Source: Time Weekly Author: Li Hang
"People are helpless in the wind, people are in the rain, people are drifting in the years of love, you and I can't start again, can't stay, can't resist the fate." The sad lyrics, coupled with the voice of men's vicissitudes, hook up the resonance of countless people buried in their hearts, but also sing about the hardships of life and the helplessness of life.
In May of this year, Guo Youcai, "Brother Heze Tree", became popular on the Internet with a cover song "Promise". Some netizens commented that "Ibuprofen could not stop his pain when he sang, which was too high."
On the dithering platform, its fans rose from 190000 to 4.52 million in just five days. As of May 23, Guo Youcai has reached 12.464 million fans on his Diaoyin account and 3.106 million people like his representative work Promise.
Guo Youcai, the protagonist of the story, has recently joined a local MCN (multi-channel network) organization in Heze, Shandong Province, as confirmed by the interface news. There is a rumor that according to Entertainment Capital, Guo Youcai's signing fee is up to 50 million yuan.
In addition, the Heze South Station, where Guo Youcai often broadcast live, also became popular. A large number of tourists and anchors poured in from all over the country. They gathered in the square in front of the station, or gave live performances, or punched cards to take photos, making the originally quiet South Railway Station lively.
The live broadcast place of Guo Youcai -- Heze South Railway Station
As the heat continued to rise, the "pause button" was pressed.
On May 20, Heze South Railway Station issued a notice: "In view of the concentration of spring college entrance examination, summer college entrance examination, high school entrance examination and other examinations from May to July 2024, and the school near Heze South Railway Station has test stations. In order to create a good learning, living and examination environment for the majority of examinees, Heze South Railway Station will no longer hold various cultural and entertainment activities."
Heze South Railway Station chose to take the initiative to "reduce fever", but the fever of Guo Youcai and Heze continues.
According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, at about 11:00 am on May 21, Guo Youcai's live broadcast room saw more than 900000 people online, and the carnival continued to be painted and cheered.
In the video shot by local people, at 21:00 pm, Guo Youcai's new live broadcast location - Heze National Flower Expo Park Square is still crowded. Many netizens from all over the country worked hard to perform in front of the camera, and a large number of audiences gathered around them. Although it was lively, it was seen by others as a "dance of demons".
At 10 o'clock on the morning of May 22, Guo Youcai appeared in the square of Heze National Flower Expo Park on time, surrounded by audiences on the third floor inside and the third floor outside.
Live broadcast by Guo Youcai on May 22 Source: online video screenshot
At the end of the live broadcast, Guo Youcai announced that he would stop broadcasting for three days. "Please take a leave of absence from your brothers and sisters to rest your voice and present yourself to everyone later."
It seems that Guo Youcai, who was selected by traffic, needs time to think about his future. For Heze, personal flow will rush Heze to the table, which is also a big test.
Five million fans rose in three days. Is Guo Youcai really "inspirational"?
Before becoming popular, Guo Youcai had been making videos for nearly seven years.
In 2017, Guo Youcai's account was also called "Guo Youcai (carry forward Heze Step)", and he said the lines of "Heze Road is lined up, only the male god Guo Youcai", in line with the pace of the external eight characters. The content of the entire video is no different from a large number of local flavor videos on the Internet.
In 2022, Guo Youcai began to change the number to broadcast live and shoot funny jokes. He gained attention in the contest with another popular online player, Lianmai, because of the cover of "True Love You". However, the account could not continue to operate due to the dispute over goods.
Xiaoyu, a Heze native, recalled that before the explosion, she had seen Guo Youcai in some videos of Heze local Internet celebrities, but he was not famous at that time, and most people had fun watching him.
By 2023, Guo Youcai has registered a new dithering account, re tried live singing, focusing on nostalgia.
But at that time, he was just an ordinary anchor in the network world. In the live broadcast before he became famous, he combed his big back hair, wore his trademark suit and trousers, wore black gloves, and sang the same song "Promise".
At that time, there was no one around him, just a person singing to his mobile phone. The security brother poked him to move the car. He made an OK gesture and continued to sing the whole song.
As time went by, his singing gradually attracted more and more audiences. People were attracted by his voice and moved by his inspirational stories. In this way, Guo Youcai's name began to be uploaded on the Internet.
The sudden arrival of traffic changed Guo Youcai's life.
The reporter of Time Weekly inquired about Feigua data and found that on May 1, the number of Guo Youcai's fans reached 100000, and then his number of fans showed an explosive growth. On May 7, his number of dithering fans exceeded 300000, increased to 1 million on May 11, reached 5 million on May 16, and exceeded 10 million on May 19. As of press release, the number of his dithering fans has reached 12.464 million. In other words, the number of his fans increased by 12.364 million in 22 days.
Guo Youcai's going out of the circle also brought fire to his live broadcast site - Heze South Station.
Xiao Yu told the Times Weekly that Heze South Railway Station had been out of service as early as 2001, and only freight trains have passed by now. Before Guo Youcai's explosion, the station square was dark at night, without street lights, and few people would go there at night. However, Guo Youcai's "Promise" made the abandoned Heze South Railway Station popular, making it a "popular online card punching place".
Xiaoyu said that when she passed the South Railway Station on May 9, she had seen the police maintaining order near the square. When she went to the South Railway Station for a walk around 9 p.m. on May 11, she saw about six anchors broadcast live in the square, and many people gathered around. About three or four days later, when she passes the South Railway Station by car in the morning and evening, there will be traffic jams, ranging from half an hour to one hour, which will lead to "life doubt".
The heat gradually spread to the whole city. According to the data of Diaoyin Life Service, from May 10 to May 12, orders for Diaoyin Life Service in Heze increased by 215% over last year. According to the Hangzhou Daily, before May 17, more than 400000 people will pour into the square of Heze South Railway Station every day to listen to Guo Youcai singing.
However, the official intervention interrupted all this.
On May 17, Guo Youcai was employed as the recommendation officer of cultural tourism in Heze City. On the same day, Guo Youcai announced that the live broadcast venue would be changed in the next three days, so as not to affect students taking the spring college entrance examination.
On May 20, Heze South Railway Station announced again: "In view of the concentration of spring college entrance examination, summer college entrance examination, high school entrance examination and other examinations in May July 2024, and the school near Heze South Railway Station has test stations. In order to create a good learning, living and examination environment for the majority of examinees, Heze South Railway Station will no longer hold various cultural and entertainment activities."
After that, Guo Youcai's live broadcast site was transferred to Heze National Flower Expo Park. So far, after 240 hours of madness, Heze South Station became quiet again, and only a few people would take photos or record a video card.
However, a dispute concerning flow and aesthetics began to spread.
A man with fire is a city, and then what?
In recent years, the story of a man with a fire and a city has occurred from time to time in China.
In 2020, Ding Zhen, a Tibetan youth, quickly became popular on the Internet with a short video of only 7 seconds. Ding Zhen's clean and innocent smile in the video was wildly sought after by many netizens, and was praised by major official media successively, becoming a phenomenal online celebrity.
Ding Zhen's popularity also brought his hometown, Litang County, Ganzi, Sichuan, which is 4000 meters above sea level, into the spotlight. In the past, Litang was poor and backward. Although it had a fairyland like scenery, it was not well known because of the inconvenient transportation. After Ding Zhen came out of the circle, Litang not only became a popular online city, but also developed its economy to a certain extent.
In March this year, Wang Po, a matchmaker in the Wuxia City Scenic Area of Wansui Mountain, brought fire to Kaifeng, Henan Province with her own strength. After Wang Po left the circle, Kaifeng's tourism fever continued to rise, becoming a popular tourist city in Henan during the May Day holiday.
But after a little discrimination, it will be found that the cities like Ganzi Litang, Harbin, Zibo and other cities have physical scenery, ice and snow culture, and even food. But since then, Wang Po and Guo Youcai have separated from the entity, dried up into pure traffic, and can almost be regarded as offline online carnival.
Online celebrities gathered at Heze South Railway Station
The artist Andy Warhol once asserted that "in the future society, everyone can achieve success in 15 minutes." In the Internet era, this time will be compressed to even shorter. However, there are more and more cities going out of the circle, and the speed of going out of the circle is getting faster and faster, but the duration of the heat is getting shorter and shorter.
In fact, for cities, what is needed is not the chance to get out of the circle in 15 minutes, but long-term and benign development.
Sixin, a brand marketing expert, believes that nowadays, for local cultural tourism, the flow blowout brought by the popularity of IP has developed from the initial stage of rapid response and follow-up, public service support, and point to area guidance to the fine operation stage of how to take advantage of the flow aggregation effect, how to continue the flow retention, and how to create new quality cultural tourism productivity.
Si Xin said that in the face of the phenomenon that IP has led the way for three to five weeks, the culture and tourism department should abandon the lazy thinking of being eager for quick success and waiting for the hare. While embracing changes, it should also systematically plan and design regional cultural and tourism advantages, and thus should attach importance to data elements such as platform algorithms, so as to enjoy the new dividends of culture and tourism.
Because of this, Heze took the initiative to stop the recreational activities of Heze South Station. At this moment, people began to question whether the Promise sung by Guo Youcai infringed. Later, people began to discuss whether the out of control traffic would bite back at the city.
After Guo Youcai's explosion, the "chaos of demons" in front of Heze South Railway Station caused netizens to question. Source: online video screenshot
On May 22, Guo Youcai asked for leave from the audience at the end of the live broadcast, saying that he wanted to rest his voice and meet everyone in a better state in the future.
Three days later, no one knows what kind of heat Guo Youcai can maintain. Whether Heze can become a popular tourist destination with Guo Youcai will not be known until the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival holiday.
