"Zibo Ding Zhen" duck head brother breaks into the world of live streaming

When his 15 minutes of fame came to him, the young man from Zibo chose to board the gold-digging ship and sail downstream, even though he didn't know where the end of the voyage would be.

The popularity of Zibo barbecue has brought a young man who sells Quzhou duck heads to fame. He has now entered the live broadcast room and has accumulated more than 600,000 fans in a month, selling women's underwear and skin care products that he has never used.

The magical story related to traffic continues to happen in 2023, this time in Zibo. The barriers of time and space are broken, and after being covered with the cloak of traffic, there is no need to specialize in a profession, and small streams can become rivers and seas without accumulating.

How can we avoid wasting the 15 minutes when the spotlight is on us?

In exchange for business, money, fame, or respectability, everyone has their own choice. Behind the seemingly personal choice is a cycle of panic and helplessness, joy and expectation, and then loss and hesitation when an ordinary person faces a complex system.

It's like walking in the desert. Every road is walked by someone, but every road seems not to be the best path. When you walk, the footprints are very deep, but after you walk, the traces will soon disappear.

01 Prequel: Buying up that pot of braised duck heads

Selling Quzhou duck heads in Zibo, 24-year-old Yi Yang tasted overnight fame, although that was not what he originally wanted.

Yi Yang is a strange name. Netizens call him "Duck Head Brother" because he became famous for selling duck heads with smooth muscle lines. Fans call him "Wangzai" because his hairstyle is similar to Wangzai. People who become famous overnight on the Internet are often referred to by some kind of symbol, which is the mark of their peak voice in the public opinion field and the only symbol that can be remembered by the public. In the past, there was Ramen Brother and Coat Brother, and now there is Duck Head Brother.

Like the two brothers above, Duck Head Brother is also from Shandong, and his hometown is Tai'an. He learned the craftsmanship of braised duck in Quzhou, Zhejiang, and two years ago rented a store in Badaju, Zibo, Shandong, and started selling duck heads, duck wings, duck necks and other braised duck products.

Compared to the popular barbecue restaurant in Badaju, the duck shop is not too big and there is no dining area. After the rolling door is opened, the stainless steel plate at the stall is filled with braised duck that has just been cooked in the morning. If a customer wants to buy, Yi Yang will take some from the plate and weigh it to collect the money.

His fame as the "Duck Head Boy" was an accident that happened to him this spring. Looking back, this accident was more like a "byproduct" of the nationwide popularity of Zibo barbecue.

Quzhou duck heads are not a specialty of Zibo. At first, it was tourists who came to Zibo to "barbecue" that noticed Yi Yang because of his appearance. In the smoky barbecue gathering place, there was a young man dressed neatly, with clear eyes and eyebrows, a strong body, an introverted personality, and some social phobia. He was busy fishing ducks from stainless steel barrels every day. The contrast in the specific scene made Yi Yang get the first wave of attention.

Image source: Screenshot from TikTok @Zibo Duckhead Brother

This is a kind of contrast similar to "Tofu Xishi", with a chain of stories that the public likes to hear and hear: ordinary people working in the market, beautiful but unaware of it, working day after day, and once discovered, they step into the spotlight. Appearance is not a selling point, but instead becomes the best filter. The story of the male version of Duck Head Xishi has spread far further than the taste of duck heads.

Therefore, Yi Yang, who wears a black vest and has a muscular body, and scoops out the freshly cooked duck from the stainless steel barrel and puts it on the plate on time every day, has become another check-in attraction in Zibo.

Starting from late April, young people who had just finished eating barbecue or had not yet eaten barbecue gathered in front of the duck shop, holding up their mobile phones, aiming at his muscles, his face, and his black vest and pressing the camera button. Flesh replaced food and became a means for onlookers to gain traffic.

On April 23, after buying some duck products, a tourist held up a mobile phone in his right hand to record a video, and stretched out his left hand to Yi Yang's arm. While touching the muscles, he said, "I touched the muscles for my family members. I felt it, really felt it. He is really well trained." In the camera of another guest, Yi Yang hunched his shoulders and blinked his eyes frequently, seeming a little resistant, but he still politely waved and said "goodbye" to the guest.

The next day, the video was circulated on the Internet, and most netizens accused the tourist who touched the muscles of "having no sense of boundaries" and "harassment". Yi Yang responded to the incident in an interview, saying that his "brain was blank" at the time, but still hoped that "everyone would not cyberbully her."

What followed was a change in the fate of ordinary people. With the exposure of traffic, Yi Yang began to attract attention and became a phenomenon on the Internet during the May Day holiday.

In Yi Yang's live broadcast room, whenever he opens the rolling door, he can see dense crowds waiting outside for a long time, blocking the nearby roads. Order needs to be maintained to continue doing business. Living in the lens of tourists has become a daily routine.

The sudden surge in traffic was a bonus, but it also brought about polarized judgments that ordinary people could not bear. Soon, Yi Yang had "anti-fans".

On May 3, Yi Yang cried in a live broadcast room late at night because he could not do business because of the large number of onlookers affecting the market order. "I am now an unemployed vagrant. I sell the least on the whole street. 180,000 people flocked to that market, and everyone liked me. Is 6,000 yuan too much?" He had to close the business temporarily.

The duck product business has come to a temporary end, and "live streaming" has become Yi Yang's next core business. Live streaming of products has become an unavoidable "end of the universe."

Whether it is a celebrity or an ordinary person, they can’t avoid being alienated in the live streaming scene. Yi Yang is not the first, nor will he be the last.

02 Build momentum: Welcome to the live broadcast room of "Duck Head Brother"

Before he entered the live streaming sales track, Yi Yang's live streaming room received a good response. Here he showed his talents, taught people how to eat duck products, and played with friends. In the past month, he has accumulated more than 600,000 fans on Douyin, and can set up 12 groups on his Douyin account, making each group "overcrowded".

What touched many fans was that the first thing Yi Yang did after becoming famous was to do charity.

On May 5, a short video titled "Baby Go Home" was pinned on his Douyin account. Yi Yang stood with parents who were looking for their children, and every frame that flashed by was a photo of the missing child. During the live broadcast, he would also remind everyone to forward and pin the video to contribute to charity.

On May 9, Yi Yang posted another short video about "left-behind elderly people". His caption read: "Don't forget your original intention, and you will succeed in the end." The netizen with the most likes said to him: "So, the gifts you gave him were all given to help everyone in a free way! Those haters, are you slapping him in the face?"

Image source: Screenshot from TikTok @Zibo Duckhead Brother

When he was popular, he used his bonuses with restraint. The image of a simple and kind-hearted duck-headed boy became more full in the details. Onlookers also shifted their attention from examining his appearance to the spiritual world of this ordinary person.

When he started live streaming, Yi Yang turned off the reward function in his live streaming room. Even after receiving gifts because he didn't set it up properly, he bought mineral water and gave it to staff and tourists for free.

After complaining about the poor profits, he re-enabled the live broadcast reward function. The inconsistency between his previous and subsequent behaviors naturally attracted discussion among netizens, but in the eyes of fans, the act of "doing charity" was enough to become a driving force for everyone to continue to like it.

When he was live streaming alone, Yi Yang was always very nervous, rubbing his hands constantly, and was teased by everyone for being "cold". But the arrival of his friends made his live streaming scene rich and lively. The combination of "master and apprentice" became Yi Yang's new label. Together, the four of them enriched the sample content about "Duck Head Brother" for the public to imagine and interpret.

Among the four masters and apprentices, "Tang Monk" refers to Yi Yang, and the one holding the pig ring is Yi Yang's friend Fatty, who is burly and twice as tall as Yi Yang. His Douyin account simply reads: I was the first to grab food in kindergarten, and my dream is to eat all over the world; youth has no price, and madness is in the present.

Yi Yang often sings in the live broadcast room. Once, he pulled Pang Ge into the camera and asked him to sing a song. Pang Ge didn't know how to sing, but due to the enthusiasm of netizens, he had to show his skill of eating more than 6 cherries in one bite without spitting out the pits in front of the screen, which attracted laughter from the barrage.

The man called "197" is the Monkey King of the group. He is tall and good at rapping, saying "2.7 meters is my dream". Although Yi Yang gives people the impression of being shy and not good at socializing, his friends are all the happy pills of netizens.

Yi Yang seriously introduced the song that 197 was going to sing for everyone in front of the screen - "Eternal Love". Netizens thought it was the theme song of a TV series, but when 197 opened his mouth, it turned out to be a rap version. Before he finished singing, everyone in front of and behind the screen had already burst into laughter.

Junior Brother Sha is Yi Yang's younger brother. Compared with the first two friends, the younger brother has a weaker presence. He has neither an account nor more funny plots. Some netizens lamented, "Brother Yatou is too kind, he always wants to make his friends famous."

If someone buys duck products from the store and sends them online, Pang Ge will rush to reply; if someone smears Yi Yang online, 197 will post a Douyin video to help clarify the matter, and fans will also rush to his comment section to support him: "197 protect Wangzai." The funny brothers and their deep brotherhood have become the subject of word-of-mouth among netizens.

Yi Yang is also growing up visibly, which can be seen from his attitude towards haters. Yi Yang was once made to cry by haters, and later he showed his attitude towards haters over and over again.

He would say: "I don't care if people criticize me. I hope that those who criticize me or don't like me will just repost the pinned video (the public welfare video)."

He even came up with a theory about the relationship between anti-fans and the self. After Yi Yang became popular, accounts such as Duckhead Brother Bot and Duckhead Brother Quotes also appeared. In their live video clips, Yi Yang described anti-fans as stains on a white shirt, which is why he saw the anti-fan's comments at first sight. "I want to ignore it, but I just see him. Isn't it strange?"

He also used the analogy of guessing a walnut in the palm of the hand. If a person asked him to guess whether the walnut in the palm of his palm was whole or broken, if he said it was whole, then the person would crush it, and if he said it was broken, then he would see the whole thing again.

In the live broadcast room, Yi Yang is nervous, relaxed, and rational. He sings, does charity, preaches, and talks about the future, looking full of positive energy. Some people get happiness here, while others always think that this is a process of building a "personality".

As a product that has been watched on the Internet, Brother Yatou's simple and beautiful narrative took a sharp turn for the worse the moment he decided to sell the goods, making all the good things in the past seem like a prelude.

03 Alienation: No one can exit live streaming perfectly

When his 15 minutes of fame came to him, Iyan chose to board the Nuggets ship and sail downstream, even though he didn't know where the end of the voyage would be.

A month ago, Yi Yang would cry over the daily turnover of 6,000 yuan, but now he is more concerned about "how to take over the traffic". This is not the result of his active thinking, but the arrow is on the string and has to be shot.

On May 5, Yi Yang and two childhood friends registered two companies, Shandong Yiya Xiaoge Food and Tangyuan Culture Media Co., Ltd., one of which provides Internet live broadcast services and the other provides Internet food sales. At that time, Yi Yang, as the financial director, did not have any equity in the company.

On May 19, Tianyancha showed that the financial director was changed from Yi Yang to Mu Guang. The specific reason is currently unknown. Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) contacted the account of Zibo Duck Head Brother, but has not received a reply.

Judging from the timeline, he suddenly became popular on April 22 and established two companies on May 5. In just 14 days, Yi Yang had already aimed at the path of cashing in on the products he sold. His younger brother and good friends all opened Douyin accounts to take over the traffic and revenue brought by the symbol of "Duck Head Brother". As he said when he invited his friend 197 to participate in the live broadcast: "There is nothing you don't know how to do live streaming. Just sit down and you will be able to do it."

Since late May, Yi Yang's main job has become live streaming to sell products. According to data from Xinbang, Yi Yang's Douyin account "Zibo Duck Head Brother" has performed 11 live streaming shows, mainly selling brands such as Langsha, Hansu and Blue Piao.

Image source: Xinbang

On May 18, Yi Yang came to the headquarters of Langsha Group in Jinhua, Zhejiang, and started the first live broadcast of selling goods at 9 o'clock in the morning. Weng Rongjin, chairman of Langsha, attended the live broadcast room, and many staff members assisted in the live broadcast.

During the entire live broadcast, Yi Yang kept the mask "welded" to his face. Not only was he not familiar with the product, he also knew nothing about the language used in the live broadcast room. Netizens commented: "The chairman of Langsha was more relaxed than the duck head boy on the scene."

When he changed his clothes and demonstrated the products, he could only kick his legs awkwardly, his hands and feet were restrained and he was at a loss, making Yi Yang out of place in the live broadcast room.

There were also some clichés in this live broadcast. When promoting a black shirt that cost 79.9 yuan, the guy accidentally said the price was 49.9 yuan. At this time, the chairman of Langsha immediately refuted it, saying that it could not be sold at this price. The staff acted in coordination. After hearing "Mr. Weng is mighty" and "Mr. Weng is generous", the chairman of Langsha could only reluctantly reduce the price to 200 pieces.

After three live broadcasts, Brother Yatou sold 39 products, with total sales volume between 25,000 and 50,000, and total sales revenue between 1 million and 2.5 million.

Image source: Xinbang

On May 22, Yi Yang posted a short video on his Douyin account @梓博鸭头小哥, saying that he was leaving for Hangzhou to do what he thought was right. He clearly understood that the popularity and internet celebrity effect brought by Zibo would soon fade away, and the way ahead was to "grab traffic and improve life."

But below the comment area, there is an irrelevant comment with a high number of replies, "So, have you used Hansu before the live broadcast?" This may be the only thing that fans who bought Hansu with real money care about, but no one can answer this question.

Coming to an unfamiliar field, both personality and ability were questioned from all sides.

On the second day after arriving in Hangzhou, Yi Yang came to Hansu's live broadcast room, took off his mask, applied sunscreen, put on a facial mask, and sang a cappella. Although he was still unfamiliar with skin care products, he gradually regained his confidence in the live broadcast, changing his previous timid and socially anxious appearance.

Also in Hansu's live broadcast room, Yi Yang saw the comments of anti-fans again and couldn't help getting angry: "It's not that I speak too much, it's that you speak too little. If it's too little, I have to hide here and shiver." His slightly rebellious tone broke the defenses of more netizens. Everyone couldn't help but ask, "Isn't this also social phobia?" "The eyes have become shrewd."

This is a kind of growth. Douyin user Lulu said that he sang Zhao Lei's "Chengdu" three times during the live broadcast. The first time was on May 6, when his voice was trembling. The second time was on May 11. Although his voice was very small, he was more firm and brave than before. The third time was on May 24, in Hansu's live broadcast room, he took off his mask and sang to the camera openly.

After accompanying Wangzai for more than a month, Lulu has become his fan. She told Hedgehog Commune: "Wangzai has always been a good boy and insisted on working despite being sick." She has gained a lot of happiness in the live broadcast room of Brother Yatou, so she sincerely hopes that Wangzai can become happier and happier.

Inevitably, more people still like the guy who braises and sells duck heads. The guy who serves as the mascot in the live broadcast room is no longer the one they are familiar with. From the first live broadcast, Yi Yang’s Douyin account began to lose followers.

It was true that he used to be socially anxious, that he got up early and came home late to sell duck heads, and that he sold products he didn't understand in the live broadcast room. When the 15 minutes of fame came to him, Yiyang chose to board the gold-digging ship and sail downstream, even though he didn't know where the end of the voyage would be.

There used to be a red banner hanging at the door of Yi Yang's duck shop, which read: "Internet celebrity Quzhou duck head". But when he became an Internet celebrity, the fear of being watched and the desire for opportunities came at the same time. Those seemingly contradictory choices and words did not represent the collapse of his personality, but the hesitation of the individual when facing a complex system.

On the one hand, Yi Yang said, "I hope you don't care too much about me personally. In fact, the duck heads I make are also very delicious." At first, he did not want to become an Internet celebrity and just wanted to continue running his small duck head shop. On the other hand, he opened a company and started live streaming to sell goods within a month.

Examples of people becoming popular quickly and then quickly backfiring are not uncommon in the world of traffic. Some people accuse others of doing everything just to make money, while others argue that there is nothing wrong with making money.

If the end of the universe is live streaming sales, and the end of live streaming sales is a mess, and ordinary people cannot get away with it unscathed, but there is an opportunity to become famous in front of you, what choice will you make?

(Lulu is a pseudonym.)

Author: Chen Meixi Yiqing Yi Tong; Editor: Director

Source: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe), observation and research on the Internet content industry.