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Text/Cai Yiji
Source: DT Finance (ID: DTcaijing)
In June 2021, Bilibili CEO Chen Rui said at the 12th anniversary of Bilibili that a total of 32,412 virtual anchors have started broadcasting at Bilibili in the past year, a year-on-year increase of 40%. This means that more than 30,000 people started their “people in the middle” career at station B.
Because of the original two-dimensional soil, station B is still the largest virtual anchor live broadcast platform in China, and it is also home to many leading virtual idols at home and abroad (including A-SOUL, which has been on the hot search for many times this year due to the low salary of Chinese people) and A platform for fans to interact.
The virtual anchor can control the avatar with motion capture software and recording equipment, and does not need a real person to appear during the live broadcast. This also gives opportunities for people who want to communicate with people but do not want to appear on the camera, do not want to be recognized because of professional relationships, are not confident in their appearance, and want to create a new personality for themselves. The most common forms of live broadcast are singing and dancing talents, real-time games, and chatting.
Like live anchors, virtual anchors mainly rely on fans to make money. In addition, station B has a special “big sailing” monthly ticket mechanism: if fans want to further interact with an anchor, they must buy the anchor’s “ship ticket” and become the anchor’s “captain” (198 yuan/month) , “Admiral” (1998 yuan/month), or “Governor” (19998 yuan/month). Each anchor has a “fleet” composed of these iron powders.
50% of the money rewarded by fans will be taken by the platform. If the anchor has a contract company or a guild, then the money will be less in the hands of the anchor.
Nevertheless, under the increasingly severe situation of traditional jobs and employment, more people are turning to the profession of “virtual anchor person” every day. According to iiMedia Research’s “2021 China Virtual Idol Industry Development and Netizen Survey and Research Report”, the virtual idol-driven market size and core market size will reach 186.61 billion yuan and 12.08 billion yuan respectively in 2022. The market size is constantly expanding, and capital from all parties has already entered the market.
In addition, even for most ordinary people, “virtual human” is still a concept with a slight sense of distance, but as the concept of “virtual human” is increasingly infiltrating the mainstream, more and more people create their own virtual Image, try “people in the middle” as a sideline…
#01
New male V, who is studying for a Ph.D. in biology:
100,000 followers in 1 month of debut
The introduction of the homepage of Orange B station is: “Chen Ziyou (Chengzi miu) who made his debut in order to save the research institute without research funds”.
We asked Chengzi for confirmation, and he smiled and said, “No, no, it’s just a human design. It’s true that the doctor is studying, but the research funding is sufficient.”
Virtual anchors are just Orange’s sideline. His full-time status is a PhD in biology studying oncology. Therefore, the time he can live broadcast is very limited: about 2 hours of live broadcast every other day every week, basically guaranteeing a live broadcast time of 20-30 hours/month.
“It is the least broadcast among the same-level anchors.”
But even so, Orange, who has just debuted for a month, has already accumulated 10w+ fans. Even after the 50% cut at station B, the income brought by the live broadcast to Chengzi still reached nearly 20,000 yuan.
Orange’s current plan is to use all the proceeds from the live broadcast to manage accounts, improve works, and give back to fans. The production of avatars in the early stage, including plane vertical painting, 2Dlive modeling, etc., cost nearly 17k. After the broadcast, video production and peripheral design are also constantly “burning money”.
Therefore, Chengzi does not regard live broadcast as a source of income, and the focus of future career development is still academic research: “After all, I won’t rely on this (virtual anchor) to eat.”
In fact, before the virtual anchor, Chengzi has been composing and arranging music by himself. He also wrote songs part-time, took some business orders, and gradually developed into a side business. But over time, Chengzi felt that music creation had become something that went against his original intention: the music that had to be created according to the needs of Party A was not a work that he himself agreed with.
As a result, Orange began to get involved in the line of virtual anchors. At first, he just wanted to spread his music through the image of a virtual anchor: “If the anchor can become popular, more people can hear the music.”
But a month after the live broadcast, Orange’s mind changed.
The exquisite image, outstanding voice, and strong personal background made Orange’s live broadcast room attract a lot of fans in the first month.
Based on the user portraits of station B, male Vs targeting female users in the virtual anchor section account for an absolute minority, and it is even rarer to set up people like Chengzi who are known as “Knowledged Men”. With the blessing of the traffic bonus in the newcomer period of station B, Chengzi has a group of enthusiastic new fans. According to Orange himself, more than 99% of them are women.
In Chengzi’s debut video, they brushed the barrage of “Hi wife”, “Fucking so handsome” and “Single push at first sight” (ie: the first time I saw it, I thought it was just for you).
The love of the fans makes the orange a little terrified. They not only rewarded him for boarding the ship, but also treated him as the object of their confidence. Some people confessed to him the distress of medical students, and some people confided to him about the overwhelm of life… Chengzi felt that these are words that require a lot of trust to say, “Why are they so heartfelt and sincere to me?”
Orange’s way of replying is also special: he will write a song and reply to the captain’s letter with music. 10 replies in the past month.
Rather than just wanting to spread his own music at first, he now wants to manage his avatar more seriously, and go on with his fans in this mutually supportive relationship. To this end, he has been visiting the live broadcast room with high intensity recently, learning the live broadcast methods of the head male V, such as interactive proportions, speaking skills, and so on.
We asked him if he felt exhausted by interacting with fans, accepting and giving back their emotions so frequently? Cheng Zi was stunned for a moment, as if he never thought about the possibility of “consumption”: “It will be more consumption to communicate with the doctoral supervisor.”
Chatting with fans and singing to fans in the live broadcast room is more like a healing time for him: “I feel very happy about this.”
In the future, Chengzi will also regard scientific research as its main business, and virtual anchors as a long-term hobby – even if the music she makes is not particularly popular, it doesn’t seem to matter. As long as there is love from fans and “someone treats your work well”, that’s enough.
#02
The first domestic virtual anchor’s junior sister:
Debut with a halo, you must learn to live with pressure
In August 2017, the first domestic virtual up host “Xiao Xi” made her debut at Station B and uploaded her first video. “At that time, there was no live broadcast, and the virtual up was video.” The staff of the virtual research society explained to us.
At that time, VTuber (virtual anchor), which relied on motion capture technology and controlled avatars to interact with audiences in live broadcasts, had already risen overseas, but had just started in China. Therefore, the first batch of virtual anchor viewers at station B are more accustomed to watching live broadcasts in foreign languages.
“Most of the time from 2018 to early 2020, domestic users felt that a virtual anchor needs to speak Japanese, but it would be strange to speak Chinese.”
It is also based on such audience needs that Xiaorou, who is very good in Japanese and has experience in exchange and study in Japan, was selected to become the second-phase student of the Virtual Research Institute. She is positioned as a virtual anchor of “Geshi”, mainly covering popular songs.
“After 20 or 21 years, there has been an influx of talents, and more and more Chinese people are doing this. Speaking Chinese has become the norm, so now the demand for foreign language skills is very low.” Therefore, Xiaorou’s Japanese ability is no longer good. become a decisive advantage.
“Although the entire industry is not as good as the mainstream entertainment industry, the competition is also on the rise. People who are more professional in singing will not be given priority to be virtual anchors, so now there are more requirements for other skills, such as eloquence, personality, and many people who pass ‘swords’ Going off the beaten path’ attracts users.”
In such a high-intensity competitive environment, Xiaorou, as a virtual artist with a contracted company (the “people in the middle”), naturally faces huge pressure.
The IP “Xiaorou” was an avatar that had been established for about 2 years and had been disclosed to fans before the person who owned it. Fans have long had feelings for her, and therefore have high expectations for her. This caused Xiaorou to face many “points” from fans in private messages and comments when she first debuted, and sometimes these “points” turned into purely malicious attacks.
“I was at a loss at first, wondering if I was not good enough? What should I do?” Xiaorou said, when it was the most painful time for a virtual anchor, she just couldn’t figure it out: “Why do I work so hard, but fans just can’t understand me? ?”
How to get along with fans and better respond to their expectations, these are the questions Xiaorou has been thinking about. She has to constantly adjust her live broadcast content and style based on feedback from fans, so that every audience who enters the live broadcast room can be emotionally satisfied.
The positive emotions of fans will also affect Xiaorou in turn. The happiest moment for her at work is when the live broadcast room reaches “a kind of Chinese New Year atmosphere”: there is no established mode, it may be that a very happy topic is talked about, or a very nice song is sung, fans The mood is very high, and everyone is on the same frequency in an instant, and the mood at that moment is very precious.
In addition to responding to the expectations of existing fans, Xiaorou also needs to think about how to attract new fans.
“Our company’s Lan Yin and I are born at the same time. She will reach a million followers in a while, and the number of followers is rising very fast. I hope I don’t fall behind her too much… Otherwise, I will be embarrassed.”
Although Xiaorou said so, but with 202,000 fans, she is already one of the top Vups at station B. Basically, more than 10,000 people can enter the live broadcast room to watch every time the broadcast starts, and the number of people in the fleet has exceeded 800.
In reality, Xiao Rou is still an ordinary Bei drifting young man.
In addition to regular live broadcasts in the morning and evening, every day is to prepare for the live broadcast, “mainly at home.” Practice songs, choose songs, and go to company meetings regularly. Because of the nature of the work, “rest is very fragmented” and “it’s not very possible to make friends here”.
Except for the mother who is more supportive, other family members may not know much about what she does, only that she works in Beijing.
But Xiaorou seems to have adapted to such a working model, “I can live a decent life in Beijing” and “there is nothing dissatisfying.”
Xiaorou is also not without consideration for the future: “Many up hosts who used to sing on station B are now also virtual hosts. Some have been doing it for a long time, even more than ten years.”
“The years in this industry are still very short. I think the concept and content based on virtual images are still very possible. In the future, it may not be just a virtual anchor. You can look forward to the future while doing it.”
#03
The economic teacher who was crying in the live broadcast room:
Being a virtual anchor is a sweater curse
On the homepage of Ali Ya’s station B, the most-played video clip so far is the clip of her crying in the live broadcast room.
“Sometimes it really has to be broadcast in the air, and how to persevere is the biggest challenge.”
The live broadcast content of Ali Duck is mainly based on original music and academic talk. Her own job in North America can fully meet her daily expenses, and the monthly income of 1,000-3,000 yuan for live broadcast is not enough to become the source of Ali Ya’s live broadcast.
If a real person appears, it may have an impact on their own work. And Ali Duck is “working on the Internet and definitely earning more money than doing music.” “Even the entire virtual anchor market of station B is very small, and the head virtual anchor basically took most of it, and the rest are small. V is basically unprofitable.”
So far, Ali Ya has invested all the money earned from being a virtual anchor back into this hobby-buying gifts for the captain, making peripherals, inviting painters, cutting videos, learning musical instruments…
Her story is very similar to Orange: both of them have full-time stable jobs, all of them are old-fashioned, they all once engaged in amateur music creation, and they all became virtual anchors because they wanted to spread their own original music. Like Orange, Ali Ya also changed his cognition in the process.
“The original music is just a piece of music. But the avatar reflects other aspects of my creation, my personality, my knowledge, it’s very three-dimensional.”
If Ali Ya had to choose between “the avatar is liked by more people” and “the original music is spread more”, she would choose the former.
But unlike Orange, Ali Duck’s fan absorption rate is relatively slower. In the first few months of the pilot broadcast, there are often only one or two people in the live broadcast room.
“For a while, I thought that the UP master of station B was really the most unhappy profession in the world: your happiness is based on whether others see you, like you or not, and your emotions will definitely be affected.” Ali Yayong” “Sweater curse” to describe the pain of doing self-media:
“It’s like a curse that if you give your partner a knitted sweater as a gift, you’re sure to break up. Because you spend too much time on something she doesn’t know.”
But even though there was a lot of frustration at the beginning of the live broadcast, Ali Duck persevered. Because on the one hand, this side hustle forced her to do everything she wanted to do but never did, such as learning to play the ukulele, sticking to the piano, and taking vocal lessons.
“It is also helpful to chat with everyone often. When you are very tired from work, you will feel refreshed when you chat in the live broadcast room for a while.”
On the other hand, when she survived the initial days of “live on air” and found a suitable position for herself, Ali Ya’s attitude towards live broadcast also changed.
“Most of the virtual anchors will be silly and cute in the live broadcast fashion, and show their ‘stupid’ attributes to attract fans’ attention and rewards.” But Ali Ya felt that he could find another way to create other virtual anchors through his professional advantages. Content that cannot be created.
After she posted more economic and academic content, the captain’s fan portrait slowly transformed into an older working party, and the effect of attracting fans gradually increased. At present, the number of people online at the same time in Ali Duck’s live broadcast room is basically around 30-50.
She also really enjoys being heard and seen—even in avatar form.
“My happiest moment over the years was being on stage as a member of the school rock band, playing in front of thousands of people, and the people below cheered for us.”
In other words, it is precisely because of the “holster” of the avatar that Ali Duck can get such an opportunity to express himself.
Less than a year after the broadcast, Ali Duck has already achieved its goal of 10,000 fans. Now she only hopes that she can persevere, continue to do what she likes, and wait until the day when she has 20,000 fans.
(Source of the title image: “Nagi’s New Life”)
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