The number of followers increased by tens of millions in two weeks, and the daily income was one million, but "Guo Youcai" began to suffer from the backlash of traffic?

Recently, Guo Youcai has become extremely popular, gaining tens of millions of followers in two weeks. It is said that he earns millions of dollars a day from tips in his live broadcast room... But now it seems that his popularity has backfired. How long can Guo Youcai remain popular?

The legend of an ordinary person becoming famous overnight is still happening. This time, the protagonist is Guo Youcai, a grassroots singer from Heze, Shandong.

Compared with the previous "Kaifeng Wangpo" and "Nomi", Guo Youcai's speed of increasing fans and ability to attract money are more rapid: he gained tens of millions of fans in two weeks, and it is said that he earns millions of dollars a day from rewards in his live broadcast room...

Regarding Guo Youcai's sudden popularity, netizens said "It's nothing strange, it's just a god created by Douyin every once in a while", while flocking to the live broadcast room, curious about whether there is a traffic password this time and joining this traffic carnival.

However, Guo Youcai's sudden popularity seems to have brought back traffic: the chaos of live broadcasts by Internet celebrities at Heze South Station was named, and a large number of anchors were banned...

So, what about Guo Youcai? How long will he remain popular?

1. Grassroots Internet celebrities become popular overnight

At noon on May 19, Shandong Heze South Railway Station was crowded with people and screams were heard one after another; in the live broadcast room, a song "Grateful Heart" sounded at the right time, and the camera turned to the sky. "The Peony Capital, Colorful Heze Welcomes You" was written on a white building, and it was surrounded by spectators, and in the distance were various tents.

At this moment, Guo Youcai, a popular online celebrity, has reached a milestone of 10 million fans on Douyin, witnessed by millions of netizens and audiences in his live broadcast room. It has only been 10 days since he became popular.

The trigger for Guo Youcai's sudden popularity came from an old song called "Promise". On May 9, Guo Youcai released a short video, which was a cover of the song "Promise", and he ingeniously shot the video into a music video. The music video uses a yellowing filter with a retro feel. Guo Youcai wears a brown vest, a blue top, and a slicked-back hair. The overall outfit presents a retro style of the 1970s and 1980s, with a unique personality. He sang heart-wrenchingly, in a completely immersive performance, integrating his true feelings and life experiences into the song.

After listening to the song, netizens said they couldn't bear it anymore and felt that "Guo Youcai's singing is a pain that even ibuprofen can't stop". The more they listened, the stronger the aftertaste became and they were about to cry.

The video quickly went viral, and has received nearly 3 million likes so far.

The appearance of "Promise" made Guo Youcai a hot topic on the Internet, and the topic of the same name has been played 8.22 billion times on the Douyin platform.

However, the popularity of the song MV is just the reason. It is his live broadcast room that really attracts this huge traffic.

According to FeiGua data, Guo Youcai gained more than 10 million followers in just 20 days, of which 7.846 million were gained through live streaming.

Moreover, as soon as he started broadcasting, more than one million people watched it online, with the highest number of viewers reaching 44.437 million. The gifts sent by the audience filled the screen with special effects and flew non-stop.

A blogger analyzed that after becoming famous, Guo Youcai’s daily income from live broadcast rewards exceeded one million.

As Guo Youcai became more popular, this wave of traffic was also brought to the place where Guo Youcai did his offline live broadcasts - Heze South Station.

Now Heze South Railway Station is crowded every day. Netizens from all over the country go directly to Heze to live broadcast Guo Youcai's live broadcast, and offline audiences also participate in this carnival.

The local people in Heze reacted very quickly to this sudden "wealth".

Faced with the flood of people at the abandoned Heze South Station, Heze paved an asphalt road in front of the station overnight, and added railings at the place where Guo Youcai was broadcasting live. There were also volunteers arranged on site to help tourists and anchors, providing them with free drinking water, mobile phone charging, road guidance and other services...

Guo Youcai said "the network is not very good", indicating that his live broadcast had no network. The three local operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, rushed to the rescue and added network base stations on site to provide network security for Guo Youcai's live broadcast...

2. Overnight success? 7-year veteran

So, who exactly is Guo Youcai?

"My real name is Guo Zhuang, and my courtesy name is Zhongdao, which means the doctrine of the mean." This is how Guo Youcai introduced himself. He is a music expert on Douyin. Due to his poor family background and inability to attend a professional college, he bought a guitar for 300 yuan and spent another 6 yuan on tutorials to start teaching himself music. With the 306 yuan, he embarked on a journey of pursuing his music dreams.

In fact, although he has only recently become a phenomenal internet celebrity, Guo Youcai is actually a veteran short video player.

In 2017, Guo Youcai began to try the short video track and filmed some sketches. At that time, Guo Youcai became a little famous with his image of a spirited young man and the abstract "Heze Step", but it did not last long.

In 2019, after Guo Youcai met his girlfriend Su Chang, the two tried to shoot funny content and created a blind date series. Although it left an impression on many viewers, the natural traffic was average.

It was not until 2022 that Guo Youcai covered the song "Really Love You" during a live broadcast of a PK with other talents. He once again attracted the attention of netizens and launched "Really Love You (Youcai Version)".

Guo Youcai continues to update short videos on Douyin, but the content tends to record daily life, and the account will also start live broadcasts.

It was not until the end of 2023 that Guo Youcai began to try live streaming of music.

Before April this year, the number of viewers in Guo Youcai's live broadcast room was basically stable at one or two thousand. After the end of April, the number of viewers began to decrease and then continued to rise.

On May 7 this year, the number of online viewers in Guo Youcai's live broadcast room reached 139,000, which has been rising steadily and exceeded one million in one week.

It can be seen that Guo Youcai’s current popularity is truly the result of the right time, right place and right people: his own musical talent, years of experience in live streaming and short videos, and the popular taste for grassroots narratives.

So, how long will Guo Youcai remain popular this time?

3. After the explosion: Traffic backlash? Difficult to sustain?

“In the past, when a phenomenal internet celebrity appeared, the industry would be quite excited. They would inquire about who was the mastermind behind the scene and study the path and methodology to fame. But in the past two years, people have become a little tired of it.” Xiao D, a senior short video practitioner, said this about Guo Youcai’s sudden popularity.

He said that this is mainly because there is not much methodology to follow for such popularity, and it is impossible to replicate. "In the words of netizens, it is just a god created by Douyin after a period of time to stimulate users and influencers."

However, from Huang Lao Shi, to Wen Shen, Yu Wenliang, and this year's Kaifeng Wang Po and Nomi, amateur internet celebrities have always been unable to escape rapid fading and even traffic backlash.

Today, the backlash of Guo Youcai's traffic is first reflected in the local internet celebrities who are doing live broadcasts to take advantage of the traffic.

From Wang Po to Guo Youcai today, after they became famous, those who went offline to take advantage of the traffic became the ones who reacted the fastest, which also led to the emergence of chaos in live broadcasts by internet celebrities.

On the evening of May 21, "Heze responds to the chaos of live broadcasts by internet celebrities at South Station" was listed on the Douyin hot list. The local government of Heze said that a special team has been set up to rectify the situation and the surrounding environment has been improved.

In addition, many internet celebrities who were broadcasting live at Heze South Station had their accounts blocked. The reason for the violation was "using hot social events or figures as gimmicks to attract attention."

It is foreseeable that in the future, such events that are brought to the forefront by one person and then hyped up through offline live broadcasts by many internet celebrities will be subject to increasingly strict control.

In addition, although there is no doubt that Guo Youcai is talented and has stories that hit the mark of the public, even the best stories will eventually lose their freshness.

Perhaps, becoming popular quickly and losing popularity quickly is the common feature of the current phenomenal Internet celebrities. People no longer care how long they will be popular, and they don’t even think about long-term monetization. When the traffic comes in like a flood, being able to catch it is the best result.

How long will it last? Will it be a flash in the pan? That is really not a problem to worry about or solve right now.