From "Luo Wangyu" to "Shakespeare of One Person", millions of Internet celebrities are accelerating their "disappearance" history

In the digital age, the rise and fall of influencers are like shooting stars across the night sky, brilliant but short-lived. Douyin’s Luo Wangyu announced his “quit the internet”, and influencer “One Man’s Shakespeare” was banned. These events not only mark the demise of personal brands, but also reflect the fragility and risks of the entire influencer economic ecosystem. This article will explore the reasons behind the rapid rise and fall of influencers, and the far-reaching impact this has on brands and the entire Internet environment.

On the evening of July 12, Luo Wangyu, the top beauty influencer on Douyin, released a video again after 5 months and announced a surprising decision - to "quit the Internet."

Prior to this, he had been frequently embroiled in controversy over the ingredients and efficacy of the products he promoted. This time he will face a sky-high refund of 150 million yuan. This super-head anchor, who had more than 20 million fans at his peak, chose to "lie down" after being pushed to the forefront again and again.

This reminds people of another big internet celebrity "Shakespeare of One Person" who was banned a few days ago.

In contrast to Luo Wangyu, this internet celebrity who keeps riding on social hot spots again and again relies on emotional output to run wild. After 809 videos of "changing the medicine but not the soup", his Douyin fans have reached 12.052 million, and the number of likes on his videos has exceeded 210 million.

The advantages of "One Man's Shakespeare" are obvious: social hot spots + opinion output, focusing on one thing to stand out. From Xiaomi SU7 to Pang Donglai, from the fat cat incident to "mathematical genius" Jiang Ping, across various industries, it has always been on the public's radar.

Over the past four years, this blogger, who has strong personal emotions and repeatedly hits the mark in venting his emotions, has, as his influence has grown, started doing what all internet celebrities do - selling goods.

As more and more KOLs fail, which brands will be affected? What effects will different reasons for failure have on different brands? By "appreciating" 809 videos one by one, we learned about the business landscape behind this former "Internet giant" and tried to explore how these KOLs "succeed and fail because of traffic".

1. Widely involved, most of the goods are domestic products

There are several ways for influencers to collaborate with corporate brands: brand endorsement, product soft advertising, social media activities, and live streaming. Yisha mainly uses live streaming and product soft advertising, of which the latter is mainly through short videos and WeChat official account articles.

Through short videos, Yisha recommends a wide range of products. In terms of personal care, he has recommended Moxue and Head & Shoulders shampoos, Sheping hair spray, and Vitality 28 laundry detergent. Among them, Moxue is known as the top brand of hair care on Douyin. HBN eye cream and Proya are also on his promotion map.

In addition, the account has also recommended the Jimeng beauty instrument and toothpastes from Shuke and Xipayi. Without exception, they are all domestic brands.

In terms of food brands, the brands he has collaborated with include Yili and White Elephant.

In the field of mobile phones, his videos have recommended vivo and Huawei. Unexpectedly, he has also dabbled in the field of games, endorsing the "Miracle Ares Point Card Mobile Game". As always, this short video adopts the logic of "supporting domestic products, domestic products are better than foreign ones".

It is worth mentioning that in the short videos, the industry that cooperates with "Yisha" the most is the automotive industry , and this is also the only field in which he is not restricted to domestic brands and "opens his mind" to foreign brands. After all, making money is not shameful.

According to incomplete statistics, more than a dozen automobile brands have appeared in his promotional videos, including Cadillac, SAIC MG4 EV, Xiaomi SU7, SAIC Zhiji L6, GAC Trumpchi M8, Great Wall Motors, Weilai Blue Mountain, Ideal L7, Chery Hybrid, Volvo, and NIO. Among them, NIO is the car company with which he cooperates most closely, and three videos are its promotional content.

In addition to these brands that appeared in the short video, in the windows of major platforms, there are also Notland, Langdi's calcium tablets, Mai Fu Di's dog food, Fei Fu's coffee, Cui Xiu Tang's peach gum...

Image source: WeChat video account showcase

After sorting out, we can find that he will select products according to the tone of his own videos. Therefore, most of the products promoted in his videos are "domestic" brands, which can attract customers, increase conversion rate, and consolidate his own personality.

Currently, after being banned, the products in the Douyin showcase of the account are no longer viewable. Among the other platforms, the Xiaohongshu account is normal, and the Kuaishou account has also been banned. Only the video account can still view the showcase, but it has not been updated for more than ten days, just like the entire network. However, it is worth mentioning that its public account of the same name is still insisting on updating content every day to maintain its popularity.

2. He used to be an actor and now owns several companies

It is interesting to note that before posting the video on the short video platform, "Yisha" had also appeared on the screen.

The person appearing on the screen is named Shang Zijian. He graduated from the Performance Department of the Central Academy of Drama in 2002. He is an actor by profession and has appeared in many film and television dramas and plays. Among them, the most famous work is "Wulin Waijia", in which he played Qingfeng, the apprentice of the "Kitchen God" Zhuge Kongfang.

This also explains why he has such a good "sense of the camera" when appearing in videos and can be so "expressive" when reading copy.

Perhaps it was because he always played various supporting roles as an actor and his career development was always lukewarm, so he, with his keen sense of smell, opened up his own new career in Internet traffic and embarked on the short video track.

What companies are associated with him?

The homepage of his Douyin account states that he has “no MCN company”. However, in his WeChat video account, when you click on his corporate WeChat column, the related company is “Beijing Dashan Caotang Planning Consulting Co., Ltd.” In the introduction interface of his related public account “Yisha Commune”, the certified entity is also “Beijing Dashan Caotang Planning Consulting Co., Ltd.”

Image source: Video account

According to Qichacha, the company was established on May 20, 2014 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan. It belongs to the business services industry with a wide range of business scope, ranging from social and economic consulting services to the sales of various commodities. The legal representative is Ren Zhengwei. However, on November 2, 2023, the actual controller of the company was changed from Ren Zhengwei to Shang Zijian.

Image source: Qichacha

Currently, Ren Zhengwei's shareholding has dropped from 100% to 29.97%. Beijing Shaojian Information Technology Co., Ltd., in which Shang Zijian holds 99% of the shares, holds 70% of the shares of Qingdao Yuanshang Lianhang Information Technology Co., Ltd., which is the entity that subscribed to the full amount of capital contribution of Beijing Dashan Caotang Planning Consulting Co., Ltd.

In addition to this company, Shang Zijian has also served as the legal representative of five companies, four of which have now been cancelled, and one, "Beijing Risheng Time Technology Culture Co., Ltd.", is currently in existence, but he also resigned in May 2021.

Image source: Qichacha

Currently, he serves as the supervisor of Beijing Shaojian Information Technology Co., Ltd. and a shareholder of Beijing Lvdong Unlimited Culture Media Co., Ltd., holding a 20% stake in the latter.

It is worth mentioning that the company’s major shareholder and actual controller who holds 80% of the shares is named “Shang Xuefeng”.

3. Internet celebrities frequently fail, and Internet businesses are severely regulated

In recent years, there are various reasons why internet celebrities have fallen from grace.

This phenomenon is particularly evident in the field of live streaming e-commerce. These days, you’d be embarrassed to call yourself a top anchor if you don’t make a mistake.

Last year, Li Jiaqi's "eyebrow pencil scandal" caused a sensation. He angrily scolded fans in the live broadcast room and mocked ordinary people for "not working hard", which not only brought him a huge public opinion crisis, but also destroyed his own base. Although he apologized afterwards, he could never return to his peak in terms of popularity or reputation.

As two people who were once equally famous, Li Jiaqi is already lucky compared to Wei Ya. Wei Ya, who was deeply involved in the "tax evasion" storm, directly touched the red line. After being fined more than 1.3 billion yuan, she had to return to the backstage from the front stage.

Simba, the top anchor of Kuaishou, had an even earlier fall. As early as 2020, he was caught up in the "sugar water bird's nest" scandal. After being exposed by professional counterfeiter Wang Hai, he issued an open letter, admitting that there was exaggerated publicity during the live broadcast promotion and that he would recall all products sold and refund three times the price. He was finally ordered to pay consumers 41 million yuan.

"Crazy Little Brother Yang", the former No. 1 on TikTok, has encountered more and more doubts as his business empire has grown. The product he promoted, pork with preserved vegetables and preserved vegetables, was exposed by CCTV's 315 as being "slot-top meat", and the Maotai he promoted was suspected of being a fake after testing.

Image source: Operation Research Society

In addition, familiar names such as Xianggu Lai Le, Jia Nailiang, and Dong Yuhui have repeatedly appeared at the center of public opinion whirlpools.

On the eve of 315 this year, Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute, Consumer Network and other institutions released the "Livestreaming Consumer Rights Protection Public Opinion Analysis Report (2023)", which pointed out that livestreaming consumer rights protection public opinion reflected eight major problems including false propaganda and product quality. It can be seen that online livestreaming marketing still lacks more powerful regulatory measures. Once these livestreamers are deeply involved in public opinion, the brands they carry will naturally be greatly implicated.

Not only the anchors who specialize in selling goods, but also some anchors who shoot short videos on a daily basis have frequently failed and their accounts have been blocked. In the past year alone, a number of Internet celebrities have fallen.

Fake video content is a major reason . The first to bear the brunt was the super internet celebrity "Mao Yibei" with 40 million fans on the Internet. He was banned from the Internet for making up a script. Later, Gao Junyu, the girl who became famous for shooting a BBK reading machine, initially revealed that she had a rare brain tumor, which attracted a lot of attention, but it was soon discovered that the video was fake. Her mother admitted that Gao Junyu's online account was operated by a contracted MCN, and then her entire network was banned. In addition, "Erlu", who has 48 million fans on Douyin, was also reported by the police for making up a script and posing for a photo, and his account was banned.

In addition, there are also many internet celebrities who have been reported for bad behavior during live broadcasts . @秀才, @张启曼博妮, and @铁头刑邪养善, who are known for "charming thousands of middle-aged women," have been reported by fans for inducing rewards, inducing shopping, or revealing their own bad behavior.

There are also video contents that cause adverse effects . Like @李一舟, a wave of internet celebrities who used AI gimmicks to cause social anxiety and made money through knowledge payment have also been included in the stricter regulatory system. "Shakespeare of One Person" also belongs to this category.

Some even went so far as to directly commit fraud . On April 19, a netizen @翻滚吧花花 posted a video saying that her mother was defrauded of her life-saving money by an unscrupulous cosmetics influencer. The blogger's mother bought Manbonnie collagen peptides in a live broadcast room of an influencer. The anchor was named Zhang Qi, who broadcast live on Douyin and claimed to be the founder of Manbonnie. Later, several accounts under this anchor were banned, and some anchors under his company were even involved in sensitive issues, but after the problem, they switched to video accounts and remained active.

The frequent failures of online celebrities have put forward higher requirements for the platforms to regulate and standardize. Douyin launched a new version of the "health score" system for live broadcasts and issued an "announcement on the special governance of 'thick black studies' and 'pseudo success studies'"; Xiaohongshu has imposed certain restrictions on illegal traffic diversion and illegal grass planting; Video Account strictly regulates live broadcasts, especially the phenomenon of "online earning".

As governance efforts are strengthened, these Internet celebrities with great influence need to think more carefully about how to do business on the Internet in a legal and compliant manner with a clear conscience. After all, the cooperating brands tend to be risk-averse, and who would be willing to take risks and lose money if they are not careful?

4. Final Thoughts

From Li Yizhou to Mao Yibei, and then to "Shakespeare of One Man", the accounts of internet celebrities have been banned one after another, and behind this should be a reflection on the entire internet celebrity economic ecosystem.

As opinion leaders in the world of traffic, internet celebrities can exert their influence. More and more manufacturers are turning to internet celebrities to market their products, but at the same time, they also need to face many risks, such as: the fans of internet celebrities do not match the brand's target audience, the content posted by internet celebrities is inconsistent with the brand's values, the fans of internet celebrities do not trust the brand, and the fans of internet celebrities are unwilling to buy the brand's products or services.

Take Mao Yibei as an example. After she failed, many brands quickly cut off their relationship with her. Regarding the rumor that Mao Yibei signed a contract with Zhiji Auto to endorse it, Zhiji officially stated that it has never had any official endorsement cooperation with "Mao Yibei". Regarding the rumor that Mao Yibei cooperated with FPA to co-brand clothing, FPA brand customer service stated that it had cooperated with Mao Yibei for co-branded clothing a long time ago, but there is no cooperation at present. In addition, Caudalie, SAINT LAURENT, etc. also cut ties with them at the first time.

How to avoid choosing inappropriate influencers is naturally a major issue for all brands. In the craze for traffic, how to avoid ignoring the essence of content creation, avoid forgetting how to convey value, share knowledge or entertain the public, and prevent relying on extreme means to attract attention, and finally ending up in a mess, is also a topic that influencers should think about.

Traffic has always been a double-edged sword. It can make ordinary people take off quickly and become internet celebrities like the stars they once were, but it can also change in an instant, leaving people with labels and stigmas that cannot be erased.

Author: Guangchen; Editor: Zhao

Source: Xinou, a website that directly hits the hot spots of Internet technology consumption and gives you insights into the latest and coolest world