"What type do you want, text or voice chat, and how long? Is there a voice requirement?" After entering a store that provides "virtual lovers" services, the customer service will guide consumers to choose the "virtual lovers" that are closest to their expectations.
For consumers with specific voice preferences, the store staff will send self-introduction voice notes in the audition group for selection.
"Ahhhhh! I was selected!" Xiaoming, who had just been in the industry for less than a week, said excitedly on April 21. This was the first time he was selected by an audition.
From consumers to service providers, Xiaoming admits that his values are changing. “It’s easy to make money by chatting with others.”
This is a world that sells voice and companionship services. You can place orders through e-commerce platforms, WeChat official accounts and other channels. You can customize your virtual boyfriend/girlfriend for tens of dollars, and talk about an hourly billing on WeChat or QQ. in love.
The paying party is happy to fill the social void, and the toll party can make a monthly income of 1,000 yuan without any effort. It seems that this is a "win-win" business.
However, the reporter found in the interview that due to the lack of supervision and the relatively private chat space, there are gray areas in the volatile "virtual lovers" industry.
Lovers from "virtual" to "booming"
The love between Yiyi and Yangyang originated from the service of "virtual lovers", and they have been in love for more than a year now.
But while getting along, Yiyi felt grievances and conflicts more than once because of her boyfriend's previous part-time experience.
“In the beginning, I only regarded Yiyi as a customer who purchased the service. After meeting, I developed a good impression.” Yang Yang said frankly. It is an example of them that realize the transition from “virtual lover” to “real love” like them. The motivation for most people to place an order is very simple. : Bored, curious.
Yiyi is 23 years old this year and is a graduate student in biomedical engineering at a university in Harbin.
During the 2020 epidemic, Yiyi, who was staying in his hometown in Guiyang, was flooded with long online classes every day. The lunch break was a rare happy time.
One day in May, she happened to see a video about a "virtual boyfriend" and was a little curious, "I was writing a paper at the time, and I was a little upset."
Yiyi chose a store with high sales and evaluation on an e-commerce platform to place an order.
In order to have a better sense of experience, Yiyi bought a higher-level "virtual boyfriend" with a half price of 50 yuan for the first order, and can talk to the other party for half an hour.
Soon after the order was placed, the customer service added Yiyi’s WeChat account and sent a trial video to Yiyi. In the video, there were more than a dozen little brother’s voice strips.
One of the neat self-introductions won Yiyi's favor.
A voice call rang.
"Hello, I am the virtual boyfriend you ordered. Please sign for it." A pleasant male voice passed into Yiyi's ears. Yiyi's heart paused. She imagined that the other party should be a sunny boy who likes sports.
In the chat, the other party dominates the topic in a familiar way.
Studying in the United States for a master's degree, born in 1997, often fitness, has his own entrepreneurial project... Yang Yang's self-introduction subverted Yiyi's perception of "virtual boyfriend"-not doing business, just idle.
Soon the call service ended, and Yiyi's depressed mood was relieved.
A few days later, she placed another order.
But not long after the call was connected, Yang Yang hung up because of something, and promised "You will wait for me, and I will call you tomorrow when I am fine."
The next day, Yiyi received a call from Yangyang on his own initiative.
This time, the two people chatted for more than 3 hours, which far exceeded the service time Yiyi purchased.
Yang Yang told Yiyi that he could find him at any time if there was something in his mind, even if he didn't place an order.
But Yiyi did not stop placing orders.
On May 20, 2020, Yiyi spent 520 yuan for Yangyang to help him maintain his level.
On another occasion, Yang Yang revealed in a chat that other shop assistants received high rewards, and he was a little jealous, so Yiyi gave Yang Yang another 1,314 yuan reward.
"I like him, and I am willing to spend money on him." Yiyi admitted frankly that although she had doubts, she felt that Yang Yang was very sincere and told her her personal number.
Yiyi was attracted by this way of chatting and experienced the feeling of being in love.
In real life, Yiyi is reticent and chats with classmates. She often sits in the corner and listens.
However, for Yang Yang, the first call with Yiyi didn't leave a deep impression on him, "I'm numb after receiving a lot of orders every day."
Good feelings are superimposed little by little.
Yang Yang remembers that Yiyi was very active at the time and often came to him to chat.
With more contact, he feels that this girl is very thoughtful, is also a schoolmaster, and has the same mindset with him.
Slowly, the two people formally establish a relationship.
"Fake lovers" meet their love needs
Why are young people keen to pay for "virtual lovers"?
Tan Tan, the chief emotion expert of Baihe Emotion Business School, said that many young people now think that love is unattainable, so they would rather spend money to buy a "fake lover" to meet their love needs.
Practitioner Yang Yang believes that it is because young people's consumption concepts are changing, "We feel that the cost of time is more important, and we are willing to spend money on dating services and enjoy a short experience."
In fact, chatting with people and playing games online is nothing new.
The special epidemic in 2020 has made this service prosperous.
A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily found that a keyword search for "virtual lover" on an e-commerce platform showed that "no relevant baby was found."
Replace with keywords such as "sleeping", "good night service", "love hall" and other keywords will appear in the shop.
Most "virtual lovers" stores will open around March 2021.
The reporter opened some "virtual lovers" product links and found that the monthly sales volume ranged from dozens to hundreds of times.
According to the price list provided by the customer service, the service is divided into two forms: text plus voice bar or continuous microphone call, and the cost is determined according to the length of the chat, the service item and the level of the person who is the person.
The duration of the chat is divided into half an hour, an hour, a day, a week and a month. The levels are divided into gold medal, town shop, male/goddess, chief, lucky star, and the price ranges from 20 yuan to 18,888 yuan.
On April 21, a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily placed an order for the "virtual boyfriend" service for 60 yuan and a half hour.
As soon as the voice call was put through, he asked Convenience, "Do you have anything on your mind today?" During the period, he imitated the tone of "Little Milk Dog" and "Dominant President" to pretend to be boyfriend, and from time to time he said some local love words, such as "I am your sweetheart", "The type of girl I like is like you" and so on.
During the chat, the reporter learned that this practitioner named Xiaoming was born in 1997. After working on this platform for less than a week, he received an order of about 3,000 yuan, but the shop had to take half of the order. money.
According to Xiaoming, this shop is considered to be relatively large, and the assessment is very strict. If the renewal volume does not reach 70%, it will be cleared.
Xiaoming reluctantly said: "Sometimes, in order to complete the assessment, I transfer money to the client and ask her to renew the order." When the chat lasted for 20 minutes, Xiaoming offered to say, "Hey, you go and continue. A single, I will tell you more inside stories."
After the order was renewed, the China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter started the topic on the grounds that they wanted to apply. Xiaoming said that only the screen name, self-introduction, photo and voice are needed. “For photos, you can find a network map.” He also said that this store has relatively high business requirements, and it is recommended to start with a small platform first, "I did it on the small platform for a month, and then turned it over."
According to the platform recommended by Xiaoming, the reporter discovered that there are some WeChat public accounts called "XX Tree Hole" that also have similar services.
On these platforms, you can intuitively see a lot of information: photos, voice bars, personal tags, prices, grades, whether they are online, whether voice calls, etc.
In addition to the above platforms, there are also a large number of "virtual lovers" advertisements on platforms where young people gather, such as Tieba, Zhihu, and Xiaohongshu.
The service content described in the advertisement caters to the needs of young people today, including small talk, virtual lovers, tree hole for worrying, sleeping with wheat, supervised learning, and game accompaniment.
"Virtual Lover" is just a game of "ideal personalization"
Unlike Xiaoming, who has just entered the industry, Yang Yang is considered a veteran figure in this industry. He has created a set of algorithms to assess the abilities of practitioners.
Now this algorithm is still widely used in most shops as a basis for classifying shop assistants.
Yang Yang was born in 1997. When he was in the third year of junior high school, he used a live interactive platform to place orders many times for accompaniment services, then went to various online social platforms, and then to the commonly used post bar, B Yang Yang has witnessed the evolution of this industry at the station and Taobao store, and he has also spent tens of thousands of yuan for it.
Yang Yang introduced that this industry was originally niche and obscure.
He said that last year, "virtual lovers" exploded on station B, behind which was driven by commercial forces, "I also participated in the production of some related videos at the time."
Due to the suspension of schooling due to the epidemic, Yang Yang, who had nothing to do with him, changed from a senior user to a practitioner.
“I’m not trying to make money, so I’m more Buddhist.” Yang Yang said, chatting with customers like friends and treating each other sincerely. “Sometimes when I’m happy, I’ll talk a little longer and don’t care about the length of service.”
On the contrary, because of this kind of Buddhism and sincerity, Yang Yang was extremely popular, and soon became the trump card in the store, earning at least 5,000 yuan a month.
Yangyang is sought after because the majority of consumers in this industry are young women, and the campus boys' personality displayed by Yangyang fits the expectations of many people for their boyfriends.
According to the reports of multiple stores, the reporter learned that female consumers account for about 70%, and men account for about 30%.
According to feedback from practitioners, what most consumers are obsessed with is not chat content, but human design.
Many practitioners stated in interviews that before chatting, "virtual lovers" need to establish personal settings, including appearance, identity, personality, etc. The task during the chat is not to ruin the personal settings.
Therefore, in order to quickly match the needs of customers, the customer service will directly ask "what type of boyfriend or girlfriend do you want" when placing an order.
In fact, the real service provided by "virtual lovers" is not accompany chat, but a "dual role-playing love game."
Consumers and practitioners of "virtual lovers" construct an "ideal persona" for each other to engage in love and make up for the shortcomings in real life.
For many people, this can only be an emotional game of changing taste.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Shi Jia Wang Shanshan Source: China Youth Daily