30 years of Internet idolization: a history of the demise of Internet celebrities

On the Internet, there is never a shortage of new people in the field of Internet celebrities. Internet celebrities will always become outdated, and how to maintain their popularity in their own field is a compulsory course for every Internet celebrity. The 30-year picture of China's Internet is also a history of the demise of Internet celebrities. This article summarizes the development history of Internet celebrities. Let's take a look at the changes over the years.

The clock moves into 2023.

In order to bid farewell to the past 2022, Luo Zhenyu and Wu Xiaobo are busy with their final shows, Li Ziqi, who has disappeared for 500 days, is busy making a comeback, the queen of e-commerce Zhang Dayi has long disappeared, and the once popular Papi Jiang has long since withdrawn from the Internet celebrity arena, replaced by the active figures of a new generation of Internet celebrities such as Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, and Xiao Yangge.

The flowers in the forest have faded too quickly as spring has sprung up. Generation after generation of internet celebrities are like shooting stars streaking a bright light in the sky. You finish your song and I take the stage. They long to hang in the sky longer. They have learned to reconcile with anxiety and say afterwards that "internet celebrities will always become out of date." The wind comes and goes, and someone needs to pick up the fruits and the debris.

From PC to mobile Internet, from text to pictures to videos, on one hand, Internet business elites are conquering cities and territories, and on the other hand, 1.3 billion citizens are becoming Internet users. In the meantime, accompanied by the deification movement of the Internet and capital, Internet celebrities of all sizes are like crucian carp crossing the river, some become popular overnight, and some become unpopular in a day.

The picture scroll of China’s Internet over the past 30 years is also a history of the demise of Internet celebrities.

01 Elites set the stage, and Internet celebrities take the stage

In 1994, China gained full access to the Internet through a 64K international dedicated line, marking the starting point of China's Internet and the official opening of the curtain.

Every year since then, there have been Internet companies that would later become influential. In June 1996, Sina.com's predecessor, Sitonglifang.com, was launched. In August of the same year, Sohu was founded. A year later, NetEase was established, and the three major portals were gathered together. In 1999, a series of community websites that would later give birth to Internet buzzwords and celebrities, such as Tianya, Hupu, and Tsinghua BBS, all appeared on the scene, ready to go.

Painting on a blank piece of paper, the trend of the times is rising.

The elites set up the stage, and "Internet celebrities" appeared one after another. However, due to the technical conditions of the portal websites, in the first few years, the Internet first gave birth to a group of "text Internet celebrities". At that time, there was not even the concept of "Internet celebrity". They were more called "Internet writers".

In 1997, after the Chinese men's national football team was defeated in the top ten matches, Lao Rong (Wang Juntao), a veteran Internet fan, published an essay titled "Dalian Jinzhou Doesn't Believe in Tears" on the Sitonglifang Sports Salon (now Sina Sports Salon). It immediately attracted thousands of replies, received tens of thousands of hits within 48 hours, and was reposted crazily by other websites.

▲Photo: The original manuscript of "Dalian Jinzhou Does Not Believe in Tears"

It was also in this year that "Under the Banyan Tree" was established, and has since become an important engine for producing "online literary stars". In the serious literary circle, Yu Hua won the highest Italian literary award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, for his novel "To Live". In the traditional media, Southern Weekend just published a year-end speech that "there is always a force that makes us cry".

In the online world, it is another group of people who call the shots. Pizi Cai, who was under pressure to graduate from a doctorate, began to write "First Intimate Contact" on the Internet. It is a love story between an ordinary-looking science and engineering man and a beautiful woman. At that time, it sold 500,000 copies in Taiwan, China, which had a population of only 20 million. It was recognized as the "first work of online novels" and the first best-selling novel in the history of the Chinese Internet. It was remade into a TV series in 2004. After that, Annie Baby gathered her first batch of loyal readers. Ning Caishen, who later served as the screenwriter of "Wulin Wai Zhuan", also made his mark here.

Since then, the ranks of online writers have been joined by a vast army, and the once popular "online writers" have also turned to home fields amid declining sales, either continuing their engineering careers or trying to get closer to traditional writers. Community websites are heading into their last decade, and at this point, they seem to be accumulating strength to start the "first year of online celebrities."

In 2005, the number of Chinese Internet users exceeded 100 million. The first generation of Internet celebrities emerged one after another, and the first wave of the real national Internet entertainment carnival was set off.

02 The first generation of Internet celebrities, grassroots heroes

People began to truly understand the term "Internet celebrity" from Sister Furong.

Although it was in 2004, when she became an instant hit on the Tsinghua BBS with her "S" shape and shocking quotes, it still caused huge controversy.

Sister Furong's real name is Shi Hengxia. She was born in Shijia Village, Wugong County, Shaanxi Province. She was admitted to Shaanxi Institute of Technology in 1996 to study mechanical design. What her classmates saw as a "quiet place to study" was "not up to standard" in Shi Hengxia's eyes. When the seven people in the dormitory introduced themselves when they first entered school, everyone introduced which village they were from, but Shi Hengxia unexpectedly introduced herself as being from the "county town."

After finishing her freshman year, Shi Hengxia took a year off and re-took the college entrance examination in order to be admitted to Tsinghua University or Peking University. In her junior year, Shi Hengxia went to Peking University alone during the holidays with the determination to "sleep in the aisle and on the floor", but this situation only lasted for a few months before it died down. In Shi Hengxia's autobiography, she started her postgraduate study career after graduating from college, and her target was either Peking University or Tsinghua University, but she failed in both cases.

She just longs for that temple. She is a person who has desires and wants to realize them.

In 2005, her desire was met in a twisted way—she became famous, famous all over the country, and at the forefront of a commercial era that wanted to wear "black and red are also red." In the end, moral judgment lost to commercial value. In the pursuit of one media after another and one commercial performance after another that made a lot of money, Shi Hengxia became Sister Furong, a walking money-printing machine, a soap bubble that only busybodies would be so ignorant as to pop.

With her unconcealable ambition, Sister Furong achieved the first miracle of a grassroots counterattack on the Internet.

In the Internet age, attention has become a scarce resource in the era of individual communication. This also explains why Internet celebrities always age prematurely, but when it comes to being out of fashion, Sister Furong can be said to have been out of fashion the longest. From becoming popular in 2005, to releasing singles, albums, and acting in movies, Sister Furong's voice has become smaller and smaller, and she has been forgotten without knowing it. Even 13 years later in 2018, she repeated her old tricks, but she could no longer make any waves in the Internet world.

However, Sister Furong is just an extreme example among the first generation of Internet celebrities. The blessing of content can often make Internet celebrities popular for a longer time. In 2006, Yi Xiaoxing, the beast, became popular on Mop.com and Tudou.com with his game commentary. In 2009, he was named "Internet Celebrity of the Year". Compared with Sister Furong, his popularity lasted much longer. Behind this is a kind of continuous content creation. In 2013, Yi Xiaoxing, the beast, became popular again with the online short drama "Never Expected", becoming the leader of the hot online drama, which greatly extended the "lifespan of Internet celebrities".

Back She Boys, Milk Tea Sister, Sharp Brother, Xiaopang... The first generation of Internet celebrities were either actively or passively involved in the eyes of netizens, and became the eye of the Internet storm again and again. In that era when commercial realization was not so close, grassroots heroes opened up new territories and built an Internet carnival that only belonged to the PC era with their "innocence" of "knowing the facts but not the reasons".

The wheel of time rolls forward, and the era of pictures and texts, of grassroots and of PCs is slowly fading away. In the new decade, Chinese netizens will usher in their new "electronic pickles" that are more sober, more powerful and have a faster metabolism.

03 Opinion leaders stir up the storm

On January 7, 2009, China entered the 3G era and China's mobile Internet reached new heights. It was also in this year that Taobao Mall launched the first year of "Double Eleven" and the popular business model of live streaming with goods was born in the future.

Also in 2009, Weibo was launched. Two years later, WeChat was launched. In 2012, WeChat developed the WeChat Official Account function, and became the largest content production and distribution platform in the country. Countless entrepreneurs who are passionate about content creation have joined the trend.

Mi Meng and Luo Zhenyu are the best among them. They are more familiar with the rules of the Internet game than ever before. If the first generation of Internet celebrities were discovered by the rules of the Internet, then Mi Meng and others use the rules of the Internet to make themselves seen.

There is no doubt that Mimi Meng is an internet celebrity who was born and raised in the WeChat public account ecosystem.

Mi Meng, whose real name is Ma Ling, is a graduate student of the Chinese Department of Shandong University. After graduation, Mi Meng went south alone and worked at Southern Metropolis Daily for 12 years. With her excellent writing skills, she became the chief editor. In 2010, Mi Meng became well-known for her article "The Painful Jin Shengtan" which was published in the first issue of Han Han's magazine "The Chorus". At that time, Mi Meng had not yet lost the basic quality of objectivity and fairness of a media person.

In 2015, Mimi Meng’s WeChat public account was launched. In just one year, it attracted countless fans with articles such as "To the bitch: Why should I help you" and "To the loser: It’s not that I’m too high-profile, it’s that you have a fragile heart", with advertising quotes of hundreds of thousands, becoming one of the top ten influential accounts on the Micro Index list, and then it followed suit to produce more similar articles.

Starting in 2015, becoming popular in 2017, and then being blocked in 2019, the "elite" Mi Meng has gone through 4 years. Before being blocked, there were constant voices of condemnation online, but the tens of millions of fans could not hide her emotional outlet and "opinion leader" connotation.

If we say that Mimi Meng and others are, in a sense, more of an outlet for netizens' emotions, then Luo Zhenyu and others, like the public intellectuals on Weibo, have truly been "opinion leaders" for a while.

Similar to Mi Meng, Luo Zhenyu has a remarkable academic background and professional background. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a doctorate from Communication University of China, and a career at CCTV. These are all halos that cannot be ignored. In 2012, he seized the opportunity and the "Luoji Siwei" video quickly became the most popular self-media program after it was launched. With this as a starting point, Luo Zhenyu began his journey as a businessman. From the initial 60-second WeChat voice, "Luoji Siwei", to the annual New Year's Eve speech and the Dedao APP, he has completely turned knowledge into a business.

In 2016, he once again entered the public eye with a phenomenal marketing campaign. This time, it was his collaboration with Papi Jiang.

Papi Jiang graduated from the Central Academy of Drama. Contrary to what the public imagines, it is hard to say that Papi Jiang has no ambitions. As early as 2012, she posted jokes and funny GIFs on her Weibo account. Later, she posted fashion posts on Tianya and Meipai, but none of them made a splash. However, through trying multiple platforms and styles, Papi Jiang has accumulated enough perception of the Internet.

It was not until 2015 that Papi Jiang grasped the anchor points of "content is king" and "entertainment to death". A woman who combines beauty and talent gradually gained attention with her pure image and the contrast between ugly and funny appearances. This year, Papi Jiang released short videos such as "The First Edition of the Survival Rules for Men", "Shanghainese + English" series, and "Speaking Northeastern Dialect with Taiwanese Accent", and quickly became popular on Weibo.

Less than half a year after becoming famous, on February 24, 2016, Papi Jiang signed with the management team of the famous artist Angela Baby, providing a good interaction between her and investors. On March 19, "Papi Jiang" successfully obtained a joint investment of 12 million yuan from companies such as Luoji Siwei, Zhen Fund, Guangyuan Capital and Xingtu Capital. A month later, Lirenlizhuang bought a patch advertisement of "Papi Jiang" for 22 million yuan.

However, after becoming popular, Papi Jiang first failed to cultivate new talents, and then her videos fell into self-repetition. On Mother's Day in May 2020, Papi Jiang, who was pregnant and gave birth to a child, was cyber-bullied because of a Weibo post expressing the difficulty of being a mother. After the uproar over the "surname right", she began to become cautious.

To this day, when people mention Papi Jiang, they always ask, "Where is Papi Jiang?"

It can be seen that capital deification is not omnipotent.

04 The old ones are still here, but the new ones are here

The old internet celebrities have not yet grown old, but the new ones have already arrived.

Mobile Internet has entered the era of video 2.0. In March 2011, the short video community Kuaishou was born. At that time, it was still called "GIF Kuaishou", which mainly focused on sharing and making GIFs. It was not until November 2014 that "GIF" was officially removed and the name was changed to "Kuaishou", focusing on short video operations. On December 4, 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 4G licenses to operators, marking the official entry of China's mobile communications into the 4G era. In 2015, video and live broadcast mobile platforms emerged as a new media favorite after blogs, Weibo, and WeChat.

This year, the number of Kuaishou users reached 300 million. With the market penetration brought by video formats such as Douyin and Kuaishou, the Internet public opinion field of self-identity from "elite" to "ordinary people" is also changing.

In this Internet boom, “ordinary” netizens are enjoying the separation and discomfort of fame.

This discomfort is reflected in all aspects. The style of the rap king Tianyou is quite "essential" of the lower class society, and he has won tens of millions of fans with the help of the live broadcast platform. Although both are short video platforms, there is also "contempt" in terms of "level". According to rumors, Douyin seems to have higher "quality" than the users on Kuaishou. Netizens who have once become entertainment masses now have to accept a Kuaishou universe dominated by Simba, Sanda Ge, and Erlu, and have to be dumbfounded by their tens of millions of fans.

However, technology is changing with each passing day, and internet celebrities are keeping up with the times, but what remains unchanged is the short-lived popularity cycle of internet celebrities.

In 2018, Wen Wan first became popular on the Internet with a garage dance of "Gucci Gucci Prada Prada". It was also at that time that Wen Wan was promoted to the entire Internet community by the platform. The extremely low difficulty of replicating made many people participate in imitating the popular video. In the end, Douyin and Wen Wan were promoted at the same time and appeared in the public eye.

However, under tremendous public pressure, Wen Wan was banned less than a week after she became popular.

But the platforms will not stop there, and their "deification" movement will not end.

The online celebrities "Duoyu and Maomaojie" signed by Wuyou Media were launched. In 2018, Duoyu and Maomaojie became famous overnight after their video "The difference between rural people and urban people in disco" went viral, and quickly gained more than 30 million fans. However, Duoyu and Maomaojie have not been able to get rid of the nightmare of "losing fans" since then. In June this year, the account lost 4 million fans, falling below the 30 million mark.

From Maomao Sister to the newly popular Douyin Zhang, and then to Luo Yonghao and Liu Genghong, in the new media era, "traffic" is the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of these new-age Internet celebrities. Even with the support of capital, they still cannot escape the fate of being replaced.

05 Extinction is inevitable, where is the cycle?

At the end of 2022, the former top internet celebrities were making frequent moves, first Li Jiaqi and then Liziqi.

To some extent, both of them have achieved the cyclical development of internet celebrities.

At the end of 2016, Li Jiaqi signed a contract with Mei ONE and came to Shanghai with 2,000 yuan to join Taobao Live. On the second day of "Double Eleven", he competed with Jack Ma in selling lipsticks and won the competition.

Li Jiaqi and others have broken through the circle because they have firmly stepped on the trend of e-commerce live streaming. However, while Li Jiaqi has been thriving on the trend of e-commerce live streaming, the era of Zhang Dayi, the Internet celebrity "sales queen", has quietly faded.

In 2015, when online influencers were still a barren land, Zhang Dayi, an online influencer with 300,000 fans, rose rapidly and created a miracle of selling out new products in 2 seconds and achieving sales of nearly 20 million in 2 hours.

After years of development, Zhang Dayi has successfully transformed from a Taobao model to a rising star in the Taobao system, becoming the first generation of Taobao influencers in China at the same time as Sydney. In April 2019, Ruhan rang the bell on the Nasdaq, and the "first stock in the Internet celebrity economy" was born. However, after the glorious listing, in 2020, Zhang Dayi and Alibaba's prince Jiang Fan were rumored to have an affair, which caused Zhang Dayi, who has always been an independent woman, to collapse her image and was caught in a public opinion storm. On April 22, 2021, Ruhan Holdings officially delisted from the Nasdaq. After only two years of listing, the market value has shrunk by more than 70%. Zhang Dayi has since withdrawn from the first-line influencer camp.

In just a few years, the e-commerce world has changed its appearance.

Compared with online influencers who are extremely close to commercialization, Li Ziqi, a blogger with a rural style, has taken a completely different path from them. In the eyes of the public, she lives a peaceful life and does not fight with the world. After her boss Wei Nian disappeared for 582 days due to a lawsuit, at the end of 2022, the two parties settled the lawsuit and news of Li Ziqi's return came. However, according to Baidu Index, netizens' attention is far less than expected.

After all, in the more than one year since Li Ziqi faded out of people's sight, "pastoral" bloggers have already emerged in an endless stream, and netizens' freshness has been over-consumed compared to a year ago. At the same time, from the fitness area led by Liu Genghong, to the "knowledge live broadcast" fermented by Oriental Selection, to the crazy Xiao Yangge's popularity soaring in the second half of the year, with more than 100 million fans, in just one year, the world of Internet celebrities has been turned upside down.

At the same time, with the development of e-commerce live streaming, celebrities are becoming more and more comfortable appearing on the show, and the boundaries between celebrities and internet celebrities are gradually blurring.

The Internet calls for its gold diggers, and capital promotes and promises their dreams of becoming famous. Behind this is the temptation of fame and fortune and social advancement. Andy Warhol once said, "Everyone can become famous in 15 minutes." But what happens after 15 minutes? 15 minutes later, after two failed agents, Pang Mailang, a generation of Internet celebrity, was sent to a mental hospital due to severe schizophrenia.

So, should you become famous as early as possible? No, maybe the buzzwords can be changed, and you can become famous later. For the Internet and capital, it is better to cash out as early as possible.

How can the extinction of an individual be worth mentioning in front of the gold diggers? Not to mention the cycle.

Author: Xiong Yiren; Editor: Hu Zhanjia

Source: ZhongMian (ID: ZhongMian_ZM)