"Western Selection" was quickly blocked! Why do fake anchors emerge in endlessly?

You can make money by looking like someone else, but is this path of imitating celebrities reliable? This article will combine the successful cases of imitating popular accounts and celebrities to discuss in depth why imitation is so popular and how far it can go.

Recently, the "small essay" incident of Oriental Selection has continued to attract attention. However, while the topic continues to ferment, some people took the opportunity to fish in troubled waters and want to take a bite of the bad rice of traffic.

On December 17, an account named Western Selection suddenly appeared on the Douyin platform. Not only was the profile picture and name of the account highly similar to Eastern Selection, but the anchor also looked like Dong Yuhui, so netizens nicknamed him "Fake Dong Yuhui".

With such a copycat account, it attracted 1 million viewers on the first day of broadcasting despite the huge traffic. Of course, this blatant traffic-stealing behavior also aroused the disgust of many netizens. After only one day, the account was quickly banned and the content was cleared.

Interestingly, “fake Oriental Selection” and “fake Dong Yuhui” are not isolated cases.

On short video platforms, various fake internet celebrities are thriving. Some imitate Yang Ge’s live streaming and sell goods, while others are low-profile versions of celebrities such as EXO, Ruby Lin, and Jack Ma. These people have a clear goal: to take advantage of the traffic of the real celebrities and fill their own wallets.

So, is the "copycat celebrity" track really reliable? This article will talk to you about the copycat anchors.

1. Copycat anchors promote products and sell out live broadcast rooms

It has to be said that imitating the top internet celebrities to promote products is a shortcut to making quick money.

Black clothes with a silver necklace, middle-parted hair and earthy videos. "Undercover Ma (my god), at this price, why don't you go for it, brothers?"

In the live broadcast of the video account of "Angry Brother Xiaopeng", Brother Xiaopeng swayed to the rhythm and shouted out the classic catchphrase of Crazy Brother Xiaoyang. Now who can tell whether he is the real Brother Xiaoyang?

From the character modeling to the live broadcast style, it is a 1:1 replica, which also allows the irritable Xiaopeng brother to reap a lot of traffic dividends. According to statistics, the number of viewers in Xiaopeng's recent single live broadcast room can basically be maintained at around 100,000.

Most of the products in his video display window are white-label products, with prices ranging from 10 to 400 yuan. So far, 190,000 items have been sold.

The irritable Xiaopeng is not the first person to "take the plunge". As early as 2019, the Douyin account "JV Ma Zong" became popular with a video imitating Jack Ma and accumulated a large number of fans.

Like the vast majority of internet celebrities, JV Ma quickly changed his username after becoming famous and made a high-profile entry into live streaming to sell goods.

In July 2022, JV Ma's sales reached more than 45 million, with an average sales volume of 59,000 per session. The products covered multiple categories including beauty and personal care, food and beverages, and daily necessities.

However, if we talk about the top streamer in the "copycat live streaming e-commerce world", it has to be Lu Ha.

Lu Ha's real name is Ling Dale. Before he switched to live streaming to sell goods, he had an identity as a member of the copycat boy band ESO. Other team members included Huang Zicheng, Wang Erbo, Wang Junka and others.

Just by listening to the name, you can probably tell that the positioning of this group is to gain traffic by imitating celebrities. You may think that the behavior of "copying celebrities" is very low and no one will care about it. But in fact, Lu Ha has made a lot of money.

In a live broadcast this year, Lu Ha admitted that he had made 35 million yuan in just seven months of switching to live streaming . He also bought a house worth 11 million yuan in Changsha Runhe Binjiang Bay and a Ferrari worth 2.77 million yuan.

We can also see from the official Douyin sales rankings that Lu Ha (Ling Da Le) has over 6 million followers, ranking third on the sales rankings. In February this year, he even invested in a media company, officially transforming from a fake internet celebrity who "steals traffic" to a "traffic generator" itself.

2. Look like a celebrity and you can make a lot of money by giving tips

“Live streaming with goods” is not the only destination for copycat anchors.

If you can make your face look very similar to a celebrity, you will have the opportunity to become rich just by relying on "user rewards".

For example, the early "copycat Zhao Liying" quickly gained 2 million followers in three days and earned over 1 million in live broadcast rewards just because she looked like Zhao Liying.

The Douyin celebrity "Xia Ziwei" was originally named "Xiao Lin Xinru". She became famous by imitating Ziwei in "My Fair Princess". When you walk into her live broadcast room, you will see a girl who looks like Ziwei, crying: "Only by brushing rockets or carnival can my eyes be cured!"

After the top brother on the list gave a rocket reward, a "human medical miracle" was staged in the live broadcast room. Xia Ziwei's eyes suddenly became bright and she kept muttering, "Oh my God! I saw it."

In this regard, many netizens joked that this was probably "being blinded by money", but the same plot was always played out in her live broadcast room, and the seemingly exaggerated routine was always effective.

Following "Xia Ziwei", "Foshan Dianhan" became another ordinary person who changed his destiny by looking like a celebrity.

"Foshan Dianhan" was originally a "spirited young man" who worked in an electronics factory in Foshan, Guangdong. Because he looked like actor Zhang Han and had positive quotes, he was discovered by netizens and quickly spread.

Opening Foshan Dianhan’s live broadcast room, the uniform screw-tightening action coupled with the magical saxophone music immediately attracted the attention of a large number of netizens. Each live broadcast attracted more than 100,000 online viewers.

As to why they like his live broadcast, one netizen explained that "it's not that we can't afford Zhang Han, but that Dianhan is more cost-effective."

At present, the number of fans of "Foshan Dianhan" is as high as 2.218 million, and the number of likes is 12.922 million. In the end, not only the number of fans far exceeds the original, but even the video data is far ahead, which can be regarded as the ceiling of the imitation industry.

Of course, not all copycat internet celebrities who have become famous by riding on the traffic of celebrities are lost in traffic monetization.

Not long ago, an egg-filled pancake stall owner from Baoding, Hebei Province, became famous. Because he looked like Jay Chou, he named his account "Zhou Bing Lun". After he became famous, many people came to take photos with him, and his pancake stall became a famous check-in spot for internet celebrities nearby.

If a person suddenly becomes famous, they may quit their original job and sign a contract with MCN to become an internet celebrity. But Zhou Binglun does not seem to have such plans and still relies on this small stall to make money to support his family. He opens the stall at 7 am every day and closes it at 5 pm. This year, his stuffed pancake stall has been open for 8 years.

From this point of view, he can be regarded as a breath of fresh air among the copycat internet celebrities.

3. How far can the road of copycats go?

“The world is bustling with people, all for the sake of profit; the world is in turmoil, all for the sake of profit.” It can be said that the most fundamental reason for the sudden popularity of copycat Internet celebrities is profit-driven.

Shortly after "Oriental Selection" became popular, a bunch of brands named "Oriental Treasure Selection" and "Oriental Green Selection" suddenly appeared on the Internet.

Taking "Oriental Green Selection" as an example, its brand positioning is similar to Oriental Selection, and it also focuses on promoting products through e-commerce in agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

Not only the name and positioning are highly imitated, but also the name of the live broadcast room, the background layout, the LOGO design of the live broadcast room, the placement of goods, and even the bilingual sales format of Oriental Selection have been moved to the live broadcast room by "Oriental Green Selection".

Recently, the court pronounced a verdict on the copyright infringement and unfair competition dispute between Oriental Selection and "Oriental Green Selection", and Oriental Selection won the case.

This reminds us that although the live streaming sales model of this type of "copycat internet celebrity" may be profitable for a while and quickly realize commercial monetization, it lacks its own core competitiveness, and this shortcut will eventually come to an end.

On the one hand, when the "original owners" begin to defend their rights, they may face legal sanctions; on the other hand, as time goes by, the audience will slowly distinguish the true from the false, and it will be difficult for real fans to stay in the copycat live broadcast room for a long time.

Just like this time's "Western Selection", it was banned in less than a day. Obviously, the market has already had strong countermeasures against this kind of malicious behavior of taking advantage of popularity and traffic.

In fact, even if it is a copycat, there are very few anchors who can really make achievements and have traffic. In addition to imitation, they must have their own unique style and appeal.

I also hope that more anchors and content creators can find their core competitiveness as soon as possible and bring more valuable content to the audience.

Author: Yan Tao

WeChat public account: Yan Tao San Shou