Chengdu Disney's popularity revealed: a new chapter in Internet marketing based on sincere emotions

Recently, a rapper named Nomi unexpectedly became popular due to a rap video he posted on a short video platform. His lyrics "Thank God, thank God, I want to diss you" were misheard by netizens as "Thank God, thank God, I want Disney", and unexpectedly created a "Chengdu Disney". Netizens went to the location where Nomi filmed the MV to check in, forming an unprecedented city carnival. Nomi's story also spread and became a hot topic on the Internet. How did this carnival come about? What is the story behind it? Let's uncover the story behind the explosion of Chengdu's "Disney".

Chengdu Disney, an urban legend about survival. "There are three Disneys in China, one in Hong Kong, one in Shanghai, and one in Chengdu." Netizens joked that a rapper named Nomi successfully built a Disney with the words "Thank God, thank God, I want to diss you."

During the audition of "China's New Rap 2024", Nomi, who had been a little popular on the short video platform, decided to show his trump card and tried to conquer the judges with an English rap. However, the result was quite the opposite. Not only did Nomi fail to advance, but he was even commented by the judge Xie Di that "he should treat rap as a hobby."

According to Nomi's recollection, at the audition site, Xie Di also said that he had seen his "song written for grandma" on Douyin, which made Nomi very angry, because the song "Apu's Thoughts" that Xie Di was talking about was written by him for his grandfather.

Nomi felt that Xie Di looked down on him, and with tears streaming down his face, he went to a community in Chengdu in anger and released a MV for "Thank God, Thank God, DISS". He was seen wearing clothes that resembled American boys and the style of "QQ Show 20 Years Ago", sitting on a seesaw in the community, and while passionately pedaling the seesaw, he sang: "Thank God, Thank God, I want to diss you."

If you don't know the context and don't read the subtitles, this line sounds like singing: "Thank God, thank God, I want Disney."

It was such a simple reason, simple scene and simple rap, but it created a "Disney"-like traffic during the Qingming Festival. In the videos posted by netizens, young people came in groups to the place where Nomi filmed the MV, sitting on the seesaw to imitate his "artistic behavior", and even grandpa and aunt joined in, and felt a real and concrete "artificial carnival" with the young people.

Nomi became famous, Chengdu Disneyland, which only had one amusement facility, was "built", and the official website of the Cultural and Tourism Bureau went viral.

Domestic dramas have their own crazy ways, and reality has its own crazy ways. In short, the law of the world is that it will develop in a direction you can't imagine, but if you work backwards from the results, you can find the commonality of "assembly line production".

1. To be famous, create a meme first

If an ordinary person wants to become famous, he must create a simple, brainwashing plot, so that it is easy to be imitated and has a chance to form a collective carnival. In the Internet world that also follows the law of one begets two, two begets three, three begets all things, finding the "one" is the key.

Giao Ge, who once became popular on Kuaishou, became famous with his catchphrase "Give me giao giao". Although this pieced-together language has no specific meaning, with Giao Ge's persistent interpretation, it has derived meanings such as surprise, fright, and excitement.

Like Nomi, after becoming popular on the short video platform, Giao Ge even participated in "The Rap of China" in 2018 and "The Rap of China 2020" in 2020. He released singles such as "Giao Giao" and "Far Away Giao Fly" based on his own word "giao".

Looking back to 2023, Wanyan Huide's rise to fame also followed a similar path. This elderly female internet celebrity could never have imagined that she would become popular in short videos because of her Su Pu accent. When she solemnly pronounced words such as "best friend and enemy friend", "iPhone and law-abiding", "pull out", and "laugh and embrace", netizens who were interested in making memes edited her live broadcast quotes into short video BGM, which fermented across the Internet.

In addition to the magical phrase "Thank God, thank God, I want to diss you", Nomi also has his own catchphrase "m3" in the short videos he posted earlier. Nomi, who calls himself an American boy, often wears a big chain, dances with his hands and speaks with a unique flow, and adds an inaudible English sentence after each sentence: "you know what I'm saying". It is hard to imagine how he can pronounce six words with three syllables. Because of the similar pronunciation, his catchphrase is nicknamed "Yin Nao San" by netizens.

Almost every successful grassroots internet celebrity has his or her own exclusive vocabulary to attract curious young people to follow suit and form some kind of resonance with them in the spiritual world. From the big racer Pang Mailang who sways "friction, friction", Mr. Guo who founded Guomen, the winter swimming weirdo who shouts "Oli Gei", to the popular Nomi, there are no exceptions.

They first brainwash netizens with "exclusive quotes", forming a playful trend of following, and then the platform creates conditions for everyone to follow suit, forming a devilish spread on the Internet.

Offline, the reason why Nomi's MV can form a "Disney" landscape is precisely because of the strong trend of the scene. After Nomi finished filming the MV, blogger Xiaopingguo was the first to come to the community seesaw to check in. She only climbed the same seesaw a few times and easily received more than 600,000 likes... Low-cost replication brings high traffic returns. Even if netizens don't bow to Nomi, they will bow to the traffic.

From ordinary people to internet celebrities, everyone can imitate her, so you can see that more and more bloggers use Wanyan Huide's quotes as BGM, more and more people are learning Guoyu, and people who go to the community to sit on the seesaw and imitate Nomi even have to queue up.

Collective carnival does not require complicated costs. Often a simple joke can lay the foundation for a "Disney".

2. No story, no marketing

Nomi can't continue to be popular just by saying "Thank God, thank God, I want to diss you" or "Because of making trouble". In addition to creating a meme and forming an overwhelming follow-up effect, a story is also needed to ignite the emotions of netizens to recommend it like tap water.

At first, when the internet operator Ou Le noticed the Nomi incident, she thought it was just an ordinary internet joke, but as netizens dug deeper, she discovered that behind Nomi's popularity was a typical internet marketing logic - at first you think it's just a low-brow plot, and then a contrast is formed to tell you a vivid story.

When she first watched the MV of "Thank God, Thank God, DISS", Ou Le thought it was just a low-budget rap with simple words, but after listening to it, she found it was actually quite pleasant to the ear, breaking the stereotype of Nomi. He is not like Xie Di's evaluation, that he should treat rap as a hobby, but he has several works that can be called masterpieces.

You thought Nomi should be funny, but he is unexpectedly profound. Netizens found out that the song "Apu's Missing" mentioned by Xie Di when he was eliminated in the audition was a song Nomi wrote for his grandfather, and the lyrics and emotions were far more profound than they imagined; Nomi not only has "Apu's Missing", but also "Lonely Material", and the two songs are currently ranked fourth and fifth on the QQ Music Rising Chart; on the homepage of his short video, the song "Dead Trees Come Back to Life" has nearly 800,000 likes, and netizens praised him for "going to Berkeley"; there are also lyrics to justify the reputation of his hometown Liangshan: "We Liangshan people really didn't have a good environment when we were young, so you should also reflect on what you said."

Image source: QQ Music screenshot

In the fragments pieced together by netizens, Nomi gradually got a full picture of his story. He was born in the poor Daliangshan and has always had the dream of hip-hop. In order to make himself look more hip-hop, he obediently applied a tattoo sticker because he was worried that his mother would beat him if he really got a tattoo. In the short video, he pursued his dream while working and listened to his mother's words to sell pineapples on the street. He had no money to go to the show, so his mother who worked in a supermarket lent him money to support him; and in the process of working, he even suffered an accident of breaking his little finger.

A funny yet tragic image of a person working hard to live and pursue his dreams comes to life on the screen.

The more netizens dug into the story, the more moved they were. The grassroots Nomi's story immediately spread all over the streets and alleys of the Internet. The contrast in the story made netizens laugh and cry.

There are many grassroots people who have become famous, but only those with stories can touch people's hearts.

The last person who made the audience cry was Wanyan Huide. At first, Wanyan Huide had many haters, but as her ability to create memes improved, the haters became fans, and everyone made fun of Wanyan Huide's psychology theory while applying it to short videos. The turning point happened on the day when Wanyan Huide's documentary was released. Netizens discovered that the person who had been made fun of lost her father when she was a child, and the reason she loved eating chicken feet was because she missed the taste of her childhood; although she was old, she still took out the "Peking University Self-Study Certificate".

Under the pressure of the funny short video and the sensational documentary, netizens no longer cared about the authenticity of Wanyan Huide's psychological counseling ability, and apologized for their previous ridicule, setting off a wave of apologies on the Internet. Wanyan Huide's psychology was also ignored at the beginning, but was finally interpreted as evidence that she healed herself for her whole life.

Internet celebrities who become famous through gimmicks are often ridiculed, but those with stories are welcomed with empathy. From funny to tearful, a high-level reality show was born.

Chengdu Disney is no longer just a simple Disney, but a testimony to the public’s support for the Nomi spirit.

3. There are thousands of tricks, but sincerity wins people’s hearts

Netizens who follow Nomi are also worried that a sudden "collapse" will bring the carnival to an end. After all, it is common for internet celebrities and stars to have their reputations collapsed, let alone ordinary people like Nomi?

But under the fermentation of the Nomi effect, Nomi has stabilized the "personality" created for him by netizens. In the scraps shared by netizens, Nomi always walks alone on the street with a schoolbag on his back, occasionally practicing rap while walking; when he had nothing, he would return the red envelopes given to him by fans; after Chengdu Disney became popular, he specially posted a video hoping that everyone would not disturb others, and explained very seriously: "Because Xie Di would not live there either." There is a bit of humor hidden in the sincerity.

From his student days to the period of pursuing his dreams, from the streets and alleys he walked, netizens summarized the known negative news about Nomi as nothing more than: having his boss deduct his salary for eating hamburgers while working, kicking an electric bike on the side of the road, and letting go of the cow of the girl he was dating... Nomi's "transparent" life gave the netizens who were often affected by the collapse of his house a sufficient sense of security in this carnival.

Some of the content may be hard to tell whether it is true or false, but Nomi has transformed from an unknown rapper who was eliminated in the audition to a small internet celebrity with over 1.7 million fans. The official website tourism industry came out one after another, Liangshan Tourism, Sichuan Tourism, and CCTV Tourism all supported the song "Apu's Missing". Everyone joked that although he was eliminated by Xie Di, he became a rapper recognized by the CCTV label.

In this carnival, netizens continued to imagine. Someone took a photo of Nomi singing rap and being surrounded after he became famous. Facing the crowded crowd, Nomi looked a little stunned. Netizens added a subtitle: "What is he thinking at this moment?" In the comment area, someone replied emotionally: "Grandpa's back, mom secretly wiping tears, two lost cows, trampled mud, pineapples on the tricycle, steel pipes on shoulders, scars on face, and a pinched little finger."

The reason why Nomi was able to trigger public carnival may be due to the coincidence brought about by the song "Thank God, Thank God, I want to diss you", but also because of these simple and insignificant details.
A child who walked out of the mountains, took Hip-Hop as his dream, and clumsily but persistently created unexpected works - the story of a small person's counterattack is a story that the public never gets tired of watching.

The Nomi effect continues.

In the blank corners of the Internet, some people claimed that Xie Di should change his profile to "mentor Nomi", and some people cheered for Xie Di on the spot, "Thank you, thank you, I want to diss you". Hip-hop singer knowknow even took Nomi to Shanghai Disney. With the collaboration of the hip-hop circle and the Internet public, laughs are still being created.

No one cares what real hip-hop is, because the public may not really understand the beat, flow, and punchline, but everyone can understand a story about human survival and life.

Today, Chengdu Disneyland is crowded with people. Community residents did not seal it off for the sake of trouble. Instead, they formed orderly guidelines to guide young people to leave silent traces on the seesaw.

Shanghai Disneyland is a fairy tale created by the Walt Disney Company at a cost of 30 billion yuan, while Chengdu Disney is a real fairy tale created by the audience for themselves and Nomi, with only a seesaw in a community street garden, an MV with no photography skills at all, and a recording studio shared with Xie Di's fans.

Nomi's popularity proves that there is always a tried and tested method in Internet marketing, that is, telling a sincere story, even if the story is routine and even has the added bonus of the audience's self-touching. (Except for special marks, the pictures are all screenshots from Douyin. In this article, Ou Le is a pseudonym.)

Author: Ai Lao, Editor: Chen Meixi

WeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune