Yu Wenliang's fans surged by more than 3 million, but he couldn't ease his anxiety about monetizing short videos

With 2.38 million followers in one week and more than 3 million followers in half a month, "ordinary man" Yu Wenliang has become popular. Unlike the Internet celebrities who became popular before, Yu Wenliang's short videos seem to be selfies taken directly with a mobile phone. From his popularity, what changes have taken place in the entire short video industry? Is it really "dreaming back to the short video era when amateur Internet celebrities frequently appeared"?

1. Ordinary person "Yu Wenliang" became popular

He released 50 videos in half a month and gained more than 3 million followers - this is the report card of Shandong boy "Yu Wenliang" in the short video track.

The popularity of "Yu Wenliang" seems a bit "inexplicable" to many netizens - his appearance is not outstanding on Douyin, which is full of handsome guys, his content is not creative or interesting, and there are no refreshing jokes.

One could even say that his videos are shot very casually.

They either shoot with the camera facing their face, or they eat, or they take selfies. Moreover, most of these videos are only a few seconds or more, which makes them UGC videos with zero shooting cost.

Some videos focus on transitions, such as a video that starts with a game of billiards and then transitions to a football field as the billiard ball is hit; or a video that starts with a game of football and then transitions to a dinner party with friends.

These videos have no beauty filters, no deliberate posing and editing, and mainly have a free and casual style.

According to data from the background of Juleliang Star Map, Yu Wenliang’s video "The most beautiful sunset I have ever seen is the one where you accompanied me to watch the sea" is only 17 seconds long and has received more than 4 million likes and 120 million views.

The content of this video is that he is sitting in a car and singing by the window, and then the scene switches to the crowd, with the background music being exactly "I Have Seen It".

If we go back further, he has two videos with over a million likes.

The first one was published on September 30, with the text "We can share our feelings, but we can't resonate with our thoughts." The comment section began to have various messages discussing why he became so popular.

The second one was posted on October 1, with the text "Sunshine on his shoulders makes him look like a free man". The video was shot in the school cafeteria, with the sun shining on his face. It was a selfie without filters or editing. In the comment section of this video, some netizens began to comment "This is an ordinary person, confident and sunny", "TikTok belongs to us ordinary people", etc.

It can be seen that Yu Wenliang did not suddenly become popular because of a certain video, but because of his overall video style and the "ordinary person" personality he reflected in the videos.

You could say that his videos are short and don’t have too much packaging and processing, but his soundtrack and text are great additions; you could say that his videos are too ordinary, but they resonate with people and attract comments and interactions.

When a video's likes, comments and other interactive data increase, it will naturally gain more traffic and enter a larger traffic pool. And when a user inexplicably sees a video on the homepage that seems incompatible with the tone of Douyin, they may click in out of curiosity to find out what it is.

After Yu Wenliang became popular, many people also speculated whether he had a team behind him and whether he had any driving force behind him.

Xinbochang found that Yu Wenliang has not yet opened a huge star map backend, and there is no cooperation contact information on the homepage. If there is really a team, it is possible that he has already been busy preparing for live broadcasts or bringing goods.

2. Why is it “Yu Wenliang”?

For a long time, users did not believe that there really were amateur internet celebrities.

Once an amateur internet celebrity becomes popular in a short period of time, the most direct impression users get is that "there must be a promoter, a team, and capital behind him." After all, in a world where paid traffic has become the mainstream, who would believe that an amateur can become popular at zero cost?

However, the fact is that whether it is when short videos first became popular or now that the short video industry has matured, there are still many phenomenal cases of increasing followers. Many of them are traffic darlings selected by the platform.

If you have been using TikTok for a long time, you may be familiar with the style and length of videos like "Yu Wenliang". In 2018, most of the TikTok videos were 15-second short videos, mainly lip syncing and hand gesture dancing, but the popular ones at that time were handsome men and beautiful women.

With his dancing and healing smile, the "Dance King" Dai Gula K gained 5 million followers in 10 days; with a video of dancing in a garage, Wen Wan gained 10 million followers in 10 days; with the answer of "I just want you to take me out for dinner", the Chengdu girl "Your Little Sweetie" gained more than 3 million followers in one day...

These cases all occurred in 2018, which is known as the “first year of short videos.”

Looking back to this year, there have also been phenomenal cases of fan growth.

So let’s put aside the experts who are backed by institutions and teams. Mr. Huang from Wuhan, who became famous with the song “Dig, Dig”, and the tour guide Xiao Qi, who became famous because of a well-received video by an expert, became famous not because of the team’s planning or the content’s drive, but because they suddenly hit a certain emotional point.

Like them, Yu Wenliang was also the chosen traffic darling.

Asking whether Yu Wenliang can be copied is just like asking whether Wen Wan can be copied or whether Mr. Huang can be copied.

So, why did Douyin choose Yu Wenliang among millions of ordinary people?

There is almost a consensus that Douyin needs to create an ordinary person "Yu Wenliang" to make ordinary people believe that they have the opportunity to become famous overnight like him, and then start creating more short video content. "Yu Wenliang" is a god created by Douyin for ordinary people, and also a new benchmark case.

The spearhead of this view actually points to TikTok’s content anxiety.

3. Is short video still a good business?

In the past one or two years, after Douyin vigorously developed e-commerce, whether it is users, influencers or institutions, whether it is content consumption groups or content production groups, a very obvious feeling is that the content of Douyin’s homepage is filled with more and more live broadcasts and advertisements.

This undoubtedly greatly affects the viewing experience of users. An industry veteran once told Xinbochang: "I used to watch Douyin every day for several hours, but recently I found that I haven't opened Douyin for almost a week."

In addition to the impact on user experience, many professional teams, MCN agencies and top short video influencers on the content production side have begun to discover that simply producing short video content no longer seems to be a good business.

In addition to vertical segments that are close to money, such as beauty and food, short video content such as comedy and appearance still faces the problem of monetization.

Nowadays, for influencers and institutions, live streaming has almost become an inevitable path to monetization.

Xinbochang learned that many short video teams and institutions have tried live streaming to sell goods. However, those who failed to succeed began to gradually fade out of the short video track.

Most short video agencies and influencers are not good at live streaming. Many agencies and short video teams that I met with Changmei in 2017 gradually faded out of the short video circle. When asked about the reason, most of their answers were "too difficult to monetize."

Another trend is that many experts and institutions have begun to join hands with professional e-commerce agencies and teams.

For example, this year's phenomenal comedian "Li Paoer" joined hands with "Crazy Little Brother Yang" to establish the Three Sheep Shenyang branch, and Li Paoer will serve as the chairman of the branch, and he himself is about to start live streaming to sell goods.

However, when many content creators gained followers and became popular, they all flocked to live streaming to sell goods. Once live streaming to sell goods has opened up a new avenue, it will inevitably divert time and energy from content creation.

One example is that not long ago, Douyin's top influencer "Duoyuhe Maomaojie" posted a video to bid farewell to "Maomaojie" in his short video series, saying that he would no longer update the content of the "Maomaojie" series. Now, his focus has completely shifted to live streaming.

This is understandable. However, from the perspective of the platform, if video influencers end up selling products, how can they continue to stimulate users to consume and produce content?

Rather than supporting the top players, it might be a good idea to create more “ordinary people”.

For ordinary people, they can increase their followers by posting videos, and after they have tens of thousands of followers, they can start to receive orders and cash in. Ordinary people can increase their followers and have a chance to become famous by shooting videos; and after increasing their followers, although they cannot become rich, they can make a small amount of money and cash in.

Douyin launched "Yu Wenliang" not to create more amateur internet celebrities with millions of followers, but to make ordinary people believe that ordinary people still have a chance.

Author: Field sister

Source: WeChat official account: "New Broadcasting Field (ID: New_bc)"