From the "cyber beggars" to the queens of e-commerce: this is the army of streamers in China

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Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night, the young

starts dancing in front of her mobile camera, broadcasting on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, for an average audience of close to a million people.

The first thing he does is set up his equipment -mobile, tripod, microphone and a small light reflector- on the Bund, the uncovered walkway next to the Huangpu River, which divides the city of Shanghai in two and from where the best views can be seen. views of the skyline of the financial capital.

Later, she goes to record herself in the surroundings of the Yu Garden, gardens built in 1559 by a governor of the Ming dynasty, Pan Yunduan, who wanted to build a majestic rest yard for her parents to spend their old age.

Nai, who just turned 23 and graduated from university a few months ago, doesn't plan on entering the "serious" job market, as she calls it, anytime soon.

He is doing well as a streamer and

for spending three days a week, less than six hours each day, dancing live, lip-syncing, and interacting with the audience, he gets every month, between the tips of the users and the sponsorship of a small brand, around 24,000 yuan, which in exchange is about 3,300 euros.

Her followers often send her digital roses or fruit emoticons, which she can then redeem for real money.

Other prominent names

When the weather is good, Nai always tries to do his live shows on the street.

Although many times, either because of the humid cold of the winter in Shanghai or because of the frequent rain, she stays broadcasting from the studio that she has set up in the apartment that she shares with Susi Liu, another twenty-something streamer popular among lovers

the meal.

Her direct broadcasts, which are broadcast on Kuaishou, another platform, she always records from a restaurant trying different dishes of the homeland's cuisine.

In her case, almost all of her income is from kitchen product manufacturers who pay her to sell her cookware during broadcasts.

Two Chinese streamers during an e-commerce festival.

A few days ago,

a youtuber famous for her 3D printed creations who lives in the city of Shenzhen, in southern China, published a video on her networks where dozens of girls broadcast at the same time, almost side by side, from the same street.

Some netizens have dubbed them "cyber beggars."

Naomi shared the video on Twitter, which already has almost four million views.

Find a place

In certain locations in the country, such as the Bund in Shanghai, it is common to find several streamers arguing

over the best corner to place the mobile camera.

But Naomi explained that many of these content creators and online vendors are going to film the most elite neighborhoods because some platforms, unlike those used in the West, allow you to activate the location function.

This way they connect directly with

are more generous with donations and purchases.

The numbers

In China they don't use Twich.

You don't even miss it because you lift a stone and dozens of similar platforms jump over you.

Nor is there just one Ibai Llanos, but many.

The streaming boom in the Asian giant, especially on e-commerce platforms, which is where this activity is monetized in a big way, represents, according to a 2020 report from the iResearch consultancy, an industry with 1.23 million streamers.

and around two-thirds are under the age of 26- that broadcast for more than 600 million active users, a number that tripled during the pandemic.

Another report from the China Academy for the Promotion of International Trade noted that between May 2021 and April 2022, Douyin launched more than nine million live broadcasts every month, selling 10 billion items.

Other platforms such as

and

compete with

for leadership in this market.

Different profiles abound in all of them: from young urbanites who dance like Nai Nai to older ladies from rural China who sing and sell chestnuts.

an appointed day

Li Jiaqi, the king of lipstick.Getty

The golden day for e-commerce streamers is Singles Day, on November 11.

A consumer marathon with thousands of online markets like the one set up by the

who last November spent more than 15 hours straight broadcasting on Taobao, Alibaba's e-commerce platform, to sell more than 10 million euros in various products ranging from Xiaomi phones to razors.

Almost the same figure was also reached on Taobao by Hong Kong actress

thanks to a variety of skin creams.

The business is round

for those who are at the top of this cybernetic universe: they charge a fee per session of around 25,000 euros, to which must be added the 20% to 40% that they take in sales commissions.

On Singles' Day 2019, Li Jiaqi, a thirty-something who became famous for selling 15 million lipsticks in just 15 minutes, presented viewers with a mix of products ranging from creams to velvet-stuffed pillows.

More than 36 million people have synced to his channel at some point.

That day he managed to move more than 130 million euros in sales.

The following year, he sold more than half a million euros worth of face cream on Taobao in less than three minutes.

Fall from grace

Li's luck, with more than 64 million followers on social media, changed in June last year after

Li spent three months purged from the platforms.

There was speculation that authorities had censored it because the ice cream depicted the iconic photograph of the man in front of the Tiananmen tank during the Beijing massacre of pro-democracy protesters on June 4, 1989.

But if you're looking for a disgraced star, it's Viya, the stage name of Huang Wei, who became a live-streaming queen to a pariah in her country after authorities fined her 1.34 billion yuan. (190 million euros) for

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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