Ordinary person Yu Wenliang s Internet Metamorphosis .

Text|Crowd Liu Yilin.

Edit|Hu Zhanjia.

In early October, Douyin amateur Internet celebrity "ordinary person" Yu Wenliang "increased millions of fans in 10 days" was frequently searched, and in less than a month, he quickly lost more than 400,000 fans, and everyone began to say "He is not an ordinary person".

The ups and downs are intuitively reflected in the number of fans on the platform and the upward trend.

His avatar has changed to solid black, and the background of the homepage has been changed from the live picture of the Mercadel band Cho Tae and Door Chess to pure black. The social ** account is hidden in pure black, which is a representation of the lost status quo and emotions of contemporary young people. However, what attracted the most attention was that he changed his ID name "Yu Wenliang" to "carnation", and changed the self-declaration in the profile "not connected" to "happy every day", and everyone's explanation for this is, "I don't want to lose too many fans" and "I'm ready to make money".

He tried to respond, and after the first live broadcast ended on November 1, he said in his **comment area: "When I had dinner today, I had a whim, and I didn't expect to meet you so sloppily....I will create with my heart Live up to the people who support me And also prove it to my people who detractor me Finally, to be honest, I saw a lot of gifts haha I'm very happy Thank you all Happy every day Good night" (no punctuation in the original text), after which this comment was not visible, and he fell silent like his pure black head.

Netizens added a lot of labels in front of "Yu Wenliang", "ordinary people" are the most common and not dazzling, so he became a noun, "everyone is Yu Wenliang", but once the illusion attached to the label cracked, he was pushed down overnight, fell into silence, and returned to "ordinary people".

The Internet can create gods, and it can also make gods go down the altar, Yu Wenliang is by no means the last "ordinary person" who has been transformed and deformed by Internet fame and fortune.

01 exploded, ordinary people walked into traffic Vanity Fair In almost every **comment area released by Yu Wenliang in November, some netizens will ask, how did Yu Wenliang become popular?

At first glance, it is indeed puzzling, a repeat high school student, the usual shooting technique is to rotate the camera and then slap his face in slow motion, about ten seconds of **, the style of the text is first love pain literature and chicken soup perception, young people with this style on Douyin are not uncommon.

After careful study, it seems that he can detect the underlying law of Yu Wenliang's explosion.

Yu Wenliang and delicate retrograde, showing his true side. There is no plot, no beauty, and no "three nos" bloggers with a rhythm of opinions. He will post short ** on Douyin almost every day, with a somewhat "babble" rhythm, more than ten articles. Long ago, fans would call him "uncle" and "brother", and the label of "black-skinned sports student" first took effect and was spread. Yu Wenliang's netizens who have swiped him ** with less than 500 fans said that "being able to live" was his vague impression of Wen Liang at that time.

Netizens and ** labeled him as an "ordinary person" and directly pushed him to popularity. In the comment area, netizens started a spontaneous "second creation", sending out their own ** with a text saying "If it weren't for Yu Wenliang (for the courage given to me), I wouldn't dare to send it out", or lamented that the platform has finally returned to the "record of a better life" of "ordinary people".

Ordinary and confident, that's fine.

The youthful vitality of black-skinned sports students, coupled with the copywriting style of QQ space, and the perspective of high school students who are not well-behaved in reading, can occupy the homepage recommendation of a large group of high school students and college students. He is more like the "average" of a society, not handsome, without various titles, everyone can see their appearance here in Yu Wenliang.

He said, "Don't say you're bad, I don't think so", a very ordinary sentence, but it caters to the popular narrative similar to "reconciliation with no makeup", accepts one's ordinary, has the courage to show one's ordinary, and gives affirmation to one's ordinary self, "Ordinary Literature" is like an Internet booster, where everyone seeks recognition and finds the magic weapon of "redeeming" oneself.

He often "goes crazy" in **, nonsensical and meaningless, the scene is often in the stadium, in the dormitory, in the classroom, in the restaurant, full of youth and restlessness. He would film himself leaning against the window of a car singing out-of-tune songs and shouting with friends on an electric car.

It is not classified as a tool person, a worker, and it does not enter the evaluation system of whether it is useful. Contemporary young people take a short breath from reality and dissolve indescribable complex emotions in the "carnival", these abstract self-expressions may be the deeper meaning of attracting Wenliang's fans to "go up".

He often uses **set series**, or moves the camera to change the perspective, and uses bokeh filters and slow motion at the end, switching between fast and slow rhythms, giving the audience a time and space for emotional release, which is also a "strong proof" for everyone to question his choreography. On October 12, when Yu Wenliang was interviewed by **, he said that he did not have a team, all the equipment was a second-hand Apple mobile phone, and the content he shot every day was "completely random".

Of course, Yu Wenliang's popularity is inseparable from the creation and imagination of netizens, and most of the later stories have been heard of by everyone.

In mid-October, a mainstream ** released an article "Ten Days' Million Fans!".Why did the rough and real "ordinary people" Yu Wenliang suddenly become popular" pushed it to a larger traffic pool, and the "rough and real" "ordinary people" formed a kind of conspiracy with mainstream values, positive and positive.

Although it is not exactly his state, the "spirit of Yu Wenliang" is still held up by netizens.

02 Character design and the "collapsed house" in a drastic turn "Then let's circle (money) together", he said words that were enough to backfire him.

This is his first time on the air, Yu Wenliang received a full screen of gifts, which made him smile from ear to ear, and after the end, he bluntly said, "To be honest, I saw a lot of gifts hahaha I'm very happy."

This live broadcast slice spread faster than any of his previous **, and many people began to know Yu Wenliang from "Yu Wenliang's personality collapsed" and "Why did Yu Wenliang collapse". The day before November, he opened 10 live broadcasts. Even if you just have nothing to do in the live broadcast room, there will be fans who will continue to swipe gifts and leave messages. In some live slices, someone found that "Crazy Brother Yang" brushed Yu Wenliang with a "carnival".

Yu Wenliang seemed to decide to go live live, he thanked everyone for the gifts and said, "I basically figured out the rules..."I'm also happy to talk." But this comment is also visible, he may not have expected the reaction of netizens to be so turbulent, someone sent a threatening letter, and the turn of "praise" and "kill" occurred within 24 hours.

Picture: Yu Wenliang in the live broadcast.

He was a little overwhelmed, in the travel ** released on November 21, Yu Wenliang's mother commented that she was sick, and netizens soon found out that the IP address of his mother's comment was in Zhejiang, and Yu Wenliang was traveling in Zhejiang, but his mother was at home in Shandong, which made people speculate whether it was Yu Wenliang himself who sent this paragraph.

Giving up some privacy and trying to seek the forgiveness of fans seems to have had little effect.

Everyone turned their attention to his sneakers, which were not cheap, smoking, and inconsistencies. Perhaps Yu Wenliang has to recognize that this group of fans who once lifted him will resolutely throw him down after feeling "deceived", and there is no shortage of people on the Internet for them to follow.

Influencers are consumables to society.

Scholar Dong Chenyu analyzes the law of going from amateur to Internet celebrity, which is usually a four-step process, that is, "red", "black", "persuasion" and "cool", and the logic of Yu Wenliang's popularity is basically similar to it. He is indeed a hard-working and talented creator, posting as frequently as "long" on Douyin, using editing techniques, popular atmosphere filters and backgrounds**, about ten seconds** is not too strenuous and can satisfy the audience**.

Like other popular amateurs, he doesn't know why he became popular, and it is difficult for him to make actions to capture and monetize quickly. What's even more regrettable is that he is happy and sad, and it is difficult to recover the water, and he provides netizens with black material that is difficult to refute. In addition, netizens will also associate Yu Wenliang of the "collapsed house" with the winter swimming monster pigeon, so as to form a certain contrast or even step on it.

There are also many persuasive netizens in the comment area, but it is difficult to resist the criticism and yin and yang weirdness, and the pull of "persuasion" is not obvious here in Wen Liang, and the wall is pushed by everyone. If he transforms into an Internet celebrity rookie without mistakes, perhaps as said in the comment area, "Women have seaweed mi, and men have Yu Wenliang", at least he can achieve short-term stable production and realization.

Now Yu Wenliang's **, the volume has dropped to 2 30,000, and the first comment popularity is often "Quitting Dad, Sick Mom, Threatening Sister, Playing Liang", his justification was transformed into sarcasm. The atmosphere of encouraging ordinary people to be confident in the comment area before is also gone, "If it weren't for Yu Wenliang, I wouldn't have sent it out", "Then don't send it".

The traffic bubble of the Internet celebrity will dissipate in an instant, and he will become an ordinary person in the real sense of the word: a repeating high school student with some small ideas and a big grin.

03 The paradox of amateur popularity inside and outside the walls is different from the celebrity artist who has a stable personality and narrative in front of the public, as well as a leaky public relations treatment, and the popularity of an amateur is inseparable from his identity and daily life. For example, Yu Wenliang is a high school student with a sports specialty, Teacher Huang is a preschool teacher, and Hai Wei Mi is a part-time worker and student in South Korea, and their creative content is usually inseparable from daily life.

But the daily life of ordinary people is not blameless, there will be flaws and desires, and controversy is inevitable. Amateurs become popular like the ebb and flow of the tide, everyone is familiar with, "Your background is too fake" territory Alimu, "Desert Butcher" Hui Ran, the winter swimming monster pigeon who shouted "Oligi", the ** Wanyan Huide with accent stalks such as "Laughing Hug", also including Ding Zhen , Zhong Meimei...

They usually receive the attention of the platform and ** after a certain amount of traffic, and their fans continue to grow, and it has become a common routine to start live broadcasts, enter live broadcasts to bring goods or receive some commercial advertisements.

This is also a last resort, the traffic is always fleeting, and amateurs must react quickly. In addition to the amateur Internet celebrities who have the ability to create, those who can stay are those who can cooperate with ** to become spokespersons, such as Ding Zhen and Alimu, and more of them can't withstand the deep digging of netizens' magnifying glasses, and are heavily slapped on the shore and swept into the sea.

Internet celebrities have also become a kind of fast food to a certain extent, without a certain amount of resource accumulation or MCN company's **, amateurs who suddenly become popular will be "consumed" and then abandoned. The public picks up one ordinary person after another who seems to represent them, worships them as spiritual leaders, or as spiritual sustenance, and becomes the fuel for fans' fantasies.

The key to Yu Wenliang's collapse may lie in the inconsistency of his words and deeds, if in daily life, we will Xi it, but on the Internet, people are always black and white. Internet celebrities need to build a wall of personality with their fans, hiding their true selves within the wall, and outside the wall is a glamorous and decent appearance that meets everyone's expectations.

The two ideas of "making gods" and "fighting gods" are staged in turn on the Internet, beautiful and handsome, rich and decent, are the "myths" of social platforms, and everyone is vying to chase them, eager to become one of them.

But in a short time, there will be a wave of "anti-refinement" movements, the opposite of the tide of struggle, and even if this does not achieve self-liberation, it seems to be an effective struggle to breathe on the surface.

The popularity of amateurs is not a dream of nothingness, "ordinary people" Yu Wenliang surfaced, everyone sought communication in its comment area, eager for support, and quickly gathered to build a "utopia", folding dozens of messages are all encouragement and praise, harvesting a few seconds of relief and strength in the hustle and bustle of good and bad, right and wrong, which is also a magical moment in the real world.

Now he has changed his profile from "happy every day" to "abstract out of control", and in the newly released "There will be new people to replace me and bring you happiness", he is still topless, playing football at home with his father. He only replied with a message, "Yu Wenliang's biggest gain is to quit smoking", he said, "I didn't quit, I'm sorry".

In the shouts of "Yu Wenliang's spirit" and "hypocrisy Yu Wenliang", everyone has not taken their eyes away.

The amateur's popularity to silence is accompanied by a sense of fatalism, but he does hit some of the mood of the times. On the eve of the explosion, he posted a ** "Sunshine sprinkles on his shoulders as if he is a free man", it was when he was eating in the cafeteria, Yang Guan sprinkled on his face, he was a little excited, so he picked up his mobile phone and turned the rear camera to himself, grinning.