Selena Gomez, the world's number one Netflix star
"Hopefully, my existence will serve as a cautionary tale for wannabe Netflix stars." Etika, a 29-year-old American internet sensation and YouTube game star, jumped into the East River in New York on a dark night in June 2019 after posting a confession that set his internet career in motion.
I'm an internet star, but life is dark
After Etika's suicide, his close friends said that he became anxious and even depressed due to multiple factors, such as long-term online verbal violence, fear of a decline in traffic, and limited earnings, and finally chose the road of no return. This does not seem to be quite the same as what we imagined the life of a Netflix star to be. Netroots in most eyes, young, beautiful, famous, rich, in their peers in the subway bus crowded liver, they open the computer or cell phone, shoot a short video, say a paragraph, so tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of revenue to hand. But it turns out that behind the glamor, it is endless anxiety, and even the cost of life.
The hottest couple on YouTube, David Dobrik&Liza Koshy, with a combined fan base of more than 30 million, publicly announced their breakup in June 2018, two years after the two **** together to produce a short video program. The main reason for the split was the distance and disconnect created by the two being too busy. One of the things was that their lives were almost completely exposed to their tens of millions of followers, with little space for themselves.
Instagram's number one netizen, Selena Gomez, with over 150 million followers on just one platform, has had serious problems with her mental state, with anxiety, depression, and panic attacks due to the long hours of intense work and fierce competition for netizens. Her health was also in serious trouble, suffering from lupus erythematosus, and she was finally forced to have a kidney transplant. She needed to take hormones constantly to treat her body fat, the media and netizens roundly attacked, which more this made her mental condition even worse. 2017, the U.S. version of the "Vogue" interview, she said that she had uninstalled Instagram on her phone.
Born in 1990, the Spanish El Rubius, more than 35.5 million followers, in 2006 in the YouTube to post his first video. It is the third most popular YouTube personality in the world with more than 30 million followers. His channel focuses on games or funny videos, among others. Stopped updating for 3 months in between from June 22, 2018 until September 30, 2018 because he was "overwhelmed with stress and was heading for a breakdown".
Beauty blogger Michelle Phan, who has more than 8.8 million followers on YouTube, founded her company Ipsy in 2011, which was valued at more than 350 million ($50 million). But because she couldn't stand the pressure of social media, she announced in 2016 that she stopped changing "I was carefully cropping the life I wanted on social networks, not my life." And her busyness on social networks ultimately led to her estrangement from her family and friends, she said "I found that I was getting more and more lonely and depressed ...... I eventually realized I was lost."
Why is it that netizens are increasingly trying to get away from, those lives that countless young people crave? Public opinion pressure, algorithm changes, short life cycle, star sinking competition, all kinds of pressure are like a noose around the neck of the net red.
The fucking powder net red finally blew up the number
Downgrading the content, sealing the number, and even criminal liability, this is a tiger's head guillotine hanging over the heads of the net red. Whether it is YouTube, or the domestic jittery voice, Weibo, etc., for the violation of public order and morals of speech and behavior, suspected of violating the law and other content, will be dealt with, the light is to take down the content, the heavy is to block the number, but also may be held criminally responsible.
Mike Lombardo was one of the first YouTube sensations, specializing in composing and playing his own music. He also liked to tease his female fans, encouraging them to post nude photos of themselves and all sorts of juvenile videos, and was eventually targeted by the police because one of them was an underage girl, and was eventually sentenced to five years in prison and had his account canceled. Another YouTube webcam star, Alex Day, whose favorite thing to do is to fuck fans and sleep with all kinds of female fans, was eventually exposed by female fans and was finally forced to stop updating his videos. A few months later, he started making videos again. But everything is tomorrow, before the worst single episode had 2 million views. Now the best is only 20,000 views. Alex Jones, a YouTube Internet star with more than 2.5 million followers and a TV show supporter, was completely banned by YouTube officials in 2019 because of his long history of making various extreme statements.
In this country, there are no clear standards of public order and morality, and because of this, the platforms regulate more tightly. You have 1 million followers, in other words, there are 1 million pairs of eyes on you, and harmless jokes in everyday life may be ruthlessly amplified in videos and live broadcasts. Inappropriate comments posted many years ago are dug up and exposed to the public.
The anchor of Douyu, who has a monthly water flow of more than a million dollars, told me that his account is blocked every two months for a week or so at a time, simply because he likes to make scatological jokes. "Because it's like that in everyday life, so the atmosphere in the live room is much better, and there are no explicit remarks, but when they are reported by users, they are basically dealt with." He was a bit wary of accidentally breaking the rules again every time he went live.
What's more, it's important to avoid touching the sensitive remarks about politics. A lot of net red, are born in the 90s, lack of basic history and political common sense, the earthquake, national anthem, martyrdom, national leaders, etc. to flirt with or make inappropriate remarks, and finally be shielded, or directly completely blocked, the whole network abounds in blocking the number of the MC Tianyou, stormy events, Chen Yifa'er, Lu Benwei, the bombing of the number of this list every month is increasing. Despite MCN and major platforms, constant training and introduction of norms, but speech is difficult to standardize.
Even the most powerful netroots, have to submit to the algorithm:
China's netroots representative papi sauce
"No matter how big the netroots, the algorithms in YouTube have to submit. The engineers are the high priests of dominance." It's a joke circulating in Silicon Valley, but it's true.
YouTube netroots love and hate the platform's algorithm. Because it directly affects whether the video posted by a YouTube star will be hot, and whether the star's lifecycle can continue in the long term, there are more than 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube in a minute, and based on the user's previous observations, YouTube will accurately find the video that interests a single user, and push it to the corresponding user's recommended watch list. At the same time, advertisements with different content are pushed to the target users. The level of these clicks also directly determines the income of the netizens, and in YouTube, earning from display ads, overlapping ads, and video ads is the main part of the income of most netizens.
YouTube netizen Liz sees algorithms as addictive, like a drug, but destroying everything the netizen does. The more emotional, angry, and headline-grabbing he gets in his videos, the more users welcome it, and the more people the platform pushes it to.YouTube continually reinforces the content that excites viewers. The algorithm determined that his videos became more and more emotional and his performances more and more exaggerated until he finally broke down. He began to develop thyroid problems and was diagnosed with depression.
Even more extreme, in April 2019, unhappy with YouTube's algorithms and the low number of views on his own videos, 38-year-old Nassim Najafi Aghdam went into the YouTube office in California and shot and wounded three employees before killing himself.
At the end of 2017, a lot of microblogging feedback, account readings have dropped significantly, 1 million real fans of the account, singling out less than 100,000 readings, soon microblogging service responded, because the algorithm changed. Microblogging uses an EdgeRank algorithm similar to FaceBook. All new microblogs were re-sorted based on different weights. The weights were differentiated by follower intimacy, content quality, and originality.
All major platforms, including today's headlines, shaking sound, fast hand and other major platforms, are constantly adjusting and optimizing their algorithms according to elements such as the stage of product development, policy changes, user preferences, etc., which is actually constantly strengthening the central position of the platform. The scene of being abducted by microblogging V the entire microblogging platform, no platform wants to see again. The more powerful netroots, but also have to worry about the algorithm change, that is likely to be a sea change.
Net red fire fast, cool fast:
"I don't know when I'll be cool, so I have to grab every moment, squeeze the last of my value, and make as much as I can, and I know that the company thinks the same way." Coco (a pseudonym) is a live guild's top anchor, she specializes in live broadcasts on Hootsuite, sweet-looking, proud of her body, and will nag, so a lot of tycoon big brother very much like to play in her live room, a happy may be the bounty. Monthly water flow stabilized at more than 500,000 per month, the highest time to 1 million. She became the benchmark of countless small netizens, the family are to her example.
But she knew that waiting for the next step, is cool, in order to earn more before the overdose, she live at least 9 hours a day, sometimes even more than 10 hours, after the next broadcast, and the family to talk to the strength of no longer. "Make enough money, and then transition to something else when it's cool." In order to avoid being eliminated, the netizens who have been red, desperately cross-border development, live to shoot short videos, on the variety show, sell things, engage in MCN, open a company, short video or variety curiosity, will also develop horizontally, but most of the time, it's a chicken feather. Even if the fire of a moment of forensics Tang Ma Ru, after leaving the storm company, their own financing to open the company, and later to help people with the team, but in the end do not know where to go.
The life cycle of the average Netflix is only 6 months to 18 months. They must make themselves more fire and red within this stage, fast cash, but more just a pipe dream.In July 2018, watermelon girl in the jittery voice released a short video of the "flower bridge flowing water" with lip-synching, this video likes nearly 3 million, instantly in the jittery voice fire, the highest number of her fans as much as 7 million. But in the latter part of the year, no matter she broadcast funny, food, singing, dancing, just not fire. Released a number of video likes in the 10,000 or so, the public has forgotten about this once-hot netizen, as if she hadn't been on fire.
Celebrities also want to make money as netizens
Deng Ziqi and Dai Gula fan comparison
Instead of waiting for the netizens to eat their own turf, it would be better to take the initiative to attack, no matter whether it's a popular celebrity, like Wang Zulan, Deng Ziqi, Aaron Kwok, or a star who has gone through a lot of trouble, like Christina Li, Guo Donglin, etc., are all investing in the live broadcasting of bandwidth and short videos. video and so on. The halo effect of stars, rich performance experience, and systematic training, and the strong support system of acting companies behind them are obviously not comparable to that of net stars and emerging MCNs. They in turn have come to devour the turf of the netroots.
The difference between netroots and stars is like a guerrilla army and a regular army. Two or three guns, seven or eight people of the net red team, met the stars of the science class, the victory or defeat is self-evident. Singer Deng Ziqi started updating her first Shake Voice in May 2018, and has updated 43 videos so far, with a high number of 26.433 million fans. And Dai Gula, who is also a Jieyin head netizen, has been updating since February 7, 2018, with 220 videos and 23.671 million followers. Dai Gula is a full-time netizen, while Deng Ziqi is still mainly a singer and acting career, and many of her jittery content is nothing more than very casual scenes such as work and eating.
More and more stars see the potential of the netroots economy, and the boundaries between stars and netroots are becoming increasingly blurred and descending, and will surely further whittle away at the already fiercely competitive netroots market and revenue. There is a constant emergence of new netroots below, above the light surrounded by body trained stars, in your place, you will be anxious?
What happened to the Netflix stars who ran away to escape their anxiety? In addition to the suicide of Etika, including El Rubius, Michelle Phan, Selena Gomez, those almost all clamoring to escape the netroots, have returned to the original platform. Not only have they resumed, but they're doing it more vigorously and more frequently, because in their absence, so many new people have popped up that fan activity has dropped off again. "Once you've made the money to be a netrooter, you'll never be able to leave it again." A CEO of one of the largest netroots organizations in China said to me with great confidence.