In 2023, there will be no top streamers on the Internet

In 2023, new Internet celebrities are emerging frequently, and the popularity of old Internet celebrities who were once very popular has been declining. However, both new and old Internet celebrities cannot develop sustainably. This article analyzes and explores the reasons why we can no longer see the emergence of top Internet celebrities under the changes in the Internet environment. Let's take a look.

2023 has passed. Do you still remember those new Internet celebrities who are all the rage?

They are representatives of amateur internet celebrities: Ms. Huang, a beautiful kindergarten teacher who has attracted millions of fans with the song "Wa Ya Wa Ya Wa"; the "top middle-aged and elderly" Xiucai and Yi Xiao Qing Cheng who became popular again this summer; Yu Wenliang who became popular in October but "collapsed" within a month; and "Wen Shen", a middle-aged man born in the 1970s who became popular these past two days?

Or are they the celebrity representatives that the platform promotes: Dong Jie, the phenomenal influencer on Xiaohongshu at the beginning of the year, Zhang Xiaohui, the “new favorite” anchor of Double 11, and Wu Xin, the celebrity who has become popular recently?

Or those old internet celebrities: Dong Yuhui, who became popular last year and caused the "small essay storm" this year; Li Jiaqi, the top influencer who was involved in the 79-yuan eyebrow pencil incident and the price control storm; Liu Genghong, the top fitness influencer who is recently talking about "declining traffic"; Li Ziqi, the top "Chinese style" influencer who had a dispute with the company and stopped updating for more than two years...

The data doesn’t lie. The popularity of old internet celebrities cannot escape the fate of cooling down. This year’s new internet celebrities reached their peak as soon as they debuted, and for various reasons they were not popular until the end of the year.

The year 2023 has passed, and the platform with huge traffic has been over. Why is it difficult for the platform to bring out the top traffic again? This is a question worth discussing.

1. New Internet celebrities may not be popular until the second year

Internet celebrities have long been an industry that attracts people of all ages. Among the Internet celebrities that have emerged in the first half of 2023, Xiucai, Yixiao Qingcheng, and Mr. Huang can be called "harvesters of middle-aged and elderly people."

During the May Day holiday this year, a magical children's song "Digging in the Little Garden" and a set of finger dances performed by a kindergarten teacher attracted countless netizens to remake the video. They also "unearthed" a phenomenal celebrity who gained 3 million fans in 5 days, "The Flower of Music Teacher Blossoms and Fortunes". She is said to be a music teacher at an educational institution in Wuhan, and is called Teacher Huang by netizens.

"Appearance is justice." Ms. Huang stood out from many remakes because of her sweet and lovely image and was sought after by many organizations. Ms. Huang's subsequent live broadcasts, sales, and the "Dig, Dig" trend that became popular on the Internet have made her popularity soar. "Dig, Dig" is not only popular in China, but also has imitators of various themes in the United States, Germany, and Taiwan.

Xiucai from Bozhou, Anhui, and Yixiao Qingcheng from Heze, Shandong, were both top stars in the aunt and uncle circles in 2021. However , this summer, with the help of TikTok, the two Internet celebrities were "watched" by young netizens on a large scale for the first time. Young people can't figure out how they can capture nearly 30 million grandpas and aunts just by lip-syncing, plus signature moves such as covering their mouths to laugh, raising eyebrows, and flipping hair?

There are middle-aged women who travel thousands of miles to meet Xiucai, and there are old men who say they want to divorce their wives to marry Yixiao Qingcheng. Young people don’t understand why those “fake at first glance” goodwill messages can make middle-aged and elderly fans vote for them crazily? Interestingly, after Xiucai and Yixiao Qingcheng became popular, they even set off a wave of imitation among young people.

In the second half of the year, the Internet's trend turned to young people. Phenomenal Internet celebrities Yu Wenliang and Wen Huijun are ordinary people who meet the aesthetic standards of young people.

In October this year, Yu Wenliang, an 18-year-old from Yantai, Shandong, became famous. His short videos are mostly clips of himself eating, riding a bike, and playing football. The overall description is just one word: ordinary.

People describe him as a representative of thousands of ordinary people: he looks ordinary, posts ordinary content, but they see in him the state of being "so ordinary and so happy" that they have always pursued. Some netizens said that Yu Wenliang cured his "ordinariness shame".

Soon, a "Yu Wenliang phenomenon" emerged, with netizens posting selfies in Yu Wenliang's comment section. His account gained a million followers in 10 days.

Towards the end of the year, another middle-aged man became a hot topic in young people’s circle of friends.

This person is Wen Huijun, a driving school coach from Shijiazhuang, Hebei. He became famous when a blogger linked together the three accounts he opened on Douyin and the "stalks" of his three lives: in the morning, Li Anwen (responsible for doing serious work, promoting the driving school business and earning tuition for his son), at noon, Wen Shen (responsible for being funny and skipping "Subject 3"), and in the evening, Wen Huijun (responsible for being deep, with a selfie and emo text).

Many young people describe Wen Huijun as having the looks of a person born in the 70s but the thoughts of a person born in the 00s, especially his crazy mentality during the day and emo mentality at night, which is especially like what a person born in the 00s will look like when they get old . Therefore, they post his close-up selfies on their Moments, and add a caption to the photos.

The flooding of WeChat Moments made Wen Shen a real celebrity on Douyin. Within a day, the combined number of followers of Wen Shen and Wen Huijun’s accounts increased by 3.6 million.

Ordinary people account for the majority of internet celebrities who stand out in 2023, but the grassroots internet celebrities selected by traffic also expose one common characteristic: they are extremely easy to fail.

Huang has attracted millions of fans due to the "Dig, Dig" trend, but she has also been embroiled in controversy due to issues with song copyrights, receiving millions of gifts through live broadcasts, etc. She appeared at an event in late May and was photographed by netizens at the scene "without beauty filters". She was criticized for being a completely different person from the short videos in the live broadcast room, and she was therefore called "the fastest car crash in history".

Xiucai, who once sparked cross-age discussion, had an even more regrettable ending. He and Yixiaoqingcheng's monetization was based on live broadcast rewards and gifts from fans. In September, Xiucai's account was blocked for suspected tax violations. Yixiaoqingcheng stopped updating on August 20 and started updating again in November. The style of the short videos has not changed, but the popularity is less than one-tenth of that a few months ago.

Yu Wenliang's reputation collapsed faster. After becoming an online celebrity with 3.8 million fans, he began to frequently broadcast live and compete with other anchors. Once, the anchor on the other side said bluntly: "I come to live broadcast to make money", and Yu Wenliang responded: "Is it so real? You said what's in my heart, so let's make money together, brother!"

After this statement, Yu Wenliang quickly lost millions of fans. Netizens said that they used to think that Yu Wenliang was a breath of fresh air in the Internet world, but now they are disgusted: last month he was still a good person who "is happy even if he has no money, and is not here for money", but this month he was frantically asking for gifts in the live broadcast room. Recently, Yu Wenliang released an apology video, explaining that it was related to his mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer and being harassed by cyberbullying.

Nearing the end of the year, for various reasons, except for Wen Shen who has just become popular, everyone else has disappeared in the sea of ​​traffic.

2. Old top streamers, troubled times

The ceiling for amateur internet celebrities does not seem to be high. Those who can be called top-tier now are probably the “old internet celebrities”.

Let’s first look at the live streaming sales circle. Li Jiaqi, the “lipstick king”, the crazy Yang Ge who is constantly talked about, and Dong Yuhui who has been promoted like a rocket recently, have become popular in 2017, 2018, and 2022, but without exception, they have been controversial in 2023.

In recent years, Li Jiaqi has been the top star in the "live streaming e-commerce industry", but he had a difficult time during this year's two major e-commerce festivals. He stopped broadcasting during 618, and during Double 11, he was questioned about the "lowest price on the entire network" because of one of his ovens.

In fact, the L'Oreal incident on Double 11 in 2021 and the Shiseido incident on Double 11 in 2022, no matter how the brands and anchors explain, have formed the impression that Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room may not have the lowest price. The essence of live streaming is to screen people who have time and are price sensitive. When the anchor who started out with this loses the mentality of "the lowest price on the entire network", his status will inevitably be affected.

In addition to facing the turbulent reefs in the live e-commerce world, Li Jiaqi also has to deal with the emotional influence of consumers. In September this year, he fell into trouble in the "79 yuan Huaxizi eyebrow pencil incident". Although he eventually apologized for his offensive behavior, his reputation was greatly affected and he lost millions of fans at one point.

The year 2023 of "Crazy Little Brother Yang", whose fans on the Internet have exceeded 100 million, is even crazier. For example, he has been punished by relevant agencies and complained by consumers for product quality problems and false propaganda many times. Many suppliers he cooperated with were ordered to make rectifications, and his apprentice was accused of "vulgar" promotion...

Many people know Xiao Yangge from his short videos of family scenes. With his nonsensical and funny image, Xiao Yangge accumulated his first wave of fans. He became popular in 2018, and started to sell goods the following year. Later, he developed a "family-style" sales matrix.

This year, Xiao Yangge tried to sell big brands and transform to high-end, but he encountered various problems. White-label and low-priced products are still frequent visitors in the live broadcast room.

By the end of the year, the most popular person was probably Dong Yuhui. In December, topics related to him dominated the hot searches for many days: from the editor and Dong Yuhui quarreling, the CEO (Sun Dongxu) apologizing, Dong Yuhui's suspension of broadcasting, the stock price and number of fans falling, to the CEO stepping down and Dong Yuhui's "appreciation". Finally, the series of storms in Dongfangxuan came to an end.

The incident helped Dong Yuhui to increase his popularity. His fans soared to 22.75 million in those days, equivalent to 70% of the number of fans of Oriental Selection. Netizens said that Dong Yuhui's experience angered the workers, and they also cut his road to fame into a video, which corresponded to the key nodes of the development of Oriental Selection.

Simply put, in June 2022, half a year after Oriental Selection transformed into live streaming e-commerce, Dong Yuhui's knowledge output-style live streaming suddenly became popular on the entire Internet. The popularity of Oriental Selection once surpassed Liu Genghong and the live streaming room of "Make Friends". The number of fans of the account skyrocketed, and the company's stock price nearly doubled compared to before the education and training storm.

In the "small essay storm", the outside world accused the editor of "stirring up trouble" and Sun Dongxu of improper public relations, but the essence is that the management team of Dongfang Selection, a subsidiary of New Oriental, has not changed its thinking: it still manages employees with traditional thinking and communicates with netizens in the way of "classes". It is not adapted to the "Internet celebrity economy", but has made the surging public opinion more intense. If this problem is not completely solved, Dong Yuhui's "career crisis" will not be completely resolved.

In addition to selling goods, let’s take a look at two of the clear streams among the top streamers: Li Ziqi, the Chinese style top streamer who became famous in 2016, and Liu Genghong, the fitness top streamer who became popular in 2022. Now, one of them has stopped updating and the other has cooled down.

Compared to most of the Internet celebrities who are still active on the stage, Li Ziqi is still remembered by many netizens. Although she has stopped posting for more than two years, her name often appears in the public eye.

Recently, the controversy between Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Zhenxuan has reminded the outside world of the conflict between Li Ziqi and her operating agency Wei Nian. In April this year, according to media reports, Li Ziqi, who had stopped updating on YouTube for more than a year, was still able to earn 780,000 yuan in advertising revenue per month on this platform. This data has not been confirmed.

This not only makes people wonder about Li Ziqi's influence on YouTube, but also makes people regret the damage that disputes and suspensions have caused to the IP.

In 2016, Li Ziqi became famous for her video "Lanzhou Beef Noodles". Her works, which combine ancient style and pastoral colors, are widely popular, and her total number of fans on major video platforms exceeds 100 million.

According to Weinian, the conflict between the two parties is about equity. The monetization method of Li Ziqi's IP is mainly through the sale of goods (Li Ziqi snail rice noodle, lotus root starch, etc.), but the Taobao store selling goods is opened by Weinian, and Li Ziqi herself does not hold shares in Weinian.

According to Weinian, the two parties reached a settlement in December last year. Tianyancha shows that Li Ziqi has regained control of Sichuan Ziqi (Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd.). The operator of Li Ziqi's official flagship store is still Hangzhou Weinian (Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd.).

This dispute has lasted for more than 800 days, and there is still no answer as to when the missing Li Ziqi will return.

Recently, Liu Genghong has rarely been on the hot search, and the topic is "talking about the decline in traffic after more than a year". Looking back at April and May last year, during the epidemic, Liu Genghong was so popular that his fans increased by 30 million in 6 days, making him a veritable "national private trainer". When he taught shuttlecock exercises and dragon fist exercises, he kept repeating the slogan "Crack the fat on the sides, I want both the mermaid line and the vest line!", which is undoubtedly the voice of all "Liu Genghong girls".

It is undeniable that Liu Genghong's attraction to new fitness enthusiasts and cultivation of fitness habits among them are phenomenal, but the core of fitness requires the user's time and physical investment. As work and life return to normal, it is difficult for Liu Genghong girls to persist, and cooling down is inevitable.

3. Why can’t we create top streamers anymore?

Why is it so difficult for Internet platforms to create new top streamers? It depends on who controls the traffic and how it is distributed.

Li Ziqi, who became popular in 2016, represents the shift of traffic from the Weibo era to the short video era. Li Ziqi moved from Meipai to Weibo in 2016, and then to Douyin in December 2017.

From 2018 to 2020, short videos are an unavoidable industry when talking about the growth of Internet traffic. As personal expression gradually becomes short videos, this more intuitive and low-threshold method than the era of pictures and texts has become ubiquitous, occupying the time and activity of our mobile phones, and new Internet celebrities emerge in an endless stream. From September 2018 to September 2020, the monthly active users of short videos increased from 518 million to 865 million.

In the era of short videos, the traffic giant TikTok was born, and also popularized internet celebrities like Xiao Yangge. 2018, when Xiao Yangge became popular, was a key year for TikTok.

Since 2020, we can still see new internet celebrities frequently emerging on short video platforms, but it is difficult to see national top-tier celebrities. This is related to the slowdown in the monthly active growth rate of short video users, the platform's traffic mechanism, and the platform's use of traffic for commercialization.

Wu Kang, an operator of a short video platform, told Dingjiao that after 2020, the market structure has basically stabilized, and most of the incremental short video traffic has flowed to the top platform Douyin. Douyin's strategy is to support different IPs, and as long as an account is interesting or has attention, it will immediately give traffic. Liu Genghong and Dongfang Zhenxuan are both top Internet celebrities who have emerged under this traffic mechanism.

Liu Genghong and Dong Yuhui are not fighting alone. They have grown from internet celebrities to top stars, and three major factors are indispensable : solid content and creativity are the basis; capital operation is auxiliary; and there are also rare dividends of the times such as staying at home during the epidemic and emotional resonance among workers.

Wu Kang said that Douyin's traffic distribution mechanism is highly centralized, which results in internet celebrities having relatively little control over their fans. In order to maintain their popularity, they must not only grasp the content characteristics of the platform, but also be good at traffic operations.

In other words, ordinary people have a chance to become famous through their content, which is in line with the platform's traffic mechanism and allows creators to see that there are still opportunities to create stars on the platform. However, without the latter two elements, the scope of influence will ultimately be limited, not to mention national attention.

The amateur internet celebrities who became popular this year have either fallen or "collapsed", showing the cruel side of the internet celebrity economy. Being pushed to the cloud by traffic in an instant, or even accumulating wealth day by day, can easily lead people into controversy and make them lost.

Today, Douyin's traffic is more decentralized. "In addition to short videos, commercial businesses such as live e-commerce and local life services have more abundant traffic support." Wu Kang said that short videos can also promote new Internet celebrities, but their life cycle will become shorter and shorter.

In addition to short videos, live streaming is another business model born in the mobile Internet era. Since 2019, traffic has flowed from the former to the latter.

If short videos are the reconstruction of traffic with content value, then live streaming e-commerce is the reconstruction of traffic and transaction models. It can instantly turn traffic into "gold". Therefore, it is the main form for platforms such as Taobao, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu to create top traffic in recent years.

In the first round of live streaming e-commerce, the top influencers Li Jiaqi and Viya created unmatched sales for Taobao, which also represented Taobao's absolute voice in the first stage of live streaming e-commerce.

The epidemic in 2020 accelerated the development of live streaming e-commerce into the second stage. Luo Yonghao’s role in Douyin at that time and Dong Jie’s role in Xiaohongshu in 2023 were both due to the strong entry of new platforms.

Unlike short videos, platforms can earn huge profits from live streaming. Therefore, Taobao and Douyin, which have top streamers, have to face the following problem: super streamers are the result of platform idolization, but the super streamers' ability to control the platform and fans, as well as the possible increased risk management, have always been a thorn in the platform's side. The traffic of top streamers has begun to be redistributed.

Xiaohongshu, which entered the market later, has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to create topics and has focused on selecting celebrities to create top streamers, such as Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, and Wu Xin. However, due to its late timing and limited audience, its size cannot be called a top streamer.

In the past two years, live streaming e-commerce has entered its third stage. When major e-commerce platforms no longer shout "GMV" and Double 11 has become "quiet"; when merchants no longer "lose money to gain publicity" in exchange for explosive sales, can super platforms still bring out the next top live streaming? At least there has been no one yet.

As time comes to 2023, not only will a portion of the platform's internal traffic be allocated for commercialization, but the traffic of the entire Internet is also being redistributed.

When Vivi, the wife of Douyin's top influencer Liu Genghong, Oriental Selection, and Make Friends entered Taobao Live, it was not only a manifestation of the Internet platform's "tearing down walls", but also meant that short video platforms and e-commerce platforms had encountered a bottleneck in user growth, and had reached the stage of moving from traffic to "retention" and sharing traffic and advantages with each other.

In addition to the above platforms, the rise of WeChat Video Account has shown the potential to create hot topics across the entire network. Platforms such as Kuaishou and Bilibili also have their own areas of expertise.

In the future, we will have the opportunity to see more "wen gods" who become popular from one platform to another, but the real top-tier stars will only become increasingly scarce.

In addition to platform and traffic factors, the top streamers in the era of short videos and live streaming e-commerce have encountered a common and difficult to fundamentally resolve contradiction - the stability of IP.

The stories of Li Ziqi and Dong Yuhui tell us that strong IPs have strong personal attributes, and there is a natural competition between them and the company's brand attributes. Chen Zheng, founder of MCN agency, said, "Unless the Internet celebrity is the boss himself, even the marriage between the boss and the Internet celebrity is not stable."

The essence of this contradiction is that the Internet celebrity economy is a model that relies on personal talent, hard work and charm, as well as company operations and assistance to succeed. From a business perspective, the companies behind them believe that Internet celebrities are replaceable; but fans and consumers recognize Internet celebrities as individuals. From the perspective of business stability, de-head Internet celebrities are inevitable for corporate operations, but once a company starts this action, there is another problem: how to balance the influence of the fan base.

Chen Zheng told "Focus" that Dong Yuhui and others are not completely irreproducible, but the real crisis is that when the company cannot solve the stability problem of strong IP, it may be difficult for Dong Yuhui to come out again if he leaves. "Whether it is to appease internal anchors or deal with external fans, it is difficult," he added.

In 2024, the Internet is still looking forward to stories of overnight success. Perhaps more people will be pushed to the cloud by traffic, and at the same time, more names will no longer be mentioned, allowing us to witness the madness and cruelty of the traffic economy again and again. For the Internet, isn’t this a new starting point?

Author: Jin Yufan

WeChat public account: Dingjiao (ID: dingjiaoone)