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The Evolution of Internet Celebrities Within Decades in China

—A Semiological Analysis of the Self-representation

         With the time went by, the style of how Internet celebrities promote themselves in China is changing and the evolution stands for the development of the society and Internet. However, what does being an Internet celebrity mean? In some cases, Internet celebrities are a set of people those do interesting or unique writing such as novels and journals on their weblogs. These writers write with the intent to attract audience attention and develop a distinctive personality in order to rise to fame from the substantial content of their writings. At the same time, there are other people inclined to take an exaggerated selfie which uses arrogant behavior to gain attention from the audience. While in other cases, they might be the ones whose rise to fame through live video streaming, new articles, and jokes. As mentioned above, the ways of Internet celebrities to become famous in China has an intimate relationship with the internet, which can consist of three generations: text era, graphics era, and media era; meanwhile, the evolution is a cultural phenomenon influenced by the social media environment, the psychological need of the netizens, and the Internet pushers.

       In this paper, semiology will help to indicate that largest amount of the female Internet celebrities are rise to fame relying on their outstanding and distinctive appearance in today’s society. While the majority of the male Internet celebrities are famous because of their talent, there is still a small percentage built their base upon their appearance. To further investigate this phenomenon, there are two images from text era and four images from both graphic and video era, ten photos in total will be discussed. The main focus will be on the site of the image itself,  there are various kinds of images can be the data source. For instance, the digital images can be the novel from Han Han, images of the dressed up of currently popular Internet celebrities, screenshots of Internet celebrities doing video streaming along with images of the Internet celebrities with nice makeup and so forth. Besides, production and technology are used to dig deeper into the topic. As both production and technology gave an excellent contribution on Internet Celebrities’ rise to fame due to their reliance on social networking software or applications such as Sina Weibo, YiZhiBo, Doujin and all that.

Internet celebrity in China starts up with text

             During the texting era, the representative personage of Internet celebrities is Annie Baby, Guo Jingming, and Han Han. These writers post novels on the Internet influenced a lot of netizens at that generation and become models for the young generation of Chinese writers who march on the global commercial publishing market. Their fame is accounted mostly due to their works being urban romance novels which are different from the traditional ones. Their works are more focused on emotional entanglements which are tormenting, insinuating the utility of the society, revealing the opposite side in life; these elements give the audience a brand new feeling. At the same time, their early works published as “network literature”, which does not cost too much and are convenient to obtain and read, got a wider spread amongst young people.               Annie Baby as an example, she gained a nickname “Flower in the Dark” from her readers since most of her novels are about love with the themes of loneliness, isolation, and there are several representatives works as Figure 1 show. The titles of novels are Goodbye Vivian, Rosa Island, The Flower across the Bank, The Monsoon will not Come Again and Cry me a Sad River which can literally bring the feeling of sorrow in their readers. Through using keywords such as “goodbye”,“cry”,“sad” and so forth, these help conveying messages of mawkishness, farewell, and disappointment. The words that Annie Baby wrote can be a sign, which are the combination of characters to create a new meanings and deliver the writer’s mental and emotional ideas to the audiences, since semiology considers everything that can be taken as a sign, which not only refers to our everyday speech but also everything that will stand for something else(Maulana, 2010).

Figure 1: Works collection from Annie Baby

          Annie Baby, Guo Jingming, and Han Han use written text to create a new structure and produce love stories based on their own feelings to resonate with the audience who have the same experience; these structures are also meant to attract an audience to look deeper into the novels and cause them wanting to gain more from it. At the same time, many young teenagers lack experience and cognition toward life and love, hence making the unique storytelling in Annie Baby, Guo Jingming, and Han Han’s novels a catalyst to arise their curiosity. For instance, in Figure 2, the introduction of Goodbye Vivian has mentioned about “we can only read the loneliness in the same position as loneliness. This is only an age of farewell. We are plunged at the beginning of a new life. But where is the new beginning? There is a dark without dawn”. This passage describes life in a sad but beautiful way; nowadays, people are busy working, living a hurried life and ignoring the meaning of life, forgetting about enjoying life and how to be happy. People live as a machine with a lonely heart. Also, during that time, because of the prevalence of melancholy among young people, Annie Baby’s novels can make them feel as if they are being understood by someone else, which led more and more people to chase after these novels.

Figure 2: The introduction of Goodbye Vivian’s content 

            In a phrase, at the very beginning, Internet celebrity in China are Internet novelists and they become famous for their talent on writing, these writers gave deep impressions and arouse sympathy to their audiences. However, with the passage of time, the role of Internet celebrity has changed and the manner of them to cause audience’s attention has changed.

Exaggerated selfie promotes the development of Internet celebrity

         In the graphics era, people rely on exaggerating and hideous photos to become the focus of attention, the iconic celebrities of this era consists of people such as Furong Jiejie and Feng Jie. According to Louise Edwards and Elaine Jeffrey Celebrity in China 2010 paper, Furong Jiejie is a self-promoter who deliberately uses censorship and controversy as means to heighten her celebrity. She used the Chinese Internet censorship to help her build up the mutinous and dissident personality, enhanced the personal marketing based on the potential of the Internet. For instance, in Figure 3, the main object is Furong Jiejie who lies in bed with a red quilt and fluffy pillow, shows her arm and even her bare shoulder, looking at the camera with a bright and charming simile. She took the photo in the bed with confidence and tender smile as if she is seducing men and conveying erotic messages. Through showing the arm and bare shoulder, she tends to lead others to wonder that if she might be nude in bed. Comparing Furong’s selfie with Chinese famous actress Has Chan’s selfie, where Chan is dressed in a sweater, sitting in a dignified posture courtly with a gentle smile; Furong Jiejie will be judged as too exposed and unscrupulous in such a conservative social ethos back in the early 2000s. Furong Jiejie may want to get noticed by the opposite sex through taking sexy pictures; she as the main subject in the picture, her body language as well as the facial expression convey the message that she is confident and feels very satisfied with herself, these factors often causes heated discussion and receive critique and ridicule from netizens, and is considered as shameless and strange. 

Figure 3: Selfies from Furong Jiejie (up) and Has Chan (bottom)

          Except for Furong Jiejie, Feng Jie is another representative person during graphics generation, one of the reasons of her rise to fame is due to her picture processing skills on the selfies such as Figure 4 and Figure 5. Feng always feels proud of her appearance. The comparison between two pictures reveals that with the development of technology, the skill of picture processing becomes more and more popular. The technology is becoming a usual tool for Internet celebrity to cover up their tracks and use the fake photo to “cheat” on the Internet since more and more applications come up with multiple convenient functions to add a filter on photos, this also provides much more ways to let people repackage themselves. For instance, when compared to Figure 4, Feng Jie’s eyes look bigger, her skin looks smoother and the shape of the face looks better in Figure 5. Besides, in Figure 4, Feng Jie is shown with a darker skin color since the tone of the image is warm with reminiscence; while in Figure 5, Feng Jie’s skin color turns lighter and white since Figure 5 is edited with a filter to make the contrast lesser, this makes Feng Jie look purer. Furthermore, in Figure 5, Feng Jie gets her bang-up with a little red bow to make her look younger comparing to Figure 4, which is meant to seem more charming for the male audience.

Figure 4: Feng Jie’s selfie without picture processing

Figure 5: Feng Jie’s selfie with picture processing  

            Both Furong Jiejie and Feng Jie’s rise to fame thanks to their outstanding appearance which is the opposite side of beauty, they are famous because of the overconfidence in their looks. Feng Jie “tricks” her audiences by using the photo processing skills excessively while Furong Jiejie focuses on using the exaggerated and swank post.

Nowadays, Internet Celebrity put most focus on video

             In the age of new media, a wider platform has provided the new generation of Internet Celebrities to get famous relying on live streaming or shoot quit mode videos on the application, while other Internet celebrities rely on the support from fans and followers to become more unique and success on the Internet. In recent times, Internet celebrity’s average of age is shifting towards young people born in the 90s and 00s, most of them become famous relying on their beautiful looks, showcasing dancing or singing skill, makeup tutorial and skin care products promotion, and comedic content on the network. The following paragraphs are going to discuss the Internet celebrity on a popular application called DouYin.             Figure 6 as an example, the young man in the photo is called Xinyao Zhang who becomes famous and gaining a lot of female fans through his handsome face as well as his dancing skills. In this screenshot of his dancing video, he is wearing a trendy and stylish hip-hop outfit, while putting his hand on his chest, looking down with a serious face. Zhang’s dressing is widely considered cool and is similar to American hip-hop style, the current tendency shows that most of the male teenager is keen on following European and American fashion; Xinyao Zhang is one of them but along with dancing specialties, this makes him become unique in such large amount of Internet celebrities. As the photo shown, he gained 188.2k likes from his fans and netizens. 188.2k likes is a huge number compared to any other Internet celebrities’ fan base. At the bottom of the interface, there is a comment zone which fans or netizens can write down their feelings. There is a column showing which songs he is dancing to, this will also help bring popularity to the song itself. DouYin has become the medium for Xinyao Zhang to promote himself to gain rewards and sponsors. Due to him acquiring a huge number of fans, he becomes one of the spokespersons of DouYin application, which helps the company to grow its popularity and gaining wider development. 

Figure 6: A dancing video screenshot from Xinyao Zhang

Figure 7: A dancing video screenshot from Boogie93

               In Figure 7, Boogie is another representative person who is famous based on his amazing dancing skills. The photo is the screenshot of his dancing video, which he is performing a style of dancing called “old school popping” with his friend. Boogie added the tag of “popping” which will allow more netizens to notice his video if they were searching for the keyword. At the bottom, there too similarly to Zhang’s live feed, is a column showing that the song they dance to, is SnoopDoggyDogg, this again helps with promoting the song although them not being the creator or distributor of the song. The background behind boogie and his friend is an empty living room and the camera shot from a low angle, which lack professionalism comparing to the video from Xinyao Zhang. Boogie’s video only gets 17.5k likes which is a much smaller number compared to Xinyao Zhang’s video, one of the reason of this happening maybe be because of the outfit of Boogie and his friend is not fashionable enough and cannot catch the female audience’s attention successfully, or maybe the whole style of the video lack of specialness to attractive the audience’s focus.

Figure 8: A video screenshot from XiaMuChunGuang with makeup 

             In Figure 8, the young lady with the screen name XiaMuChunGuang looks cool and unique in the photo due to her wearing sunglasses, rings, and necklaces in black Jeans jacket. The background color is black and the extremely white lighting form a great contrast strengthening the mental aura. Besides, she is wearing the make-up with the American style, this is the key in catching audiences’ attention since the makeup is unique and her ethnicity hence giving the audience a deep impression. A strong mental aura is charming for many men in today’s society; while at the same time, she also attracts female groups with her excellent makeup skills and the clothing style, which will cause other adore and imitate.

Figure 9: A video screenshot form Qian Yi Jiejie doing makeup 

              In Figure 9, the screen name of the young lady is QianYi Jiejie, and the photo is the screenshot of her doing makeup. As shown in the photo, she looks beautiful with big eyes and pretty face, she is wearing two dolls on the head which makes her look cute and younger, with the caption “the importance of makeup, haha”. Qian Yi Jiejie’s pure and innocent style make young ladies have the tendency to want to learn her style of makeup. In her hand, Qian Yi Jiejie is holding a lipstick, which is a way to promote various kinds of cosmetic brands through her video. The fans of QianYi Jiejie may follow her “advice” and buy the same cosmetic brands in the future.            All in all, as the four images which have been analyzed above, most of the current male Internet celebrity are famous for their talents and skills such as dancing, singing and so forth. On the contrary, most of the female Internet celebrity still rely on their appearance to catch other’s attention. This often requires the need to use makeup as a tool to create watching points and convey different impressions. 

The diversification of live-streaming applications

             Nowadays in Chinese society, everyone can become famous, have fans, and earn money through the platform of network video broadcast which is the widespread phenomenon in China and showing a rising tendency. Here is the question of why people want to be Internet celebrities, how they can become Internet celebrities and what causes it to become a widespread phenomenon in China. Because of the innovation and development in social media, there are many new and attractive applications produced, and they can be a tool for people to do self-promotion and some of the application can be used to earn money through doing live video streaming and it also can provide a platform for self-employed. There are so many applications such as Hua Jia and YiZhizBo which are for live streaming, and many social media such as Sina Weibo also come up with a new function to let users do live streaming. Since the applications are free and everyone can get one, and many people want to become the focus of attention, which pushes the development of Internet celebrity’s rising.  

              In conclusion, Chinese Internet celebrity started up with the novels and the writings which touch the audience’s mind emotionally, to make the audience look forward on their work and gain much more fans as well as readers. While during the graphics era, people begin to use various kinds of selfies to attract other’s attention to lead themselves become the major focus, but the phenomenon did not last very long. At last, in the recent time, being an Internet celebrity is a common and popular phenomenon in Chinese society which also promote new media’s development and the multimedia economy.

Reference

Edwards, L. & Jeffreys, E. (2010). Celebrity in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong    

        University Press. ISBN 978-9-622-09088-0.

Jeffreys, E. & Jian, Xu (2017). Celebrity-inspired, Fan-driven: Doing 

        Philanthropy  through Social Media in Mainland China, Asian Studies 

        Review. (pp 244-262). (2017, 19 Mar) DOI 

        10.1080/10357823.2017.1294145

Maulana, M. (2010). A Semiotic Analysis of the Novel “The Five People You 

        Meet in Heaven”. Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta.