"Year-end year-end inventory series" 丨 Chinese Internet celebrities 20 years: from Pi Zi Cai to Furong sister, and then to Li Jiaqi

The history of Chinese Internet celebrities is an epic, and I want to write but dare not write. Whether it is out of the circle by talent, or out of the position with ugly Bo, it is an Internet celebrity in the era, and it can lead the way for several years.

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"If you pour out the waters of the whole Pacific Ocean, you will not extinguish the flame of my love for you." Is the water of the entire Pacific Ocean poured out? No way. So I don't love you. ”

In the summer of 1998, China's Yangtze River, NenJiang River and Songhua River were all demonized, and a huge flood that had not been encountered in a century occurred. In that summer of unity of purpose, a 29-year-old Taiwanese boy with an ordinary appearance wrote the above few sour and sentimental words, which spread across the country like a huge flood.

The flood of nature can be stopped, the flood of emotions cannot be resisted. It was at that time that the young people in the mainland felt that the heroine of Aunt Qiong Yao's pen was indeed a bit of a work, but the words of this big boy in Taiwan were just right. This trend quickly spread to TV dramas, what "Plum Blossom Three Alleys", "A Curtain of Dreams", "Ghost Husband" soon passed, the mainland youth idol drama grandmaster Zhao Baogang quickly carried the banner, remember the achievement of Ma Yili's semi-permanent short hair idol drama "Struggle"? Every line in it is this sour and flirtatious tone.

The big boy who set off a wave of Taiwanese small love song style text is called Cai Zhiheng, and everyone is more familiar with his pen name "Pi Zi Cai". He is a doctor of water conservancy engineering, and his words were like opening the floodgates and releasing water to sweep the country.

Pi Zi Cai became popular by relying on "First Intimate Contact", and imitations of "Second Intimate Contact" and "Third Intimate Contact" soon appeared on the market, fortunately, at that time, there was no popular "Nth" in the text world, otherwise...

At that time, the mainland had just become popular surfing on the Internet, and 9 of the 10 girls were probably called "light dancing", and the netizens at that time met and scams were completely incompatible, but the offline "blind box" of cultural people blushing and jumping... These passages are all from The First Intimate Encounter by Pi Zi Cai.

Pi Zi Cai also has a second bullet "Xie Parasitism". Even if you haven't seen it, you must remember this sentence "No matter where I am, I am only one distance away from you", these dozen words are rooted in the hearts of countless boys and girls. At that time, after reading this book "Xie Parasitism", almost all the pocket money was donated to the rental bookstore that was popular at that time, and later the books of Haiyan, Baby Annie, Han Han, and Guo Jingming all became the memories of youth in those years.

By the way, Baby Anne's name has long been changed to Gyeongsan. When I read her book, I only found that the heroines of all the stories were the same: wearing a cotton skirt, barefoot and sneakers, clean and melancholy. It wasn't until a long, long time later, after watching Zhou Dongyu's "July and Ansheng" after winning the Golden Horse Film, that I found that this movie came from Anne Baby's "Farewell to Vivian", when I peeked at the mesmerizing text in class, now I have no impression.

This is also destined to mean that the first generation of Internet celebrities represented by words has long been completely over.

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Cai Once confessed: "My popularity, the significance of the times is greater than the literary significance." In fact, the Internet celebrities of the last century, the ID on the BBS is just a symbol, and words and ideas are the weapons for these literary youth to gain the favor of fans.

The first generation of Internet celebrities is the most martial arts, not relying on appearance, not hype, they only rely on the fee to make money.

If the first generation of Internet celebrities is reserved and introverted, then the next second generation of Internet celebrities can simply kill the grandfather - they do not talk about rules, do not talk about talent, only uglier than anyone, click a few times, and beat the teacher to death.

There was only a two-year gap between the first generation of influencers and the second generation of influencers, and the iteration was as fast as the iPhone.

In 2000 AD, all the elements on the Internet were related to the millennium, and today's popular Xiaosheng Yi Qianxi's name was derived from this. At that time, at the end of all elementary school students' essays, in order to "sublimate the theme", it was written "as a new generation across the century".

That year, 19-year-old Nicholas Tse tied a ponytail and led Dong Jie, a vegetarian, to sing a song "Together in This Life" on the spring evening; Microsoft released a new operating system Windows 2000; China Mobile was officially established that year; Tencent changed OICQ to a new name: QQ; Jay Chou released his debut album "JAY"...

Worthy of the millennium, a whole new era, it's coming.

28-year-old Xiao Luo began to drift north, he did barbecue, poured medicinal herbs, made futures, sold accessories, wrote articles, and even taught lessons to pyramid schemes, perhaps it was this last experience that laid the groundwork for him to join New Oriental.

Xiao Luo is a werewolf, a little more than a cruel person, rented a broken house on the outskirts of Beijing, not to mention, and also got 100 pounds of chicken soup books, forced himself to memorize English words, and spent more than half a year nibbling off all the teaching materials. After feeling that his cultivation was successful, he wrote a cover letter to Yu Minhong, and after two failed attempts, Yu Minhong gave him a third chance.

It was this third trial that made Xiao Luo become Lao Luo in the future. I don't know if looking back on the years of the North Drift at that time, Lao Luo would say a sentence "I knew a 'hammer' at that time."

When Lao Luo was lecturing hard at New Oriental, 8-year-old Zhang Zetian was still attending primary school in Nanjing, 13-year-old Ren Yueli was burdened by his family and wanted to live lightly, 16-year-old Luo Yufeng had just been admitted to Chongqing Qijiang Normal School, 17-year-old Pang Mingtao transferred from Ningqiang County Vocational and Technical Education Center to Xi'an Foreign Affairs College to study, and his composition also scored 98 points, and 24-year-old Shi Hengxia worked at the shaanxi provincial installation machinery factory.

The young him/she does not know that after a few years, they will gradually appear on the internet stage under the names of "Milk Tea Sister", "Xidan Girl", "Feng Sister", "Pang Mailang" and "Furong Sister".

In 2006, the author went to the university to report, at that time I listened to the brothers and sisters of the school said that there was an Internet celebrity in the school, and went to the Internet café outside the school to check that it turned out to be the "second brother of Shandong", the college physical education teacher who called himself "China's first sexy man", and openly showed love to Xu Jinglei on the whole network, causing a lot of waves. I imagined that the first physical education class I had enrolled in that year was to sneak to the school gym with my roommate to see the teacher, and I heard that in order to maintain his figure, he ate more than 10 raw eggs at a time.

By the way, this type of Internet celebrity, Tianjin also has, demon brother. Around 2010, the author had the privilege of seeing it at the Mai Shopping Mall on Riverside Road, and it was indeed "enchanting". Accidentally exposed the consumption level of the writers, mourning.

The author also has a high school classmate, the impression of her appearance is first-class, cheerful and cheerful, the grades are in the bottom, it seems that she did not participate in the college entrance examination, I heard that I went to Beijing, two or three years later became the principal of a vocational college, changed the place of birth, education, and various celebrities took photos, and with the "China's most beautiful female principal" title hit the whole network. The idea of whether reading is useful or not may have been deeply planted at that time. In fact, in the era of Internet celebrities, what the face looks like is more important, this point is good to understand.

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Although the second generation of Internet celebrities has no background, it is by no means brainless.

Between Shi Hengxia's examinations, she maintained the habit of visiting the Peking University Tsinghua Forum, and also posted a photo of herself dancing in the park, accompanied by a paragraph: "My charming and sexy appearance and ice jade clean temperament, so that wherever I go, I will be ruthlessly pulled out by the eyes of everyone." ”

This extraordinary confidence made her really "get out".

Because she wrote the poem "Clear water out of hibiscus, natural to carve" in the signature file, netizens called her "Furong sister". I remember that there was a lot of ridicule on the Internet at that time, and the pop singer Huang Rong also sang a song "Furong Brother-in-Law", "I am Furong brother-in-law, suffering every day and night, and my wife is like a pig..."

In the spring of 2005, the media went directly to Shi Hengxia's home and even blocked the toilet door for an interview. "Furong Sect" rose rapidly, netizens respected her as the "Sect Leader", and also used the sentences in Jin Yong's novel to adapt the slogan: Furong out, who fights with the front, thousands of years, unified the rivers and lakes.

Netizens compiled the "Furong Teaching" "Introduction Manual", and even set up a graduate course to examine her real life. More than 5,000 people on Mizuki Tsinghua BBS were waiting for her to release new photos at the same time, with more than 1.2 million posts, and the limelight even surpassed Jay Chou, who was in the sky at the time.

That was 2005, and Weibo wouldn't be available until 5 years later.

Later, Sister Furong stopped burning, and another Fengjie came. At this point, people found that Furong's sister, who aspired to enter the Tsinghua graduate school at least three times, was still a little inspirational.

At the earliest, Feng Jie sent a leaflet near Lujiazui in Shanghai to get married, hoping that the other party was a master of Tsinghua or Peking University, with a height of 1 meter 8. He also said that he "read a lot of books from the age of 9, reached the peak at the age of 20, and no one could match the IQ for 300 years after 300 years." He mainly studied economic books and humanities and social science books such as "Zhiyin" and "Story Club". Later, the 1 meter 8 master's degree in Qingbei was not good, and Feng Jie bluntly said that she wanted to marry Obama.

Out-of-line remarks and contrasting appearances have made netizens turn their attention to this 1.46-meter-tall, mediocre and even somewhat ugly secondary school graduate.

In those years, netizens called it an addiction, and the number of Internet celebrities who were out of place was innumerable, and they simply couldn't laugh at it.

Later, netizens could not laugh.

Netizens found that Furong's sister began to appear in network short dramas, launched personal singles, and even held concerts, and now at the age of 44, she has become the CEO of a cultural media company in Beijing, which is called an elegant intellectual; and Fengjie went to the United States not long after showing her love for Obama in a high profile, got the green card that countless scholars Kochi dreamed of, and also opened a column on Phoenix News, and the text is really not bad.

At this point, netizens suddenly realized that after understanding the tricks of ugly Bo, they found themselves harvested, and every knock and ridicule on the keyboard was adding bricks and tiles to this generation of Internet celebrities.

During that period, a man named Muzimi published his explicit sex diary "Love Letter" on his blog, and it caught fire. In contrast, another type of person is more bold: Zhuying Qingyi updates nude photos in real time on Tianya's personal blog, and the click rate soars to more than 130,000 times a month; after rogue Yan published nude photos in Tianya, the number of forum visits surged, which once led to the collapse of the forum server; Fan Bingbing, the ceiling of the entertainment industry, is also under the supervision of Mu Xiaoguang, an agent who is well versed in the way of speculation, relying on various true and false scandals, and finally got rid of the shadow of the golden lock and became the future "Wu Zetian".

Fortunately, the era of Internet celebrities who are concerned about ugly blogs has finally passed.

shop

If the first two generations of influencers are PC-side, then the third generation of influencers is mobile.

Although smartphones began to exist around 2007, the internet fee, that speed, really no one let you feel the colorful world of mobile terminals. Until 2010, Sina Weibo was launched, and in just a few months, there were more than 100 million registered users, and 25 million Microblogs were released in one day.

It is the rise of Weibo, the emergence of a group of opinion leaders, whether it is the future kol to Zhihu, WeChat public account or short video, Weibo will always be their first position to lay the country.

The emergence of a large number of content output platforms has made the third generation of Internet celebrities and self-media.

Overall, the third generation of Internet celebrities is diversified. The first is the self-media Internet celebrity, which has grown into a fashion self-media in the WeChat public account and conducted product marketing through content. One of the representatives is the "Whimsical World of Rebecca", which sold 1200 pairs of Bata co-branded women's shoes in 40 minutes and sold 100 Minis in 4 minutes... Such "influencers" are usually composed of a team, which is characterized by being good at capturing the psychology of consumers and guiding them to shop.

Another type of Internet celebrity is active in Taobao, and Zhang Dayi is the best. Before becoming an influencer, she worked as a model for 7 years. In 2014, after transforming from a Taobao model to a Taobao shop owner, the number of Weibo fans increased from 300,000 to 4 million in two years with personalized clothing. In 2015, her Taobao store earned 300 million yuan. In 2020, Zhang Dayi, who was born as an Internet celebrity, stirred up a pool of spring water in Alibaba, and his value was on an equal footing with Taobao President Jiang Fan.

In the same period, similar Internet celebrities also had Taobao shop owners such as Sydney.

Sydney's Sina Weibo has 7.49 million followers. She founded the internet celebrity economic company "Chenfan" and launched the infant brand. In 2018, "Double Eleven", less than 10 minutes after the opening, Chenfan's transaction volume exceeded 100 million yuan. The label on Sydney's body is no longer Wang Sicong's ex-girlfriend, and even if it is, it is "the one who can make the most money". Perhaps a few years later, Wang Sicong, who fell with his father, will still rely on the light of his predecessor Sydney.

According to data from Tencent Research Institute, as of 2016, 85% of Internet celebrities have realized the realization of personal brands through four main ways: advertising, e-commerce, contracting and entrepreneurship. Among them, the proportion of e-commerce models is the highest, accounting for 26%; in the Taobao women's clothing category, there are about 1,000 Internet celebrity shops with monthly sales of more than one million yuan; and the profitability of Internet celebrities is as high as 85%. In terms of monetization methods, 34% of influencers have Taobao stores, and 25% of influencers still rely on advertising. It is worth mentioning that 13% of Internet celebrities choose to sign up for companies, including Influencer incubation companies, brokerage companies, etc.

This shows that the third generation of Internet celebrities has been running for money from the very beginning, and the path is still very clear. The Internet celebrity incubation model began to sprout at that time, and the MCN behind the two Internet celebrities today came from there.

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In fact, people have found that from the third generation of Internet celebrities, the hype is not so smart.

The sensitivity of Chinese netizens, who have been trained by the second generation of Internet celebrities who are out of the ugly position, has spread to the level of old women and children. If you don't believe it, you can just take a crying and poor little video of selling goods on Douyin Kuaishou and ask your parents, and their first reaction is "they are just selling goods."

The beginning of this phase began in 2016, since Papi Sauce released the first short video. At that time, Douyin and Kuaishou had not yet been popularized, and Papi Sauce had to thank it for its keen sense of smell. Otherwise, in the era of short videos for the whole people, each country has its own talents, Papi sauce graduated from the Department of Chinese Opera Directing, the traffic may not be able to do the spicy Dezi who hangs the "old irons" on his lips and teaches cooking every day, may not be able to do the "hundred causes and results" Han Meijuan, may not be able to do the "hundred causes and results", may not be able to do the Li Xueqin who is highly skilled in knowledge...

Traffic Monetization! Monetize! Monetize! It is the subject of lifelong research of the fourth generation of Internet celebrities.

Nowadays, the Internet celebrities on Kuaishou and Douyin have changed a few stubbles, some people are telling the myth of ordinary salesmen who earn 3,000 yuan per month to super Internet celebrities who earn more than 10 million yuan a year, some people go to Cannes to rub the red carpet despite gossip, and some people open the "evaluation" mode. Internet celebrities who have evolved by the east wind of the Internet have experienced 20 years of taodi, and have always shown strong vitality and the ability to make money.

If there are still people who are surprised by the myth of the benefit of Sydney and Zhang Dayi who have earned more than 100 million yuan a year, it can only be said that there is too little knowledge.

While shouting "Oh my God", Li Jiaqi, who let you "buy it", and Wei Ya, who once debuted as a girl group, can now earn 700 million or 800 million yuan in one night, which is the 7 or 8 small targets of Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China. Simba, who has recently caused big trouble because of bird's nest, has not much less income than the first two.

A day of influencers, a year of factory. How much money do internet celebrities with live streaming goods make? Perhaps the answer can be found in Via's Tai Chi-style answer - when asked whether the monthly income reached 5 billion as the rumor said, Via hurried to "debunk the rumors" three times: it is not clear, the money is managed by the husband, there is really not so much.

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More than two decades of theory and practice have proven that to maintain a high level of adrenaline, Chinese netizens need Internet celebrities.

Space is limited, memories are limited, and the Chinese Internet celebrities of more than two decades are not just mentioned in the text. Xiao Yue Yue, Sharp Brother, February Yatou, Rising Sun Masculinity, Houshe Boy, Chopstick Brothers, Feng Timo, Nan Sheng, Zhang Xinyuan, Ximen Sister-in-law, Qiao Biluo, Evening Evening, Zhong Meimei, Ma Baoguo... Whatever role they have played in the development of the Internet in China, they all have their names in the epic of Chinese Internet celebrities.

The author of "The Pursuit of Excellence", Tom. Peters once said, "The rule of work survival in the 21st century is to build a personal brand." This sentence can be put around the world, especially those who want to be Internet celebrities. After all, IP is traffic, and traffic is money.

Any Internet celebrity who can set off a wave in a large country with a population of 1.4 billion people has something to offer. For example, if I and other netizens who do not have a unique skill, click more and comment more to help them make a lot of money.

New financial reporter Sun Yifei