In this era of universal counterfeiting, how many Zhoukou Jay Chou and Anti-Fraud Xiao Chen will there be?

This article introduces the internet celebrity imitators in the era of national copycats from three aspects, and is recommended for friends who are interested in Douyin operations to read and learn.

Recently, copycat internet celebrities have quietly become the national traffic code in short video software.

Unlike some internet celebrities who have become popular in short videos in the past, such as "Luha" who imitates Lu Han, "Xiao Lin Xinru" who cosplays Ziwei, and "Foshan Dianhan" who looks like Zhang Han, this "celebrity imitation show" is an extremely grand national entertainment. Not only are there many imitators, but the people being imitated also include all kinds of people.

In short, any personal IP with some natural traffic in short videos can become an imitator, and any ordinary person with some "star looks" may be able to quickly buy equipment and start broadcasting under the guidance of experts in the comment section, waiting for traffic to come and become the son of tomorrow.

People are eager to become famous and rich overnight. Existing celebrities are the best source of traffic, and the algorithm recommendation mechanism of short videos provides the best soil. The myth of the previous generation getting rich quickly inspires the later generations, and imitators emerge in endlessly.

However, this secret recipe for becoming an internet celebrity quickly has a price tag almost from the beginning. Lei Jun's imitator "Lei Min" is no longer a person, and Wang Baoqiang's imitator "Wang Baoruo" disappeared after clearing all his works. As long as the imitated intends to pursue the matter, the survival space of the copycat internet celebrities will almost disappear in an instant.

Andy Warhol predicted that everyone in the Internet age could become famous within 15 minutes. The copycat and piggybacking of the short video era shortened the time to fame to 15 seconds. However, everything that becomes popular quickly tends to perish quickly. It is difficult to be popular for more than 15 minutes, and it is even more difficult to get out safely.

01 Star Imitation Show, a Beginning

The era of large-scale piracy of short videos is slowly coming.

At first, it was the revival and continuation of traditional celebrity imitation shows on short videos. Traditional imitation artists who had been popular on major local satellite TV stations more than ten years ago have taken advantage of the short video trend to enter the platform and transformed themselves into copycat versions of Jay Chou, Nicholas Tse, Wang Feng, Wang Han, etc.

These imitators usually get some natural free traffic due to their similar faces and deliberately similar performance styles to those of celebrities. The amount of traffic is often only related to the celebrity himself. If the celebrity is popular, then he is popular; if the celebrity is not popular, then he is not.

The first person to be chosen by traffic was an internet celebrity with the online name "Xiao Lin Xinru". She ingeniously imitated the scene where Ziwei was blind in "My Fair Princess" during the live broadcast, and suddenly became able to see again after being given gifts by the top brother on the list, creating an excellent content effect. As a result, she became popular almost overnight, gained 700,000 fans within a month, and has a total of nearly 3 million fans.

From this point on, the short video platform potentially provides a traffic rule: simply looking similar is not that important, what is important is the ability to be lively and create content effects.

The emergence of copycat boy bands represented by Luha has pushed this wave of online celebrity imitation shows to a climax. Unlike in the past, this group of imitators are not targeting long-established superstars, but rather popular idols who are at the peak of their popularity. The group imitation of popular stars such as Huang Zitao, Lu Han, Fan Chengcheng, and Yi Yang Qianxi has created an even more outstanding program effect.

Today, Lu Ha (now renamed Ling Da Le), who was once the most popular member of the team, has over seven million fans and can be said to be one of the most successful star imitators.

Since then, Internet celebrities who resemble celebrities, such as Foshan Dianhan (Zhang Han) and Zhou Binglun (Jay Chou), have also gained a certain degree of popularity and public attention. Among them, Foshan Dianhan has more than 2 million fans on Douyin, which is even more than Zhang Han himself, and has indirectly led to Zhang Han gaining hundreds of thousands of fans.

It is clear that whether a fake internet celebrity can become popular is largely decoupled from the celebrity's own popularity. It is more important to use the fake face that is extremely similar to the celebrity to create content with spreadability. Foshan Dianhan gained traffic favor after creating a hit video through continuous repetition and live broadcast.

The further extension of the celebrity imitation show is a further breakthrough in the existing scope of the imitated. Since in the era of short videos, Internet celebrities can make more money than celebrities, imitators can also do it directly in one step. Anyone with traffic can become the object of imitation.

The first to reap the traffic dividend were imitators of basketball players such as "Kobe" and "O'Neal". An internet celebrity named "Big Sister-in-law" was once told by an expert in the comment section that he could be Kobe by shaving his hair and wearing a No. 24 jersey, so he quickly transformed himself into Guizhou Kobe and eventually gained nearly 4 million followers on Douyin.

As a result, "seeking advice from experts" and "listening to advice" have become unspoken codes between imitators and military advisors. The symbol of Kobe, a half-star and half-abstract figure, has also successfully served as the beginning of the era of short video copycats.

02 National entertainment: everyone imitates everyone

In fact, Kobe's imitator is not the only one. Not long ago, a creator named Yunnan Ah Hui, who has a face very similar to Kobe, played the old joke of "man, what can I say" in the live broadcast room, and successfully gained nearly 600,000 fans. During the peak traffic period, Yunnan Ah Hui's live broadcast room had nearly 100,000 people.

As one of the first people to enjoy the cake in the era of big copycats, Ah Hui's comment section has become a large-scale "advice-listening scene". Almost under each of his videos, there are comments asking for advice. People are eager to copy Ah Hui's success and live a life of ease and comfort with just a face that looks like a celebrity and some simple operations.

This general sentiment spread, and imitators emerged in such large numbers that they could be divided into categories.

Some of them are imitations of Internet celebrity entrepreneurs, such as "Zhou Hong 2" and "Lei Min". The imitation of these Internet celebrities is based on temperament rather than image, and the timing of their entry is very accurate, which is the peak traffic point when Xiaomi su7 was released at the Beijing Auto Show. Through a series of precise grasp of Lei Jun's actions, Lei Min quickly gained traffic and was even widely reported by the media.

Some of them are imitations of well-known TV and film characters, such as "Xiao Songwen" imitating Gao Qiqiang, who plays "The bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish" in the live broadcast room to watch "The Art of War"; "Wang Shuzhi" imitating the laughing security guard in "The Mermaid" by drawing a mermaid in the live broadcast room to help others solve problems; and "Wei Heshang" imitating "Bright Sword" by wearing a security uniform and eating peanuts in the live broadcast room, etc. The most successful Xiao Songwen has nearly 300,000 fans on Douyin.

As for the most successful ones now, they are imitating existing internet celebrities in short videos. For example, "Security Guard Abin" imitated "Anti-fraud Lao Chen" and imitated Lao Chen's chest lift and aerobics movements in the live broadcast room. Now the number of people online in the live broadcast room has exceeded 10,000 at the same time, and the popularity has even surpassed Anti-fraud Lao Chen's own live broadcast room. Gifts such as Douyin No. 1 have appeared frequently. In addition, the internet celebrity "Lei Luo" whose face is very similar to Dong Yuhui has also shown signs of becoming popular.

Of course, there are also more niche imitation makeup and parody in the abstract circle, such as the Yina version of "Love Like Fire" by internet celebrity Na Yina, the Van Gogh imitation makeup of "Wanyan Huide", and the Three Dreams Romance who were crazy about Yang Mi's popularity in the early years.

It is difficult to analyze the common reasons for the imitations of these internet celebrities, but one thing is clear: compared to the copycat internet celebrities who once tried to blur the difference between themselves and celebrities, the current short video creators are conspiring with the audience to inject completely different entertainment genes into this new short video copycat image, thereby producing new entertainment symbols that can be played with.

This kind of imitation of everyone by everyone has actually become a kind of national entertainment. Short video creators who try to copy celebrities are eager to get rich, and those who are in charge of the world are eager to see their advice become a reality. The onlookers are happy to eat melons and watch the show, see similar words under different short videos, and flock to the live broadcast rooms of these Internet celebrities as if to fulfill a prophecy, witnessing the algorithm miracle of more than 10,000 people online happen again and again.

Traffic tastes so good.

03 Honey and Arsenic

All the gifts bestowed by fate have already been secretly marked with prices. Becoming a fake internet celebrity seems to have high returns and low costs, but the balance of all this is only built on the fragile "Internet consensus" of short videos: everyone is playing memes, and if you take it seriously, you are wrong.

As long as the imitated person intends to pursue the matter, all the efforts of the imitator will be in vain.

From a legal perspective, the infringement of copyright by imitators is a foregone conclusion. Li Zhenwu, founder of Star Entertainment Law and a well-known entertainment lawyer, told the author that even virtual characters in film and television dramas, even if they do not involve commercial profit, may also infringe copyright and be complained by the copyright holder. "Security guard Abin" imitated the anti-fraud Lao Chen, and a lawyer also approached Lao Chen immediately, claiming that "one lawsuit will win."

In fact, many fake internet celebrities have faced similar difficulties. "Xiao Lin Xinru" was forced to change her online name again and again, from "Xiao Lin Xinru" to "Xia Ziwei" and then to "Xia Ziwei" with her real name "Huang Mengqu". The content of the videos she shot also tried to avoid re-creation of the film and television image. Lu Ha changed back to his real name Ling Dale, and except for the face that looks like Lu Han, he has almost returned to his personal image.

As for Lei Min and Wang Baoruo, there was no trace of them and they disappeared from the Internet. There were even rumors that Wang Baoruo was sued for 5 million yuan by Wang Baoqiang, and he cried and begged for forgiveness during a live broadcast.

Of course, this high risk can be said to be an accidental event. Most of the remaining copycat Internet celebrities have not fallen out with the original masters they imitated. Limited by the already generalized entertainment spirit of the Internet, unless they are really "insulted" by their own image, the imitated ones will not take the initiative to stand up and "spoil the fun" and become the kind of people that netizens "can't afford to play with".

But the more common fact is that the life cycle of these fake internet celebrities is shorter, and people will forget about them faster. Taking advantage of the popularity to make a few bucks and quickly withdraw before the real owner comes knocking has become a common choice for fake internet celebrities.

The reason is simple. Lei Binyi, CEO of Wuyou Media, told Hedgehog Community that in his opinion, the life cycle of an Internet celebrity depends on whether they can continue to create content. Obviously, the content creativity of these copycat Internet celebrities is limited. Many Internet celebrities become famous only by a meme or a live show, and it is difficult for them to continue to create new content.

Even if these Internet celebrities have the ambition and ideas to create new content, it is easy to find that the celebrity image that helped them become popular quickly has become a shackle. Because they are tied to the celebrity image, it has become a dilemma whether to break through or not. Not breaking through may lead to slow death, while breaking through may face legal risks.

In the era of all-people copycats, it is conceivable that the successful ones are of course a minority, and even if they are lucky enough to get the gift of traffic, these copycat stars will often quickly disappear in the information flow, no matter how many people the algorithm has helped to pay attention to these Internet celebrities. As for copycat Internet celebrities like Ling Dale (Luha), who can make a comeback by relying on live e-commerce and earn 5 million a month, they have become a rare species and there is no second one to date.

Another successful case is overseas: after Li Ziqi stopped updating, her idyllic video style was copied by bloggers in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian regions. Although it was a low-profile version, the similar oriental flavor still fascinated European and American users who had never seen the world. Since Li Ziqi has not updated, they can still continue to gain traffic on YouTube.

This form, to some extent, echoes the "brother-in-law" of cosplaying Kobe - imitating a well-known IP who is abroad and has temporarily (or forever) retired from the world is a slightly hellish joke, but it has been proven to be basically safe and feasible.

Author: Chen Shoucheng, Editor: Director

WeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe)