceeded 100,000, and the number of viewers for the most popular live broadcasts exceeded 220,000. As expected, this live broadcast also brought uncontrollable follow-up effects.

After the account ID of the amateur netizen was exposed, it was subjected to a lot of attacks and insults. "Kong Kong Diary" did not get any good results either. After the speech in the live broadcast room was recorded, it was spread and fermented. More and more netizens stood up to criticize and speak out.

Moreover, because he used "get cancer" as an insult, it caused emotional backlash from many cancer patients or their families. They posted videos to fight back against "Kong Kong Diary", believing that using "get cancer" as an insult is extremely disrespectful to patients and their families who are fighting cancer.

The controversy escalated, and even the "Happy Hulusi" was involved. Some fans of "Kongkong Diary" believed that it was inciting cyber violence against "Kongkong Diary", so they cyber violenceed the "Happy Hulusi".

On July 17, facing the doubts and condemnations from the entire network, "Kong Kong Diary" unblocked "Happy Hulusi", and "Happy Hulusi" also took the initiative to send him a private message asking him to apologize to the amateur netizens.

Under the mediation of "Happy Hulusi", "Kongkong Diary" released an apology video on July 18, admitting that the attacks and insults against amateur netizens in the live broadcast room were facts, apologized to them, and clarified that netizens did not attack his family.

Amateur netizens expressed their gratitude to the netizens who supported her rights through the account of "Happy Hulusi" and chose to cancel the account. However, more netizens did not choose to forgive "Kongkong Diary" and dug out more content that seemed to be contradictory in her personality and inappropriate words.

The farce did not end with the apology. Instead, it caused the personality and content of the entire "Kongkong Diary" account, which had been operating for several years, to gradually collapse. The account traffic dropped by one million fans overnight and 2 million fans in a week.

Ironically, the "Happy Hulusi" video that appeared at the beginning of the incident mentioned that one of the ways to disenchant internet bloggers is to watch their live broadcasts. "Some bloggers appear to be very well-educated in the videos, but what they say in the live broadcasts is illogical. It is also possible that a single barrage of comments will lead to their defense being broken and ordinary people being cyberbullied."

Now it seems that his words have come true.

In the apology video, "Kong Kong Diary" said that he did not control his emotions well and that "his psychological quality was too poor, depriving everyone of the right to evaluate and the right to like or dislike."

Some MCN practitioners said that no one likes to be scolded or scrutinized, but one must be mentally prepared to enter this industry. "Half of the money earned by internet celebrities may be for being scolded, because it is impossible for one person to be liked by everyone."

A popular science blogger also told the Xinbang editorial department that she has become accustomed to the negative voices in the comment section. "Being misunderstood is the fate of the speaker. Everyone has different preferences. As long as there are no factual errors and illogical attacks, I generally respect and retain the different voices in the comment section."

2. Internet celebrities frequently fail. What do current creators need to pay attention to?

The loss of fans caused by the collapse of the “Kong Kong Diary” personality is just a microcosm of the cases of Internet celebrity failures.

In the past year, many internet celebrities have frequently been embroiled in controversies. Some of them apologized and lost followers, some announced their retirement from the Internet, and some had their accounts banned by the platforms.

For example, Luo Wangyu, a beauty blogger with millions of followers, announced his retirement from the Internet due to the CSS olive essence incident.

In February this year, blogger "Da Hu Ke Zhang" published a product review, saying that the CSS olive essence promoted by Luo Wangyu did not have the relevant efficacy and ingredients, and was suspected of false advertising. After that, Luo Wangyu released several videos from February to April to respond and said that he would sue the brand.

During this period of nearly three months, Luo Wangyu basically stopped updating his post until July 12, when he released a response video saying that he would fulfill his promise of a refund. He explained that the after-sales plan had been delayed for so long because, on the one hand, the brand refused to refund, and on the other hand, the amount involved was as high as 150 million yuan. He could only choose to share the refund with a cooperative organization.

In addition, he also said that he found that he was no longer needed as he used to be, so he decided to leave for a while. At the same time, he also deleted all the videos that responded to the olive essence incident.

According to new Douyin data, in the five months since he was questioned for false spreading on February 24, Luo Wangyu's Douyin fans have dropped from 19.94 million to 18.45 million, a loss of 1.45 million fans.

Quitting the internet and getting a refund are both big blows to Luo Wangyu, who was once known as the "No. 1 beauty influencer on TikTok."

The "Da Hu Class Representative" who first raised questions also released a video saying, "This is the most undesirable outcome... bloggers, fans, and consumers have all been fooled, and beauty bloggers are becoming a high-risk industry."

Like Luo Wangyu, another internet celebrity with millions of fans, "Shakespeare of One Person", has also recently sparked discussion and controversy, and was even banned and restricted from following by Douyin.

Most of the videos of "One Man's Shakespeare" are based on social hot spots to express his views. From the fat cat incident to the "math genius" Jiang Ping, from Xiaomi SU7 to EU tariffs, his topics span various fields, and the video images are highly consistent. Almost all of them are one person appearing in the video, speaking to the camera, with strong personal emotions in the content, focusing on venting.

In the incident of Hu Youping's heroic act, "Shakespeare of One Person" called her a heroine who saved the Japanese, but in the content he previously published about the "Japanese incident", he also said that "it is the responsibility of our generation to settle accounts with Japan", and his words were extreme and contradictory.

At the same time, major content platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and official accounts issued announcements to punish accounts that incited Sino-Japanese confrontation and provoked extreme nationalist sentiments, including "Shakespeare of One Person".

What attracts attention is not only the hot topics, but also the "luxury life" that ordinary people can hardly reach.

Walls full of branded bags, all kinds of jade jewelry, and buying cars and houses as easily as buying groceries... This life is beyond the imagination of many people, but it is the daily life of "Wang Hongquanxing". However, in mid-May this year, his social media accounts on multiple platforms were banned or blocked from search, and other online celebrities who showed off their wealth, such as "Bai Gongzi" and "Abalone Sister", were also banned.

According to the official announcement, "Wang Hongquanxing" was suspected of exaggerating and making false propaganda in videos and live broadcasts, and using fans to commit commercial fraud. Before being banned, "Wang Hongquanxing" had conducted live broadcasts to sell goods, with 13 live broadcasts in 3 months and cumulative sales exceeding 25 million yuan.

Regarding live streaming sales by internet celebrities such as "Wang Hongquanxing" who show off their wealth, some netizens said that "rich people are still thinking about the coins in the pockets of the poor", which is essentially a "feeling of being stabbed in the back" after the truth is exposed.

In May of this year, the incident of Wang Ma, the "strongest mouthpiece for workers", backstabbing a worker also caused quite a stir for a while.

The cause of the incident was that netizens exposed the MCN agency Wilderness Culture behind the actor "Seven Orangutans" who played "Wang Ma", saying that she had no weekends off, worked on a weekly basis, and earned 4,000 yuan a month.

The high-intensity and low-paid work is very different from the image of "Wang Ma" who speaks for workers in the skit. Related topics have been trending on Weibo, and even the People's Daily commented that "Wang Ma has become the image of herself." In the end, the official account of Wilderness Culture issued a statement saying that it would adjust the benefits of employees.

Related reading: "Top internet celebrity "Wang Ma" with millions of fans has fallen from grace. Is she a worker who made her successful, and also a worker who made her fail?"

In addition to controversial topics, some bloggers were also banned due to the content of their videos. For example, "Mao Yibei" was banned from the Internet for making up a script, "Li Yizhou" used AI gimmicks to cause social anxiety, and "Chan Ge" promoted thick black theory and pseudo success theory.

The frequent failures of internet celebrities have also put forward more comprehensive regulatory requirements for various content platforms.

Recently, Douyin released an announcement on the governance of false personalities, focusing on rectifying false personalities such as "executives", "experts" and "masters"; Xiaohongshu launched a special governance campaign to combat the spread of illegal adoption information, and launched functions such as risk warnings for notes; Video accounts continued to crack down on illegal live broadcasts.

From "Kong Kong Diary" to Luo Wangyu and then to "Shakespeare of One Person", they either lost fans and quit the Internet, or had their accounts banned. The source behind this is that they failed to grasp the double-edged sword of traffic.

In the Internet age, everyone has 15 minutes of fame, but precisely because of this, internet celebrities and bloggers with millions or even tens of millions of fans should take the content they create seriously.

I watched him build a tall building, I watched him entertain guests, and I watched his building collapse. Perhaps only by taking extra care of your feathers can you avoid ending up with a mess.

Author: Xiaoba

Source: WeChat public account "Xinbang"

This article is authorized by @新榜 to be published on Operation Party. Any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 agreement