40 million fans IP, collapsed in the spring of 2024

Recently @Thurman猫一杯 was administratively punished for the video "Qin Lang Winter Vacation Homework Book". If you are also interested in this incident, let's take a look.

Another top internet celebrity has been banned from the entire Internet.

Recently, @Thurman猫一杯 was administratively punished for the video "Qin Lang Winter Vacation Homework Book" and was banned from multiple platforms such as Video Account and Douyin for "co-planning and fabricating videos with colleagues". When it was banned, its Douyin fans were 19.1 million, Kuaishou 5.83 million, Xiaohongshu 6.975 million, Bilibili 4.81 million, and Weibo 1.214 million. (The number of fans is not displayed on the front desk of the video account, but the account of Mao Yibei should not be less than millions of fans) From the release of short videos in 2020 to the ban, Mao Yibei attracted nearly 40 million fans on the entire network. Unexpectedly, it disappeared from the public eye because of a video. Fiction, beautification, and hidden narratives are actually common content techniques on social media, but why did Mao Yibei go to the step of "banning"?

Kas believes that due to the proliferation of online influence, the public's scrutiny of the words and deeds of top bloggers has become increasingly intensive and strict, and they are more likely to be scrutinized by regulators. At least starting from 2024, for top bloggers, there will be a clear boundary between speaking out and creating - before there is a possibility of misunderstanding, fabricated jokes must be marked as "the video is purely fictional."

01 From glory to fall, the "red and black" of Mao Yibei

In April 2020, Mao Yibei started posting short videos on Douyin. In February 2021, she updated her content to Xiaohongshu, and then joined Bilibili in June 2021. Before being blocked, she had nearly 40 million fans on mainstream social media platforms, and often ranked in the top 20 of Douyin and Xiaohongshu's fan growth list. No matter from which level, she is an absolute top blogger.

There is no doubt that Mao Yibei, who has been working in the short video industry for 4 years, has had a glorious period that countless bloggers envy.

A French student who speaks four languages, a YSL designer, and has two self-created brands, this is the high-profile personality presented by the Maoyibei account. From the perspective of its content model, the account has always maintained the content format of a single person speaking in front of the mirror + complaining about life. Many fans call it a "natural joke teller". It can obviously rely on its appearance to "make a living", but it insists on winning with strength.

Specifically, in the early days, Mao Yibei would use stand-up comedy to tell everyone about the various interesting things he encountered when studying in France, such as "How hot it is in France in the summer without air conditioning" and "How difficult it is to see a dermatologist in Paris".

Later, her pet guinea pigs became her video material. During this period, a video imitating a guinea pig eating vegetable leaves not only made her popular, but also earned her the title of "Guinea Pig Leader" and became known to more people. After returning to China, she will also incorporate her family's stories into her works.

In general, she focuses on various interesting events in her life, and then exaggerates them in a funny and exaggerated way, achieving a comedic effect that makes users laugh. In addition to the fun of the story itself, Mao Yibei's narration in Mandarin mixed with Cantonese and French also brings a wonderful sense of humor to the video, and has become her characteristic label.

It is undoubtedly no surprise that Mao Yibei has become popular. With its high-brow beauties who have no idol baggage and its intensive output of funny jokes, Mao Yibei has given enough visual enjoyment and emotional value. It is a well-deserved high-end product no matter which platform it is placed on.

But the glory days obviously didn’t last. One wrong move could lead to a complete loss.

In February, Mao Yibei released a video, saying that she received two winter vacation homework books from a Frenchman on the streets of Paris, asking her to help return them to the owner. After taking the homework books, Mao Yibei flipped through two pages and found that none of the two homework books had been written on. The reason for the loss seemed obvious. After some joking, she held up the homework books and shouted to her owner at the end of the video: "Qin Lang, Class 8, Grade 1, XX Primary School, you left your winter vacation homework in the toilet in Paris and forgot to take it."

Since Mao Yibei itself has a certain influence in the field of short videos, and it happened to be the beginning of the school year for elementary school students, many netizens were enthusiastic about watching the video. After it was released, it quickly became popular, not only frequently appearing on hot searches, but also being reposted by multiple mainstream media.

If the homework book incident at this time could still be considered a harmless and fun carnival, then the appearance of a netizen who claimed to be "Uncle Qin Lang" began to make the situation develop in an uncontrollable direction.

On February 17, a netizen who claimed to be "Uncle Qin Lang" revealed his identity in a comment and also disclosed the school and class Qin Lang attended, which directly led to Xichang Primary School in Jiangsu Province being disturbed. Subsequently, "Uncle Qin Lang" was banned, and a grand "missing person notice" began to unfold. Another group of netizens began to question the authenticity of the video and reported and complained about it.

Seeing that the situation was escalating, on February 19, Mao Yibei released another video and posted screenshots of relevant chat records, claiming that he had contacted the other party's mother, but the other party was unwilling to appear on camera, and the matter ended here.

The so-called perfection was obviously just another lie. It was not until the Hangzhou West Lake Public Security Bureau officially notified the punishment that Mao Yibei finally released a video to apologize, saying that the homework book incident was just a carefully planned event from beginning to end, with the purpose of grabbing short video traffic.

If Mao Yibei had stated at the beginning that it was "purely fictitious" instead of "calling netizens to find someone", the subsequent domino effect might not have happened. In the early stages of the incident, Mao Yibei had the opportunity to stop the incident from escalating, but she chose to fabricate chat screenshots and carry out the lie to the end, which undoubtedly made the onlookers feel doubly deceived.

Because of this irreparable lie, the controversy that appeared in Mao Yibei’s previous videos was dug up again and fermented.

Among these, some facts are certain: during this year's Spring Festival, she said that she and her friends hosted the Paris New Year Market. Later, netizens pointed out that the market has been held for many years and is a community event jointly organized by local Chinese businessmen. Mao Yibei was only invited to participate in the event and was not the organizer.

Some discussions about the character are confusing: some French students said that Mao Yibei's French level is poor, and there are pronunciation and grammatical errors; others think that Mao Yibei's self-created brand is not good-looking, and thus question the authenticity of Mao Yibei's experience as a YSL leather goods designer...

Since her accounts on all major platforms have been banned, Mao Yibei, who is currently unable to appear on screen, has lost the right to explain and is no longer able to respond to these controversies one by one. After completely losing the audience's trust due to the homework book incident, her explanation is doomed to be pale and powerless.

02 Mao Yibei is not the first, nor will it be the last

Since Mao Yibei was banned, perhaps a large number of content creators are also trembling. The reason is that fabricated content is too common, and if you make a big mistake by accident, the loss is huge, which is no less than "losing both money and life" for the blogger.

Reflecting on the "Mao Yibei account being blocked" incident, Kas believes that the starting point lies in the lack of creativity and traffic anxiety, which is a common pain among content creators.

It is extremely difficult to produce content at a high frequency, especially as it will discourage people from creating content. We have also seen some bloggers become overwhelmed and even stop updating because they are unable to continue creating content that satisfies both users and themselves.

Traffic anxiety is easier to understand. In an era where "everyone can become famous for 15 minutes", the involution of the content industry has reached a new level. In the past, Kass said that "over 80% of accounts are popular for no more than 3 months", and now this time window seems to be shortening. (Click here to view: Data | 2020 Douyin KOL Ecosystem Research: The growth rate of active celebrities has declined, and over 80% of accounts are "popular" for no more than 3 months)

In order to retain fans and attention, bloggers must have a creative mind and constantly create "wonders" so as not to be swept away by the waves and maintain their status in the industry.

With keeping content updated as the top priority, some bloggers choose to "imitate" and constantly follow up on hot topics, either themselves or their teams. Among them are bloggers with strong creativity and expressiveness , such as @李烂烂, @七颗猩猩, @奥黛丽厚本, etc.

Some bloggers choose to "fabricate" plots, stir up emotions, and create highlights.

For example, on March 30 last year, @金洋Jyan, a Weibo celebrity with 5 million followers, filmed a video titled "At the age of 25, I was diagnosed with a terminal illness?", revealing that he had advanced liver cancer, which touched many netizens. He only noted at the end of the video that "the content is purely fictional", which aroused public anger. At noon on March 31, the Weibo administrator announced the results of the handling. The blogger did not mark the content as "fictional" or "interpretation" in a prominent position in the video, which led some netizens to misunderstand it as a real event and triggered public opinion discussion. He was punished with a temporary ban on posting, a ban on being followed, and a suspension of advertising revenue.

@猫杯 has a similar problem, which has been introduced in detail in the previous article and will not be repeated here.

In February, when the "Qin Lang lost homework book" incident first became a hot search on Weibo, some people questioned whether the blogger staged the photo. At that time, many deep fans believed that "Mao Yibei has nearly 40 million fans on the Internet, she doesn't need to ride on the popularity."

However, any IP has a life cycle. As a person with emotions and desires who needs to monetize his account, bloggers will naturally have traffic anxiety and status crisis. Kas traced the growth trajectory of Mao Yibei and found that its growth rate on Douyin has declined significantly since 2023, and its growth rate on Xiaohongshu has stabilized, and it rarely appears in the top 20 of the monthly fan growth list.

Some behaviors are more dangerous. For some people who lack good looks, talents and skills, in order to get likes and rewards, they take risks and become Internet celebrities. It has become a "death job". In June 2023, in a village in Zhangwan Township, Sanmenxia, ​​Henan, the drinking anchor @Zhongyuan Huangge died in his live broadcast room at the age of 26. 15 days before his death, he also attended the funeral of another drinking anchor @Sanqiange, who was his good friend and also died suddenly during a live broadcast because of a drinking contest.

After talking about the common pain points in the content industry, let’s focus on the boundaries of the use of the technique of “fiction”.

Making up a script often requires creativity, which can reflect the blogger's ingenuity and thinking ability. Some tracks themselves started with "fiction", such as drama, comedy, life and other vertical categories. The best ones include @papi酱, @刘大悦, @派小轩, etc.

The videos of these creators must contain a lot of exaggerated interpretations or content that is derived from reality but has not happened at the moment. Users are able to distinguish between true and false and will not demand their authenticity, they just want to have fun.

There are also some staged contents, which, even if they are of low quality and crude, were not supplied sufficiently in the early days of short video development and people had a certain tolerance for them. For example, some positive energy videos that look fake at first glance are made by having people play the role of vulnerable groups and provide help. The audience gets psychological comfort and the filmmakers gain traffic, but most of the accounts do not directly defraud others of their money and have not caused large-scale criticism.

The situation is changing. In the past two years, staged spoof content has been subject to strict supervision.

On the evening of August 16, 2023, @二驴, a Kuaishou anchor with 48 million fans, was broadcasting outdoors in Qingdao when several men suddenly broke in and tied him to a car. In the subsequent series of disputes, they spread terrifying remarks that they wanted to "bury Erlu alive." According to a report from the Shibei Branch of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau, this farce was purely "fabricated scripts for staged live broadcasts" with the purpose of "earning traffic and attracting fans." Based on the investigation, the public security organs punished the relevant parties in accordance with the law, and their accounts have been banned indefinitely by the platform.

Obviously, Erlu's live broadcast had a huge number of viewers, which caused many people to have doubts about Qingdao's public security, damaged the city's image, and violated public order and good customs. The penalty was also in line with netizens' psychological expectations.

In addition to staged photos, falsifying personal images is also a common reason for failure.

In August 2023, @老于小宝 was found by netizens to have a fake persona. Some of the pictures in her notes were collages from the Internet, not real life. Previously, she had attracted more than 100,000 fans on the Xiaohongshu platform by sharing sweet love stories. After the collapse of her persona, the blogger issued an apology statement on the Weibo platform and then cancelled her social media account. Bloggers who build their personas by sharing their lives are most afraid of deception. When fans realize that they are deceived "clowns", the blogger's content will be regarded as counterfeit and shoddy products, and it will be difficult for the blogger to accumulate goodwill.

In 2024, people will probably be more strict in their scrutiny of the fictional content of top bloggers. The public opinion is very clear, that is, fiction that is not clearly marked may be suspected of deception and bad guidance.

Here, Ka Si Xiang reiterates the viewpoint raised last year that the short video industry has entered a period of rectification, and the banning of big bloggers is not accidental, but a large-scale network cleanup operation. Under the normalization of the Qinglang Movement, Mao Yibei is not the first Internet celebrity to be punished for fabricating facts, and he will not be the last.

Everyone in the content industry should be aware of the huge changes and potential trends that are taking place. If Kass were to draw a lesson from the Mao Yibei incident, it would be this: starting from 2024, even if fictional plots do not cause any natural person to suffer reputation or property damage, they must bear social responsibility. At the very least, they will apologize and lose followers, and at the worst, they will be banned and removed from the Internet. This is the boundary line that top bloggers must be vigilant about.

Author: Kas Data

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"