When eating to lose weight
No matter how big the stomach is, there are times when it can’t hold food. A well-known eating and drinking blogger once roasted a camel, two cows and 35 sheep on the hillside. Now, he deleted all the videos overnight and disappeared. Another "big stomach" internet celebrity changed the style of covering the entire table with all kinds of dishes in the previous video. In a recently released video, he took out a lobster to entertain many colleagues, and repeatedly asked "must eat clean". For a blogger with nearly 40 million fans, the short video on his homepage has changed from a few hundred to a few tens, and then reduced to single digits after a few days. Many more bloggers are busy deleting all the words "big stomach king" and "eat broadcast" in their account names.
In the field of food and broadcasting, the big appetites with the labels of "eatable" and "large amount" were once absolute stars. Someone has become an Internet celebrity with more than tens of millions of fans because they can eat a large bowl of oily fat. There are also young and beautiful slender girls who will eat 8 catties of rice, 35 catties of roasted whole lamb, more than 1,000 skewers or a whole pan of raw fried buns in front of the camera.
They use the so-called "big stomach" to pack more and more things-in addition to massive amounts of food, there are also platform traffic, company profits, business sales and fans' enthusiasm. But now, they are caught in the cusp of public opinion because of their "waste of food", and all kinds of "fake eating" and "vomiting" chaos in the industry have been picked up one after another.
Lin Tong (pseudonym), who is studying for a master's degree, became obsessed with watching Big Stomach King eating and broadcasting several years ago. She said that she always hopes that the anchor can eat more fragrantly and faster when watching the food broadcast.
"Perhaps it is the fans that gave birth to this'perverted' environment." Lin Tong said. In her opinion, the bloggers who want to get resources from fans are actually the same as the idol industry. Then let the private life to satisfy everyone.
Now, such "alliance" has also cracked. In a recently sent video of the Big Stomach King, the barrage that floated by was "The face is so bad", "Less than 20 years old, looks like 40", "Wasting food". Past videos of the disappeared top-stream bloggers were also "captured" by new comments, most of which were criticized or even cursed.
"Recently, work has basically gone. Public opinion crits and big bloggers hide themselves for healing." Some practitioners revealed to reporters. The "big stomach kings" have reached the moment when they must lose weight.
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As the earliest domestic blogger known for his "big stomach", Mi Zijun's single video has often reached several million views.
Five years ago, when this girl first started sending out eating and broadcasting videos, the picture quality was blurry, Mandarin was not standard, and her kitchen was often in the background. In the video, she will wear home clothes, fry some steamed buns, and then cook a bowl of noodles and eat them together.
Mi Zijun once told the media that his cooking and broadcasting was influenced by foreign countries. In 2009, Japanese girl Kinoshita became a popular idol with her extraordinary appetite and cute appearance in the local big appetite competition. The annual income was as high as 120 million yen (about 7 million yuan); in 2014, South Korea began to broadcast live. "Eating Broadcasting" for eating, a batch of full-time big appetites such as "Benz Brothers" emerged.
"At that time, foreign related industries have matured, but the domestic industry is still blank." Yang Yang (pseudonym), founder of King Kong Culture, a new media company that focuses on food content, told China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter. She founded this company in 2016. At that time, she had a foreboding that the food industry would become a popular destination. At that time, many of the media's advertising "standard kings" were all fast-moving consumer goods such as food. In the Internet age where common topics are needed, "eating", a field suitable for all ages, can reach more people.
In the year the company was founded, it held a talent show in the competition mode and signed a girl with a huge appetite and a beautiful face. A few years later, the girl who had just graduated from college became the top-ranked eat-broadcast mini (stage name) on the entire network.
Regarding the rise of eating and broadcasting, in Yang Yang's view, it is because modern life is fast-paced, and people who have rare leisure time want to watch some content that does not require brainstorming and relaxing stress. Food eating and broadcasting satisfies this point. In Lin Tong's view, she and other friends like to watch the anchor eat those colorful, high-oil and high-sugar foods, because many young people try to follow a healthy lifestyle and naturally pass on the desire to eat to others; Seoul, South Korea The university issued a report stating that in South Korea, where one-third of families live alone, eating and broadcasting will inevitably rise in order to relieve loneliness. This is an "inevitable trend in an atomized society."
The industry has indeed developed rapidly. Some food broadcasts can be directly rewarded by fans during the live broadcast; the other part, after accumulating popularity, relies on various advertising videos such as publishing promotion, store exploration, and evaluation to obtain revenue. Many accounts claiming to “eat more without getting fat” also took the opportunity to sell weight-loss products to fans.
A former food and broadcast practitioner revealed to the media that Kuaishou, a blogger with 3 million fans, will offer a complete shop promotion offer of about 80,000 yuan. It is not difficult to earn one million yuan a year; on Douyin, there are nearly 40 million fans. Big stomach net celebrity "Langweixian" has a maximum of more than 600,000 yuan for one advertisement on the promotion platform.
"From 2018, the entire industry has obviously started to become popular." Yang Yang recalled that before 2018, she had brought mini content to video sites to promote it. The other party was absent-minded and not interested. In the past two years, the platform has begun to set aside recommendations for food and broadcast content, take the initiative to reserve programs, and finally compete for exclusive rights. Correspondingly, the enthusiasm of businessmen seeking cooperation has increased.
According to the "2019 Kuaishou Live Broadcast Ecological Report", food live broadcast is the field with the most likes per capita. The "2020 Douyin Live Data Atlas" released in April this year also showed that the number of sharing of food live broadcasts on the platform increased by 283% month-on-month.
In 2016, Zhou Xiaonan (stage name), who was just in her freshman year, came into contact with the video of the big stomach king. Since she was very appetite, she quickly liked the content and thought that she could imitate it. The difference is that when she was still a student at the time, she mostly bought cheap food such as fried dough sticks, flatbreads, and buns for live broadcast. The six-person dormitory she was in had only a long writing desk, and sometimes there was no space, so she had to start shooting in the store.
The number of videos played quickly exceeded 10,000, and the number of fans continued to rise. Someone left a message to Zhou Xiaonan, saying that she had a great appetite for watching and she was very ready to eat, which gave her a sense of accomplishment. Upon graduation in 2019, the account had more than 100,000 followers.
It was also at this time that a Zhou Xiaonan's long-term concern for food and broadcasting invited her to become a full-time blogger. Zhou Xiaonan consciously "successfully chases stars" and can eat a lot of delicious food, and quickly agreed to the invitation.
Zhou Xiaonan remembers that after joining the company, the boss encouraged her, the top-notch big stomach king can earn one million yuan a month.
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The year when Zhou Xiaonan became a full-time food and broadcaster, the big appetite king was also at the peak of the industry. A blogger recalled to the media that at first he was an ordinary food blogger, but he was too slow to accumulate fans. After switching to the big appetite mode, he gained thousands of fans in one day, and the amount of rewards was dozens of times the usual.
In the view of Li Xian (a pseudonym), a veteran fan who has been paying attention to food and broadcasting years ago, the entire circle in 2019 has grown unprecedentedly. The playback volume of many videos has grown rapidly from one to 20,000 to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.
"From 2018 to 2019, all platforms are vying for traffic. After all, they are robbing people and content creators." Yang Yang said that even in 2020, there are still many new companies established in the food and broadcasting circle. Many investors do not have industry accumulation and feel that they can get rich here.
This part of the participants did not understand content production, and tried to make quick money, which gave birth to a "short, flat and fast" operation method. Even content planning and plot design are no longer needed, and they rely purely on exaggerated eating and food to gain attention. The anchor will even give out gifts of tens of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars between binge drinking and chewing in the live broadcast rooms, or collude with each other in several live broadcast rooms to induce each other's fans to brush traffic for each other.
Li Xian told the China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that many behaviors such as swallowing fat, taking a tricycle back to instant noodles, and even soaking feet while rinsing in a big hot pot, all occurred around 2019. There was also a female anchor who tried to swallow a live octopus, but was sucked into her cheek by her tentacles, tearing her face apart when she struggled. In June of this year, the 30-year-old eating blogger, Mr. Wang, was in a coma before the live broadcast and died of cerebral hemorrhage. Overeating caused a weight increase of 80 kg within six months is the key to the disease.
The whole eating and broadcasting circle, especially the big stomach king, received more and more bad reviews. Almost all the top bloggers on major platforms have been suspected by fans for "faking" and "inducing vomiting." Many fans and even practitioners have gradually realized that if pure eating and broadcasting is to show food and record life, then "big stomach king" is a deliberately prominent label, a gimmick, and an extreme in the circle.
In a Japanese variety show, the big stomach king Kinoshita once showed her abdomen CT. Unlike ordinary people, her stomach can expand 66 times after eating because of the thick and elastic stomach wall, almost occupying half of the abdominal cavity. . However, the controversy over whether people can eat so much without getting fat has never stopped at home and abroad.
Those who eat and broadcast constantly renovate and produce new tricks to prop up their growing appetite. The most common method is to use an ultra-wide-angle lens and place the food in front of the lens to make it appear as large as possible.
Some videos will use editing techniques. A blogger at station B accidentally uploaded an unprocessed video. Fans found that the blogger’s food was directed by someone, controlling him to drink soup, eat steamed buns, dip in red oil, and even when to put it in his mouth. The food spit out. A diner who ate at the same store as a big stomach internet celebrity used his mobile phone to record that although the young girl ate 30 plates of noodles while performing to the camera, in fact most of the food was spit out into the trash can under the table after only a little chewing. in. There are also food and broadcasting practitioners who previously told the media that there are several video editing companies that specialize in editing for the big stomach king, and have formed a very mature pipeline.
For some bloggers who need to broadcast live, vomiting has become the only way. An anchor revealed in an interview that a 40cm-long plastic tube would be inserted into the digestive tract during the live broadcast to empty the stomach; others would take special drugs to stimulate the gastric mucosa and cause vomiting.
"Most of the early'big stomach kings' can really eat." Zhou Xiaonan told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that when the industry is hot, many entrants who want to make money have no "talent" and can only rely on fraud.
The increase in the number of entrants and fierce competition have made many practitioners increasingly difficult. Zhou Xiaonan recalled that the account she ran full-time had more than 600,000 fans. It was not easy to receive a commercial promotion last year. Merchants would choose between many accounts.
The pressure brought about by the drastic changes in the industry chain is from top to bottom, and finally passed to the relatively low-level bloggers. Zhou Xiaonan’s company’s rules are: a basic salary of 3,000 yuan; for accounts with 500,000 fans, a 5% commission is deducted for each advertisement. This means that an advertisement with a price tag of 8,000 yuan will earn only 50-150 yuan in Zhou Xiaonan's hands. In one year, her income was less than 40,000 yuan. What is even more unacceptable is that the original "eat as much as you want" promise has become a non-promotional video before you can reimburse the cost of ingredients if you like 5000. Zhou Xiaonan once bought 100 marinated eggs for 250 yuan, and the boss told her dissatisfied that it was too expensive.
Zhou Xiaonan gradually discovered that eating and drinking a lot is not so happy. The company will arrange hot pot hot pot immediately after she has taken a video of swallowing dozens of ice creams, and promote it to hot pot restaurants; shop owners who buy probing advertisements often serve too much food out of enthusiasm. . In order to avoid dissatisfaction with the store, which would affect the reputation, she always put it all in her mouth.
The most painful recording of eating and broadcasting took place in March of this year. The company planned to ask her to cook 4 catties of cheese to eat, but something went wrong in the cooking process, and the cheese became a "chewing gum-like jelly." Because it is a non-promotional video, if it is not recorded successfully, the 200 yuan food cost will be borne by itself. She finally resisted and swallowed the things she had bought, and her abdomen was hard for the next three days.
Half a year after signing the contract with the company, Zhou Xiaonan began to suffer from frequent gastritis and diarrhea. The doctor told her after examination that irregular eating and irritating food had caused severe gastroenteritis. However, according to the agreement, Zhou Xiaonan still cannot refuse the heavy-duty advertisements, otherwise he will be responsible for the company's losses.
"When eating really becomes work, it's really not happy at all." She said, carrying on the performance appraisal of increasing fans every month, she started to lose sleep and hair loss.
"Through the early stage, you can make millions of dollars a year when you grow up to a large size" is a common comfort phrase in the industry. But Zhou Xiaonan gradually realized, “If you earn one million yuan a year, it may take dozens of hundreds of people to have such a lucky one.” As for being a replica of Mi Zijun and mini, it is nothing more than a beautiful dream.
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Zhou Xiaonan, whose body is deteriorating, gradually needs to take antidiarrheal drugs to complete the recording of the promotion video. Until April this year, she had just completed a year of work and was determined to terminate the contract with the company.
Transformation is not Zhou Xiaonan's choice alone. Mi Zijun started to experiment with new content directions as early as 2018, including city shopping, shop exploration, snack evaluation, etc.; Kuaishou, the top-tier female Internet celebrity who was once famous for its huge appetites, also transformed into a host with goods. , Recently also broadcast live with actor Zheng Shuang.
"'Big stomach' can't always be used as a label, people will always be aesthetically tired." Yang Yang concluded, "Eat 10 catties today, and 11 catties tomorrow, in order to satisfy the growing desire for curiosity." In Li Xian's opinion, he Clicking into the video with anticipation is to hope that the content is "good enough". "I don't feel that I have any malicious intent to judge ugliness and curiosity, but once the blogger eats less, I will inevitably be disappointed and will leave a message."
Economic pressure is another practical reason for the transition. Yang Yang told reporters that the industry situation this year has not been ideal. A practitioner in the catering industry introduced to the media that after inviting the big appetizer to promote it last year, the store's revenue increased by over one million yuan; this year the same bloggers were invited to no effect.
But Yang Yang also said frankly that for bloggers and companies, a comprehensive transformation will not happen overnight. The more intuitive pressure is that every time Yang Yanghe company tries to reduce the "big stomach" attribute, there will be a slight decline in traffic data.
This is the common dilemma of many "big stomach kings" who are trying to transform. Some bloggers complained to the media that after they stopped the binge-eating mode, the fans' rewards plummeted; Zhou Xiaonan’s doubts were that although the outside would scold “eating too much is a waste,” the old fans really reduced their food intake. Will ask, "Why have you eaten less recently?"
In 2018, the South Korean government tried to introduce the "National Obesity Management Comprehensive Measures" to guide fans and regulate eating and broadcasting. Now, the domestic big stomach kings have come to a similar crossroads. Many platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Douyu, etc. quickly stated that they would impose penalties on content and accounts that involve "waste of food". A few days later, many platforms directly blocked content searches for words such as "big stomach king" and "eat broadcast".
The ripples brought about by the upheaval in the industry are still spreading. The video sent by a female Internet celebrity with nearly one million fans on August 9 was full of gorgeous food: 7 greasy meat rolls, a large bowl of chili oil, 3 pieces of fried chicken covered with sauce and A bowl of cold noodles with bright red soup occupies most of the screen. Two weeks later, more than 800 videos of her disappeared.
Another blogger who is still insisting on sending videos has a big pot of chicken wings and 8 lamb brains with sauce on the table. It is not much different from the past, but there is an extra "Rejection" on the background wall behind him. A conspicuous poster of "Waste"; a blogger seriously explained to reporters in a private message: I only eat two catties of food for a meal, which is not a "big stomach king", and the food left over during filming will be shared with his family. There are also young female Internet celebrities who are still sending videos of "Eating Boiled Self-service Skewers", piled up bamboo sticks into hills in the store, but deleted the company's contact information from the homepage.
"Most of the bloggers on the head seem to be very nervous, changing their names and deleting videos; there are also many Chinese snack broadcasts that seem to have not been affected too much." Lin Tong said, several small bloggers he loves are still posting as usual Video, she will still watch them eat.
"How to count as waste? Eat 20, 10 or 5, or as long as you can eat it all?" Li Xian recently thought that if there is no standard to measure "waste", "inducing vomiting", "fake eating" and other behaviors are repeated. It is difficult to be confirmed, and perhaps this change will not be complete.
What she worries in the end is that, like many industries in the past few years, the food and broadcasting industry will eventually become a mess after a niche, explosion, and collapse.
Before that, Zhou Xiaonan had already decided to bid farewell to the "big stomach" of barbaric growth. After she resigned from the company, she returned to her hometown. After several months of recuperation, her weight rose back to 6 kilograms, but she still did not dare to touch cold or spicy food. She changed the platform and started her personal eating and broadcasting again-just like when she was in college, even the food used for live broadcasting has changed back to the simplest staple foods of rice, steamed buns, and sesame seeds.
There are not many fans for the new account, but the atmosphere is good, and the income from rewards and online shops is enough to support life. She no longer wants to be a top blogger with an annual income of one million yuan, nor does she need to force herself to stuff too much food. "What I eat now is what I like." She is very happy about her new life.
China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter Cheng Mengchao Source: China Youth Daily