With so many schools setting up to teach social media celebrity. Are they simply selling an unrealistic dream?
After she finished applying lipstick, she adjusted the tripod and looked at the good makeup in the camera. Chang Liu felt that today’s live broadcast can begin. Chang Liu is a Shandong girl born in 1999. She looks beautiful and has a very cheerful personality, and her currently occupation is a social media celebrity.
After graduating from high school, she came to the big city and began her working life. In the past few years, she has tried various jobs, such as a waiter in a restaurant and selling clothes at a mall. Because of Chang Liu lack of academic qualifications, she could not find a stable and well-paid job. An occasional opportunity allowed her to see the recruitment advertisement of social media celebrity training company.
“The content of the job advertisement is very attractive. ‘short training time’, ‘fast fame’ and ‘make more money’ are really make me feel excited. In addition, the company does not require academic qualifications, only need interviewer beautiful and cheerful,” said Chang.
Under the creation of social media celebrity training company, Chang Liu easily attracted 10,000 followers in just one month. This seems to be a very successful start, but it is still far from the goal set by the company.
“After just a few days of training, I needed to start practicing. I did have a lot of fans at the beginning, but it was difficult to meet the requirements of the company,” explains Chang. “The company has different requirements for everyone. If you can’t meet the standard within three months, you will not only fail to get the salary he promised, but also be terminated. I will expire in a month, and now I am under a lot of pressure,” said Chang.
Actually, most of social celebrity training schools only teach for a month or even a week. After the training, they must enter the three-month trial period immediately. Because a social media celebrity growth cycle is only three months at most. If they fail to meet the company’s profitability standards during the probation period, these young people will not only not get the high salary they want, but also be terminated.
“The end of training is not equal to fame. If young people want to be famous, they must rely on the support of followers and the packaging of the company,” said Deming Meng, an expert of social media celebrity economic research institute.
According to The Times, in the past two years, live streaming has accumulated 350 million loyal viewers in China, with more than 300 companies offering live streaming services and an annual value of nearly 3 billion pounds.
Live streaming isn’t only benefit to social media celebrities or influencers. However, China’s social media celebrities uses it as a way of working, attracting a large number of followers by live streaming makeup, chat and video games.
For social media celebrity, followers are very important. The number of followers and the support of followers determines whether a social media celebrity can be successful. Nowadays, China’s development is extremely rapid, and the preferences of the Internet and followers will change every three months. Therefore, for young people who want to become famous online, it is a great challenge to attract a large number of audiences and turn them into their loyal followers in just three months. On the contrary, if they fail to grasp the golden age, they might be end up with failure.
“For a social media celebrity, when no one remembers her, she will lose everything,” said Yang Wang, the manager of of Nanjing BaiHang entertainment training company. “Some responsible training companies will help social media celebrities adjust their working hours and work content according to the current audience’s preferences, so as to ensure that they can continue to attract more followers,” said Yang.
Currently, social media celebrity training company is divided into two business models, the first is to train an ordinary person into a social media celebrity, the second is to help the well known celebrity continue to develop and form a cooperative relationship. In a literal sense, these two ways can help young people realize their dreams. However, the chances of becoming a million dollar social media celebrity are slim, and most of social media celebrity training companies are taking advantage of the aspirations of young people as well as sell unrealistic dreams to them.
“However, the number of social media celebrity that can successfully earn millions of dollars is still very small. What’s more, some training schools, which only want to make money, will recruit a large number of young people at the same time, but there is no guarantee that everyone will receive efficient training,” said Yang.
In fact, training social media celebrities is a difficult process. It is even harder to be a super social media celebrity with millions of years.
First of all, the tuition fees of social media training company are amazingly high. The one month training course fee is up to 10,000 yuan per student. Moreover, many social media training companies will use the super celebrities who graduated from them as an advertisement to attract more young people. The so-called super social media red, like Dayi Zhang, which can earn an annual income was $46 million, even more than American reality TV show star Kim Kardashian.
“I paid my tuition to train and my goal was to become super social media celebrity. If I don’t pass my probation, even my tuition will be wasted.” said Chang.
With the rapid development of the society, the speed of people to a new thing is also accelerated. This means that if a social media celebrity doesn’t attract enough followers in a certain period of time, they will be ignored.
There is an ancient Chinese poem: ‘As in the Yangtze River waves urge waves, so the younger generation excels the older generation’, it means that people and things are changing all the time, and if they fail or don’t work hard, they will be replaced.
“For a social media celebrity, not passing the a period of probation a failure. It also means they won’t bring any benefits to company,” explains Yang. “These companies will not spend any more money on any unprofitable social media celebrity,” said Yang.
Secondly, the training process is not as easy and enjoyable as young people imagine.
Nowadays, in order to attract more young people to sign up, many social media celebrity training schools often post false advertisements such as ‘social media celebrity can be made in 3 to 6 hours’ and ‘earn millions a month is not a dream’. However, the reputation of social media celebrity must rely on their own skills and charm.
“An original person who wants to earn more than 10,000 yuan a month, they must be active on social media platforms for more than eight hours a day as well as stick to it for at least three months. This means that if young people want to be a successful social media celebrity, they need spend 720 hours of preparation,” said Xiaotong Luo, director of Sichuan social media training company.
According to the data of New Blue shows that a professional live streaming social media celebrity works more than eight hours a day. Except for the regular working hours every day, they need two to three hours to prepare their work, such as setting up scenes and debugging equipment. In addition, they not only need to use their spare time to interact with followers, but also need to constantly learn new knowledge to cater to the changing preferences of audiences. Some super social media celebrities have more work stress and hours than traditional workers.
“It is too different from what I expected. Before I was trained, I thought social media celebrity was make-up and posing in front of the camera, and then people can earn a lot of money,” explains Jing. “While, it is very hard, because we not only have to practice basic skills every day, but also need to spend a lot of time being active on the Internet. Many of my friends who train with me have given up, ” said Jing.
Moreover, in order to achieve better visual effects and attract more fans, some Internet celebrities will make mufti-directional investment, such as changing more professional electronic equipment, buying beautiful clothes or even plastic surgery. While, the effect is not as perfect as expected.
“The training company will cooperate with plastic surgery hospitals, we will be arranged to the same hospital for surgery,” said Zi Yan, attended training course but failed. “My wound was very painful after the anesthetic failed. I thought I would have a nice nose after the surgery, but when I healed, I wasn’t very happy with it,” said Zi.
These training companies just seized the eager desire of young people to be famous online. Moreover, almost all of the social media celebrities show their best in front of followers, such as traveling in luxury brands, eating, and drinking afternoon tea.
“The development of the times has brought us a lot of benefits, but also a lot of troubles. Compared with the past, the present life atmosphere is very impetuous. Many young people are attracted to the ‘fake life’ of social media celebrity, which is horrible, ” said Qinghui Li, Professor of the Political and Education Department of Jinan Business School.
Thirdly, the cost of cultivating a social media celebrity is too high, which requires at least 1 million yuan a year.
Currently, more and more people start to try this career, but not all of them have the talent and chance to become a success social media celebrity. Some large companies might be guarantee the quality of training for each young people, while some small companies focus on cultivating social media celebrity with potential and future, because companies not only need to make a profit, but they also have a limited number of employees.
“A social media celebrity standard team is at least ten people, including a clothing supervisor, three designers, two assistants, a makeup artist, two cameras, and a new media operator. If celebrities does not bring benefits to the company in a short time, these people will be abandoned by the company soon,” said Xiaotong.
According to a report by Tencent News, the proportion of super social media with a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan is only 5%. However, the proportion of ordinary social media celebrity with a monthly income of less than 10,000 yuan is as high as 95%.
“In the past three years, I have trained many young people, although I have also cultivated millions of super social media celebrities. However, the most common problems I encounter are young people who have failed in training, because the chances of success are slim and even there should be only one successful social media celebrity in every hundred people. For example, using the same training model for two young people with similar looks, while the result is one people can earn 100,000 yuan per month and another one just earn less than 3,000 yuan per month,” said Xiaotong Luo.
Unconsciously, Chang Liu’ s live streaming is almost over, and fatigue was beginning to show on her face. She may rely on her own efforts to complete the goal that the company has set for her in the final deadline, but it may also fail. In the face of an uncertain future, she can only work hard.
“A successful social media celebrity is difficult to replicate. Therefore, young people who want to be famous online cannot believe social media celebrity training company easily. This sudden rise of industry is often illusory. The result of high investment is likely to be that they sell an unrealistic dreams,” said Qinghui.
