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Chinese Internet Celebrities

Chinese Internet Celebrities (CICs), which are a group of people who are popular and famous on-line or through social media on Chinese internet. Internet Celebrity refers to an event or a certain behavior by Internet users that raise concerns of a large group of people who resonate with the average person in terms of real life experience. CICs have become successful due to the media which glamourizes their innate positive characteristics and reaches a large number of viewers through the internet. In other words, the CICs’ appearance, attitude, entertainment or thoughts in their blogs are aspects the audience hope to view online. In China, they are usually called Wang Luo Hong Ren or Abbr. Wang Hong（Chinese:网络红人 pinyin: wǎng luò hóng rén or 网红 pinyin :wǎng hóng. ) Sometimes, these CICs express some ideas that users are generally afraid to reveal in public. Therefore, expressing oneself online is not a spontaneous phenomenon, but the result of comprehensive benefit community under the action of network media environment, web, internet marketer, traditional media and audience psychological needs.

CICs all have jobs outside of their media persona and have become popular on the Web through various ways. The platform for CICs to make a huge connection with the public is significant because all of them want to choose the most popular internet service with the highest quantity of users. Sina Weibo, WeChat and Internet Live-streaming dominate people's daily life in China. Search engines are used for updating the latest information and chatting, so CICs prefer to utilize the search engines as a platform to gain access to the market they are targeting. Several reasons why CICs have gone viral, include appearance, affluence, personal talents or random appeal. However, there are many concerns connected to technology about how their public lives may have several negative impacts on society.

Development

In China, there are various kinds of social media platform for CICs to utilize, however the main one and the most popular social media for them is Weibo, WeChat and “Internet Live Streaming” (same as Streaming media Chinese :直播, Pinyin: zhí bō.)

Weibo

Weibo (Chinese: 微博, pinyin: wēibó ) is the Chinese word for "microblog". It provides mini-blogging services in China, including chat function and platform sharing. The majority of Chinese people have Weibo accounts and through this internet provider people can also have access to online reading, breaking news and popular events. Moreover, some of the major CICs have Weibo, such as Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo and Sohu Weibo. Because Sina Weibo was founded earlier among other corporations, which was in 2009. At that time, many popular and famous celebrities were invited to join. As a result, a growing number of famous celebrities have an account there, and fans can create accounts on Sina Weibo to follow the messages celebrities post. Sina Weibo used the financial benefits of CICs before other Weibo were launched by other companies and consequently received huge profits in this field. Hence, we now can name Sina Weibo as "Chinese Twitter". Thus, the majority of CICs are choosing Sina Weibo as a platform to bring attention and have numerous followers. In other words, Sina Weibo brings plenty of benefits and popularity to CICs based on its influence. On contract, CICs use their own impacts to advertise through Weibo to help Weibo receive profit. So, Sina Weibo and CICs are in a mutually beneficial relationship. Moreover, many CICs sign a contract on Sina Weibo for operating we-media.

Chinese Internet Celebrities	Followers on Sina Weibo	Reasons CICs become popular
Papi Jiang	Over 21 million people	Making original funny videos and ironic videos reflecting on society
Sicong Wang	Over 21 million people	His influential family background and incisive criticism on other celebrities or events.
Small Number for Memory	Over 27 million people	Sharing photographs of his two cute pets’ life with him through Sina Weibo, one is Samoyed named Niuniu and the other one is a Scottish cat named Duanwu.
Uncle Tongdao	Over 11 million people	Analyzing Western constellations and draws horoscope comics on Sina Weibo.
Dayi Zhang	Over 4.8 million people	Her beautiful appearance and having a sensitive sense on fashion to guide others through Sina Weibo. And she owns a clothing store on Taobao.
Professor Yi Xiaoxing	Over 7 million people	He directed his original Internet Drama, Surprise S1(2013) and Surprise S2 (2014).
Liu Jishou	Over 10 million people	Focusing on being a commentator on Weibo by using an acid tongue style of judging photographs and rating them.
Milk Tea Sister	Over 1.3 million people	Her photo was uploaded by friends’ blog and show on coverage because of her sweet smile while holding a cup of milk tea. And she married with Chinese famous Internet entrepreneur named Qiangdong Liu after she graduated from Tsinghua University.
Sister Feng	Over 7 million people	Her exaggerated self-propaganda, especially her requests of future husband.
Gogoboi	Over 7 million people	His sharp comments on fashion world by using words and pictures, and show his preference on celebrities’ fashion clearly.
Aikelili	Over 9 million people	Making a small funny video to show how can he uses marker pen to get a complete eye make-up.

WeChat

WeChat (Chinese: 微信; pinyin:  Wēixìn; literally: "micro message") is a cross-platform messaging service launched by Tencent in China in January 2011. It is one of the largest standalone messaging apps by monthly active users. It not only has chatting service but also city services and payment. Almost all CICs have their official accounts on WeChat, because Chinese people use that as a message service and follow friends’ moments every day. So it is a very convenient platform to post new activities to followers. In reciprocity, CICs post new messages on Sina Weibo and WeChat at the same time. Moreover, various sticker services are one of the famous characteristics in WeChat. Many illustrators design cute and interesting stickers for WeChat chatting service and a majority of them are free to download. However, managers from Tencent also prefer to invite some influential CICs to create their own stickers (“expression packages) on WeChat, such as Papi Jiang and Aikelili; it not only brings profits to CICs, advertisers and Tencent itself, but also raises popularity for CICs when people use their sticker packages. As of 2016, WeChat has 864 million active users.

"Internet Live Streaming"

Internet Live Streaming is a way to shoot a short clip or video of anything using a wide range of apps. CICs show their daily lives to the public, get audiences to join, make comments and buy coins to give gifts to the host. Moreover, users use various apps when they want to show themselves in different fields. For example, game players prefer to use douyu.com (Chinese : 斗鱼) along with other gamers, and it has become the "Game Internet Living Streaming". Another website is Miaopai.com, (Chinese : 秒拍视频 pinyin:miǎo pāi shì pín).a platform where people can share their daily lives in China.

Types of CICs

Three Types of CICs	Explanations	Examples
Text Internet Celebrity	People also use their articles or write comments on some specific issues, expressing their emotions to society. People can be followed people who support or object to their opinions.	1. Sicong Wang 2. Liu Jishou
Image-text Internet Celebrity	When the network entered the high speed period, there were plenty of people who become CIC because they posted many kinds of attractive pictures with editorials. Some people became CICs because they have good aesthetics on fashion, know how to match clothing in a pretty and popular way. Some people prefer to write travel blogs, where they introduce wonderful places with photos to attract other users to follow them.	1. The users on Weibo :旅游攻略君（Traveling guideline) 2. Gogoboi
Video Internet Celebrity	CICs prefer to create small video clips to show their comments on hot topics or to create a hot topic through their own video clips. Today CICs are the most popular celebrities in China.	1. Papi Jiang 2. Aikelili

How CICs Become Popular Through Chinese Social Media

Even though there are many types of social media in China, the most popular way to attract attention or connect with users is from the public is to post photographs, videos or messages on Sina Weibo because it is the most popular among Weibo products. Hence, many CICs are in vogue on Sina Weibo due to various reasons, such as, appearance, attitude, entertainment and thoughts in their blogs are aspects the audience hope to view online.

Beautiful Appearance

Recently, many people have become obsessed with beautiful faces and a skinny body. The majority are girls in age between 18-25 years old. They desire to have big eyes, a high straight nose, small mouth, on an oval face shape and be thin with slender curves. Many of them work as model for fashion magazines, like Vivi Magazine Chinese version, or storekeeper on Taobao (A Chinese website for online shopping similar to eBay.) In general, a model sometimes cannot get people’s attention if they are not already loyal readers of a particular magazine. But most models post their own pretty photographs with the latest fashions and daily lifestyles on Sina Weibo. They also need to use self-propaganda for a period of time, hoping to grow in popularity. For example, Dayi Zhang, who has become one of the most famous CICs. For storekeepers on Taobao, they usually work as the shop owner and the model to showcase their products simultaneously. Not every Taobao Storekeeper can be a CIC on Weibo. They need to have a sensitive sense on fashion to guide others. Internet users usually browse the CIC’s Taobao shop because they love the style showed on Weibo, bringing sales and profits to their on-line store and Sina Weibo.

Individual literacy or artistic talent

CICs can be multi-talented in a variety of fields, such as making music, being a punster, creating funny clips and teaching make-up artistry. In this way, CICs do not depend on their appearance to be famous.

'Papi Jiang and Professor Yi Xiaoxing are two of the most successful Chinese Internet Celebrities. Papi Jiang is her online moniker, her real name is Yilei Jiang and was born in Shanghai. She received her undergraduate degree and postgraduate degree from China’s Central Academy of Drama, which is one of the top five artistic universities in China. (The other four universities are Beijing Film Academy, Shanghai Theatre Academy, People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art and Beijing Dance Academy.) Her real work is an assistant director and actor in entertainment. She has over twenty million followers on Sina Weibo. The reason she become the famous CICs that she kept uploading originally funny or sarcastic videos through social media, especially Sina Weibo. She usually uses some ironic way to comment an event or phenomenon, internet users will think about after laughing. So, her videos always can strike a chord with other people. On April 1st 2016, Papi Jiang in total got financing for up to 12 million from four investors, including Zhen Fund, Logic Talk Show, Guang Yuan Zi ben and Xing Tu Zi Ben. Therefore, Papi Jiang is called “China’s No.1 Internet celebrity in 2016”.

Professor Yi Xiaoxing, with an online nickname, is also called Jiaoshou, is another CIC. His real name is Zhenxing Yi and he is a screenwriter and director. He is not very famous and did not have a huge number of fans before he directed his originally Internet Drama, Surprise S1(2013) and Surprise S2 (2014). Due to this success, he also directed a comedy with the same name Surprise in 2015. He gathered these actors together and registered a new media film company named UniMedia. This company is unique because the actors in his drama and film are not only actors but also screenwriters and directors in this company. The main character in Surprise named Bai(last name) Ke(first name), who originally work as a dubbing specialist and is famous for dubbing the Japanese Animation named Gag Manga Biyori by using a new interesting Chinese talking style. The young generation of Chinese enjoy imitating his talking style. Now, Mr. Bai work as a dubber and contract actor in UniMedia.

Influential Family Background

Some bosses of big companies have impacts on some fields in public, such as entertainment industry and business. One of the most famous celebrities on the web is called Sicong Wang, who is a Chinese businessman and the only son of Chinese tycoon. His father, Jianlin Wang[36] is a famous business man and the founders of Wanda Group, which is a Chinese multinational conglomerate corporation and the world’s biggest private property. Wanda Groups operates four major industries, including commercial property, luxury hotels, culture and tourism, and department stores, as well as having the largest film chain in the world. However, Sicong Wang did not enter the public consciousness based not only his good family background but also his ironic comments on events or other celebrities on Weibo. His speeches attract people to follow him and gradually he became a CIC. To date he has over twenty million followers on Sina Weibo. Although his real position is a business man and company director of Wanda Groups and other companies, he rarely discusses and updates messages on his business on the web. Because his influential family background and personality, Chinese Internet users jokingly call him "People's husband".

Keep updating and sharing information on a specific field.

Some people will focus on one particular area to open up their own “market” on the Internet, such as analyzing constellation, sharing travelling experiences, using acid tongue style to judging contestant and Writing Duanzi on the web (Duanzi is new Chinese Word “段子”, which means Chinese jokes. And the person who writes a lot Duanzi on-line can be called "Duanzishou".) Tongdao Dashu or Uncle Tongdao (Chinese : 同道大叔, Pinyin: tóng dào dà shū) is a CICs on Sina Weibo and have over 11 million followers, and he graduated from Academy of Arts & Design , Tsinghua University. He focuses on analyzing Western constellation and draws horoscope comics on Sina Weibo every day. He catches the young generation’s mentality, because a huge number of people believe Western astrology and always think they have the same personality. Moreover, his comics are really cute to attract a lot of girls to follow, and also have his own online store to sell these original cute characters’ products. In addition, he published his first comic book Know About Capricorns in 2015 and set up his own company with his friend in Shenzhen, China.

Liu Jishou, (Chinese: 留几手，Pinyin：jiú jǐ shǒu) is also a popular CICs through Sina Weibo since 2013, often being called Brother Hand by Weibo’s users, focusing on being a commentator on Weibo by using an acid tongue style of judging photographs and rating them. The majority of people do not get a high mark from his rating and even get negative points. He causes many people concern but has received over ten million followers on Weibo. Many people do not angry about a low score from him. They post some photos of themselves or friends and tag Liu Jishou to get some feedback on their performance because his comments are really interesting and attractive. In addition, there are two Chinese television stars involved in his ratings: One is He Chen, who is a popular actor; the other one is a Chinese television host Haitao Du. They all posted their own photos and hoped can get some comments and rating points by tagging Liu Jishou. As a result, He Chen got 0.5 point and Haitao Du got 0 point. Hence, people will appreciate being recognized if Brother Hand replies and comments on them. Hence, people will be very happy if Brother Hand replied and made some comments for them.

Becoming an Internet Celebrity by Accident

Some people do not become Internet Celebrities through self-propaganda. Sometimes their photos are uploaded by friends’ blogs or a photo show on coverage, such as “Milk Tea Sister”. Milk Tea Sister’s real name is Zetian Zhang (born in 1993), who is the wife of Qiangdong Liu (Chinese Internet entrepreneur, the founder of JD.com or Jingdong Mall, one of the leading e-commerce industry leaders in China.) The photo that led her to become a CIC was just a normal photo taken by her high school classmates when they needed to divide into different class in the last year of high school. Miss Zhang is holding a cup of milk tea and has a sweet smile in this photo, that became popular through Internet reproduction in 2009. In this way she became a CIC by accident and people start to follow her status. She graduated from Tsinghua University in June 2015 and married with Qiangdong Liu in October 2015.

Effects from Internet Celebrities in China

Negative Effects

First of all, there is a new word called “Wang Hong Face” means features of CICs’ faces, especially for girls. The ideal appearance includes big eyes, long nose, small face and long hair with a slim figure. Many young girls want to have the ideal “Wang Hong face” and do the cosmetic operation costing $15,000 approximately. As a consequence, the younger generation may lose their own characteristics and undertake a risk with the surgical procedure. Nonetheless, it appears CICs are able to earn a great deal of profits due to their popularity by getting investments from major companies, such as in Papi Jiang’s experience. At last, a group of people may hype themselves up with some exaggerated information to get people concerned, which is not good for society.

Positive Effects

Internet celebrities can use their popularity to bring some profits in business market. As the Chinese live-streaming phenomenon is concerned, the reason it continues to be so incredibly popular is because all of the Chinese live-streaming platforms allow users to buy tokens or coins that they can use to purchase virtual gifts for the host of the live stream. Buying coins can bring numerous advantages to the business market, especially for the Internet celebrities who have high calling to action. Furthermore, it enhances the development of Internet We-Media and new media in China. Another positive effect for business operation is called “Wang Hong Style”, which means a design of clothes or any other products are wear by some celebrities or Internet Celebrities become popular on the web. Then, people will purchase exactly the same style of productions because of Celebrity Effect. Hence, it will increase the quantity of sale and get good profits from this phenomenon.

Internet celebrities and business operations

Internet celebrities' economy has been enhanced gradually. Because CICs have certain calling of action and popularity, some companies will pay them to ask for making advertisement for their productions.. With the development and wide spread of the internet, the influence of famous and popular Internet celebrities is no worse than real celebrities. There is a large group of followers for traditional celebrities on TV or the big screen. However, Internet celebrities can make a commercial promotion which is easier than showing advertisements on the television or big screen. They just need to talk about the product while playing live-streaming or making funny short videos on-line.

Internet Celebrities Become Real Celebrity

Advertising agencies or film companies can sign a contract with some popular Internet celebrities and train them to be a real celebrity. Then they can appear in variety shows and perform in the drama and films. One example for that is Sister Furong, real name is Hengxia Shi (1977), who was born in Shanxi Province. She became famous because of her photographs with a special pose. Internet users used to make fun of her photos and then that spread through BBS in China in 2005. Later, some companies and media became interested in her, tried to contact her and conduct business with her. Hence, she became a real celebrity gradually and came out with her own songs and acting in drama.

Famous Internet celebrities in China

• Furong Jiejie This is her nickname and she is better known under this name. Her official name is Shi Hengxia (simplified Chinese: 史恒侠; traditional Chinese: 史恆俠; pinyin: Shǐ Héngxiá, born 1977). She is famous for her many photos with strange pose.

• Luo Yufeng (Chinese: 羅玉鳳/罗玉凤; pinyin: luó yùfèng) (or Yufeng Luo / Luo Yufeng, born in 1985) People are used to call her "Sister Feng" (Chinese : 凤姐） She was famous for her high requirement of choose husband and show on-line. There was a group to help her make big coverages in the public, and now she lives in America as a normal worker.

• Papi Jiang , her real name is Yilei Jiang (Chinese: 姜逸磊， Pinyin：Jiāng yì lěi）and was born in Shanghai. She is famous for her funny video and comments on the Sina Weibo. Papi Jiang is the most popular and successful Chinese Internet celebrity in 2016 because of her popularity and investment by companies.

• Small Number for Memory (Chinese: 回忆专用小马甲，pinyin：huí yì zhuān yòng xiǎo mǎ jiǎ), who is a popular micro-blogger on Sina Weibo. He lives in Shenzhen with his lovely dog named Niuniu and Scottish Cat named Duanwu. He posts plenty of cute photos of them and attracts huge number of followers on Sina Weibo, Which is over 27 million

• Milk Tea Sister, (Chinese: 奶茶妹妹 and her real name is Zetian Zhang, Chinese: 章泽天, Pinyin：zhāng zé tiān) who became famous with her daily life photograph by accident. Now, she is the wife of Qiangdong Liu who is the founder of JD.com and Jingling mall, and they already have their first baby.

• Liu jishou (Chinese: 留几手，Pinyin：jiú jǐ shǒu), who makes comments on people's photo and rates them by marks. He usually gives a very low point to others.

• Tong Dao Da Shu (Chinese : 同道大叔, Pinyin: tóng dào dà shū), is famous for his analyzing Western astrology by using funny way and cute comics. He has over 11 million followers on Sina Weibo.

• Sicong Wang (Chinese: 王思聪， Pinyin：wáng sī cōng), is the son of richest entrepreneur in China. He is not only famous for his family background but also his acid tongue style of judging other celebrities.

• Dayi Zhang (Chinese: 张大亦，Pinyin: zhāng dà yì), is a still model for magazine and she became popular because of her beautiful appearance and fashion sense. .

• Professor Yi Xiaoxing (Chinese: 叫兽易小星，Pinyin：jiào shòu yì xiǎo xīng), is a director and screenwriter. He directed his famous series named Surprise, and finally made it into a film in 2015. .

• Yanlan Mu (Chinese： 穆雅斓， Pinyin：mù yǎ lán ), is a former model and became popular because of her funny videos posted with her exaggerate performances on the Sina Weibo.

• Aikelili (Chinese: 艾克里里， Pinyin：ài kè lǐ lǐ), is a professional photographers. He became popular because he was always posting his funny clips with a very special and exaggerate make-up on Weibo.

• Gogoboi, is a famous fashion bloggers in China.

• Talented Little Panda （Chinese: 天才小熊猫，pinyin: tiān cái xiǎo xióng māo), is a talented commercial punster. He has made numerous popular commercials because of his humorous words. He

has over 6 million followers on Sina Weibo.

• Gossip_I'm too innocent (Chinese: 八卦_我实在是太cj了, pinyin: bā guà_wǒ shí zài shì tài cj lě), is famous for sharp and interesting comments on hot and popular news, and he works as a moderator in Tianya Club. He also is a contract we media on Sina Weibo and has over 9 million followers.