Youth Economic Theory
Unveiling the "star-making" industry chain
Fans have become cut "leeks"
Raising funds to send idols to debut is just the first step in "chasing stars". What follows is to plan for the idol’s "career", "arrange" performance opportunities, "Miaoqie" new album, and "Miaoqie" business for idols. Endorsement products... "Star chasing" not only requires true feelings, but also strength "Krypton Gold". What are fans pursuing in such a "star chasing" journey?
Good works and strong strength are the necessary conditions for an idol to be attractive.
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"My idol has become popular, my fans have become fat, my fans have lost weight", "Little fans are busy with data, and big fans have a sea view room", "Little fans give their true feelings, and big fans count money and count their hands softly"... At present, the "rice circle" is chaotic. Frequently, some fans have torn each other on the Internet, setting off rounds of "curse wars".
They have also become "leeks" that have been cut crop after crop.
The formation of "fan circle" is the result of multiple links in the "fan economy".
Among them, "fan economy" generally refers to business income-generating behavior based on the relationship between fans and followers. Followers are mostly celebrities, idols, and industry celebrities. Behind it involves "fans-brokerage companies-platforms-idols", etc. The entire chain of interests.
In response to this, on August 27, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Chaos in the "Rice Circle"", clearly requesting the cancellation of the idol artist list, strict control of idol brokerage companies, prohibition of mutual tearing of information, and no inducement. Fan consumption, etc., made heavy blows to rectify the chaos in the "rice circle".
"Cultivation" idol: debut depends on fans to make money
Star chasing is a time-consuming, labor-intensive and cost-consuming thing, and many fans are "generating power with love."
Over the past few years, the post-95 girl Zhang Mengmeng (pseudonym) and other fans have "bred up" their idol together.
From raising funds to make debut for idols, buying various tickets, various idol peripherals, and buying products endorsed by idols, there are fans in every link.
"Their debut is pure money." In 2019, Zhang Mengmeng "fan" became a male idol group that has not yet debuted.
Before the debut, the company where the group is located arranged a draft for the members, and the rank of each member (ranking in the group) is determined according to the popularity. The amount of votes the fans spend is the basis for determining the popularity.
Fan Wei decides the idol's position in the event, the order of speaking, the weight of the lyrics, etc. Zhang Mengmeng cannot accept that "the idol must always stand on the sidelines and speak last."
That was the craziest stage of her star chasing.
At that time, she was still intern, and the salary was immediately used for ranking.
She spent more than six to seven thousand yuan for this, part of which was directly called to the official website, and the other was called to the idol’s official support club. She called this part of the money a "dark account."
She explained that the "dark account" refers to directly calling the support club through a third-party payment method. The details are not disclosed, and it is completely supported by the trust of the fan circle.
These "dark accounts" are more like "funding". The official back-up will use the money for voting at a certain key node, which may directly affect the final result of the "fighting battle" and also provide "insurance to the idols". ".
In this "debut battle", fans spent about 7 million yuan on the list for the first-ranked members, about 5 million yuan for the second place, and about 3 million yuan for the third... Zhang Mengmeng spent more money, Two tickets were obtained, one of which was the ticket for the debut night of the group. She remembered that the ticket was placed very high, but she was unable to go during the internship.
Debuting idols is only the first step in "chasing stars", and then they began to worry about their "career".
In order to get the latest developments of idols, many fans will join idols' official fan clubs and pay a not-low-priced membership fee. This is also the second step for the agency to "harvest" fans.
Zhang Mengmeng paid 298 yuan to become a senior member of the fan club. She also saw some limited pictures because of this, but she did not experience the preferential ticket qualification and other benefits.
Because becoming a member is just a "stepping stone", "Krypton" (spending money) thousands of dollars for the idol can get the admission ticket for the ticket.
Since last year, the fan club has set up various voting lists.
For example, setting up a "most popular cooperation stage", fans spend money to vote, and the number one "CP" can perform a cooperation stage at a concert, which is also counted as a "welfare" for fans.
At first, the ranking was resisted by fans. Some fans said that the idols had made internal investment before they were out of the circle.
"Later, everyone seemed to be up." After the fans voted or the consumption data was released, it became the standard for judging the popularity of the members to a certain extent.
Fans began to compare "who overtakes in the corner, and who falls down again." So, they find various reasons for "data".
In Zhang Mengmeng's view, "It's really urging data and sales secretly."
Sometimes fans tear each other to a certain extent in order to sell peripherals, which is called "fan abuse" in the fan circle.
For example, some people claim that fans of top-ranked idols always tear down fans of lower-ranked idols. Fans started buying idols frantically. In a short period of time, sales began to rise.
In fact, there are more lists outside of fan clubs, and sometimes lists of multiple platforms may be linked by one program or platform to realize the "collusion" of multiple capitals.
For example, a social media vote will be proportionally converted into a certain number of votes as a part of the vote for a certain talent show; or fans can vote for an idol every time they buy a bottle of water, realizing the connection between idols and business resources.
At the same time, there are also many busy "data female workers" who are "running" on multiple platforms to like, repost, comment, and list, etc., just to make the idol's various data look better.
Fans "make orders" only for "second cut" idol business
With the support of considerable data, idols have begun to have traffic and have the ability to receive business cooperation.
First of all, the sales of the album directly reflect the appeal of the idol.
This year, Zhang Mengmeng's "fan" combination released its first physical album. Among them, the limited edition album with a personal cover design achieved "second cut", that is, all sold out within 1 minute.
It is worth noting that each personal cover album will be accompanied by a personal random small card (similar to a single photo of an idol). In circulation, the more valuable ones are the bonus small cards.
In order to collect all the members' small cards, an album of 158 yuan, Zhang Mengmeng bought 10 copies before and after. She left the small cards and sold the album.
At present, some personal small cards have been "fired" to 300-400 yuan a piece, and small cards with idols' signatures can sell for more than 2,000 yuan.
However, good album sales will not allow idols to "out of the circle" quickly.
Zhang Mengmeng said that capital will recognize an idol only if the endorsed products are sold a lot.
In the eyes of many fans, it is incumbent to buy products endorsed by idols.
However, not all fans have the corresponding purchasing power, and some people choose to "make a single order."
In addition, some fan stations even "raise funds" to purchase products that idols endorse in a "second cut".
In February of this year, a member of the group became the brand ambassador of a certain cosmetics. The fan station spent more than 70,000 yuan on the "second cut" of the brand's products.
The reporter learned that many fans have encountered "frauds" in the process of "scrambled orders", and some bloggers ran away with the money for ordering orders.
"Now we don't allow public fundraising, just sell peripherals to make money." As a "Zhanjie" (organization manager of the star idol support station) with 120,000 fans, Li Yingying (pseudonym) said that some fan stations will sell peripherals. The profit money is used for idol’s birthday party and various activities. Although they will disclose the details of the use of expenses, it feels that there are still some that have not been made public.
The use of this money is not transparent.
In fact, in recent years, it is not uncommon for fans in the domestic entertainment market (the leader among fans) to run away with money.
A few days ago, the Guangxi Higher People's Court notified a case in which fans took away more than 1.4 million yuan and their mother ran away. The defendant was sentenced to return more than 1.4 million yuan and interest.
After 2019, Zhang Mengmeng never gave money to the support club. She said, "Because there is a real risk of running away."
All parties in the interest chain must be strict in self-discipline
At present, the "Krypton Gold" trend of "fan circle" is very strong, and even fans will be expelled from "fandom" if they don't buy hundreds of albums.
In Zhang Mengmeng's view, currently, there is no particularly complete singing system in the domestic "fan economy", and there is no corresponding stage or evaluation system to prove the strength of idols. As long as fans can make money, idols are qualified.
So many fans are like "leeks", cut one crop after another.
Wu Daiqi, CEO of Shenzhen Siqisheng Cultural Communication Company, said that this is a profit from the psychological phenomenon that fans are obsessed with and admired celebrities and are willing to pay for them.
"In the entire'star-making' chain, the capital side is the biggest promoter and profit-making side." Wu Daiqi pointed out that the brokerage company paid a certain price in the early stage for artists to create personality and create media voice, so it will increase the value of artists. Dig.
The more fans pay, the higher the stickiness, which further enhances the artist’s appeal and increases its commercial value.
Director Xiang Kai, a young Chinese dramatist, said that big fans eating small fans are called "black eating black" in the entertainment industry, and the "eating appearance" is very ugly. They don't care about the conditions of the small fans, and as long as the results, some small fans have not seen it. this problem.
"What kind of person the artist becomes, what kind of person the fan club has become." Among many fans, there are many minors and they are easy to be favored by artists. This requires strict measures against the chaos in the fan economy. Rectify.
In Xiang Kai's view, good works are the basis for becoming a loyal fan of celebrities.
He warned young people not to blindly worship celebrities and lose their ability to discern.
Wu Daiqi said that the management of fan economic chaos requires a concerted effort from multiple parties.
The first is to improve management standards for various platforms such as Weibo, Douban, Zhihu, Douyin, etc., and impose penalties or bans on official groups and fan groups that cause adverse effects to reduce their negative impact; Start, provide correct and benign guidance to fans; third, improve the regulation of brokerage companies and market behavior supervision, and impose penalties on behaviors that use fans to create public opinion, invest in investment, and disrupt the fair competition environment; fourth, start with education. In the ideological and political courses for elementary and middle school students, the content of "fan economy" and related cases has been added to help young people increase their awareness of rational star pursuit.
In June of this year, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China launched a special action called "Clearness and Rectification of Chaos in the'Rice Circle'" and achieved remarkable results.
At present, more than 150,000 pieces of negative and harmful information have been cleaned up, and more than 4,000 illegal accounts have been dealt with.
Subsequently, the rectification actions were "increased."
On August 27, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Chaos in the "Rice Circle"", which started with the governance of platforms, brokerage companies, fans and other aspects.
Many celebrities quickly responded to the initiative, and will strictly demand themselves, and call on fans to return to rationality, not to raise funds, not to fight orders to prevent being deceived, etc.
Some fans said, "Finally liberated, no need to do data."
Deng Yuanbing, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Zhengzhou University, said that at present, celebrities should become role models for leading the development of civilization, rather than fill their pockets without a bottom line. At the same time, the platform and fans must be strict with themselves.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Zhao Limei, intern Xiao Yue Source: China Youth Daily
Version 06 on August 31, 2021