Abstract:
On September 12, Luo Yonghao ate a piece of Mr. Savage ice cream at the airport, and then posted on Weibo: "The famous Mr. Savage is very average. Considering the price, it can even be said to be unpalatable. How did it become popular? It feels much tastier than Zhong Xuegao. I miss Zhong Xuegao." Interestingly, for a negative review of less than 100 words, he insured himself twice.
Author: Tong Chen Source: Qidian Humanities Plus
One is "kind reminder:
This is a normal comment and question from a consumer. Please don’t mess with me and accuse me of being a culprit. The other is "Note, the latter has been bankrupt and auctioned, so the conspiracy theories about retardation can be dispensed with."
It can be seen that Lao Luo himself knows that what he says now, everyone's first reaction is not to listen to the content, but to guess the motive.
The next day, the topic became a hot search topic.
The most popular message in the comment area is not about ice cream, but a collective recitation of lines from "The Three-Body Problem": "Don't answer, don't answer, don't answer."
Some netizens directly gave the brand advice: "The boss of the Savage Suggestions from PR Friendly must pretend that he didn't see it."
On September 13, Mr. Savage’s customer service responded to the media with only one sentence: record and feed back to the leader.
As of press time, the brand has not said a word.
Based on Xibei’s experience, bloggers and netizens in the public relations circle have almost reached an unprecedented consensus
A chain brand with 1,712 stores was called out by a celebrity with tens of millions of fans as unpalatable. The best solution recognized by the entire network was to play dead.
The most interesting thing about this matter is this: Lao Luo's mouth will never make any waves again.
01
Let’s take a look at what he looked like at his peak
Didn’t Xibei’s accounts just be settled?
The Weibo post on September 10, 2025, "Almost all of them are pre-made dishes, and they are so expensive" was the pinnacle of the lethality of a single Weibo post in the history of the Chinese Internet.
Jia Guolong was tough, threatened to sue, and opened up the kitchen, but he turned out to be self-destructive.
One year later: In the first two days of the storm, the daily turnover of stores nationwide was about 1 million yuan less. After that, daily losses expanded to 2 million to 3 million yuan, and the cumulative loss in half a year exceeded 600 million yuan; in January 2026, 102 stores were closed, with approximately 4,000 employees left; as of September this year, there were only 203 mini-program stores left in the business, nearly halved from the nearly 400 before the crisis; the valuation of the two rounds of financing was about 1.04 billion yuan, a 95% decrease from the peak expectation of 20 billion yuan.
One Weibo, 600 million losses, 4,000 people unemployed.
This destructive power is real, there is no need to pretend that it does not exist.
That was Lao Luo in September 2025. It was his peak and turning point.
Three things that happened in the year after the climax drained him of all the trouble.
02
The first thing: the official withdrew his immunity
As for the outcome of the Xibei incident, many people only remembered Jia Guolong’s apology and ignored the other half:
The People's Daily commented directly that Luo Yonghao's behavior was "a talk of justice but a business in his heart, trying to coerce public opinion and set the pace, and become a black mouth that hurts people and enterprises"; China News Network simultaneously criticized this as "a typical routine of creating public opinion."
Subsequently, the Weibo accounts of Luo Yonghao and Jia Guolong were both banned, and the CEO of Weibo cited the "Negative List of Internet Celebrity Account Behavior" as an endorsement of the handling.
Translated into vernacular:
In the platform’s official documents, there is already a page dedicated to dealing with his style of play.
The lawyer's interpretation also confirms this.
In this case of Mr. Savage, two lawyers in Jiangsu expressed restraint: As a consumer, he has the right to criticize, and this does not constitute infringement; but if he continuously publishes more than three negative contents about the same merchant, or it escalates to insulting remarks, the merchant can sue for reputation infringement; if he is engaged in catering, it may also involve unfair competition.
The right to criticize is still there, but the exemption limit is gone.
In the past, when he cursed, everyone discussed whether what he said was right; now when he curses, the lawyer first comes out to determine whether he has crossed the line this time. The order itself speaks for itself.
03
Second thing: Brands have learned to play dead, and playing dead can win
Xibei spent 600 million to teach the entire industry a lesson: Don’t accept the move.
A year later, Mr. Savage implemented this lesson to perfection.
No explanation, no insistence, no live broadcast of the kitchen, the hot search was on for two days, everything was calm, and I still gained tens of thousands of fans in vain. Apple is more thorough. On September 10, the day the iPhone Duo was released, Luo criticized seven "copies" in a row, calling the crease processing "one hundred percent shit on shit." Apple didn't reply a word, and the scalper price once reached 99,000 yuan.
This is the most heartbreaking change.
The logic of the Xibei era is: Lao Luo is firing, the brand must respond, and the outcome is unpredictable.
The current logic is:
Lao Luo fires, the brand is silent, silence is a sure win.
His artillery fire did not weaken, but the battlefield disappeared.
Punch out and hit the cotton, which turned pink.
04
The third thing: His own volume dropped by 80% in a year
The public opinion monitoring agency Miao Jian Information has a set of data that is very illustrative of the problem.
According to the Internet Popularity Index (PBI), the Xibei prefabricated dish incident was 99.12. Two months later, the exchange between him and Hua was 54.3. The Shanghai Telecom Broadband Incident a month later was 45.37. In March this year, he invited Yang Li to be on the podcast. The whole network was in a quarrel, and the PBI was only 20.48.
The year after Xibei: Public opinion about Luo Yonghao’s incident has been declining
From 99 to 20, it dropped by about 80% in one year.
And out of these four times, only the first time really hurt someone.
At that time between Hua and Hua, he released the ultimatum of "public recording", but the recording has not been released yet;
During the broadband incident, he called Xiang Ligang, a communications expert, "suspected of being mentally retarded", and was hit back by the other party by writing a series of articles "Why Luo Yonghao failed to start a business";
That time with Yang Li, he called himself a "hardcore fan" and asked his team to block "all men and women of common faith". He blocked more than 30 people in 30 days. The number of views of the program did double, but it was his own male base that was torn apart.
There is another intriguing detail.
During this year, his former partner Huang Bin publicly scolded him three times, each time getting worse and worse, from "knowing nothing about running a business" to "bragging all his life until he even believed it."
For Jia Guolong, he dared to demand an apology within a time limit;
He dared to issue an ultimatum to Hua Shan;
For Xiang Ligang, he dared to throw away "mentally retarded".
Only for Huang Bin, he remained silent three times and walked around.
05
Hot search is not a storm
Speaking of this, we can answer the most easily refuted question:
Why can’t he say he can’t make waves even though he is still trending in searches every day?
Because hot searches are the volume, and storms are the consequences.
There is only one criterion for judging whether a person can still make waves:
After he speaks, will the real world change?
For the old Luo, there were consequences for speaking out.
He smashed a Siemens refrigerator, and Siemens’ attitude changed;
He questioned Fang Zhouzi, the security funds will be disclosed;
He scolded Xibei for putting the word "freshly prepared" on the table in the entire catering industry. In September this year, my country's first compulsory national standard for prepared dishes was implemented, and he deserves a share of the credit.
Now Lao Luo only hears echoes when he speaks.
Criticize Apple and sell it anyway;
If you scold Mr. Savage, Mr. Savage will gain fans;
Support Yang Li and tear apart your own fans;
Even the Zhong Xuegao he misses is a bankrupt brand whose valuation dropped from 4 billion yuan to 21.1 million yuan at auction, evaporating about 99.5%. It is used as a weight and measure of "deliciousness".
His own base is also on the decline.
Make a Friend’s revenue in the first half of 2025 was 619 million yuan, an increase of 9.8%, but its net profit dropped by 37.4%, its gross profit margin dropped from 53.8% to 43.7%, and it had nearly 200 fewer employees. His main account accounted for less than 3% of the company’s revenue.
"Zhen Huan Chuan" has repaid a total of 824 million yuan. He is a real man, but the total debt has also increased from 600 million yuan to 1.3 billion yuan.
Niubo gateway is closed, Lao Luo English is closed, Smartisan owes 600 million yuan, Bullet SMS has gone cold, Ono e-cigarettes have hit the ban, AR startups are silent, and Smartisan Technology’s 7.13 million yuan equity was frozen again in January this year.
A person who has been in business for 20 consecutive years and works in a certain industry will give a score to other people's business every few months. The score will be on the hot search, and the hot search will be interpreted by a lawyer.
This is no longer the job of opinion leaders, this is a fixed entertainment program.
06
When the wolf really comes
His words will no longer change anyone's decision-making.
Brands will not change because of him, and consumers will not change because of him. Regulations have special provisions for him, platforms have negative lists for him, and even the comment area has learned to reply uniformly with lines from "The Three-Body Problem".
Lao Luo actually knows everything, so he has to write two insurance policies in advance on Weibo.
A person who needs to buy insurance for his negative reviews knows better than anyone else that his credit is in deficit.
This is the saddest part.
In the story of the boy who cried wolf, the third time he shouted, the wolf really came.
Lao Luo’s problem is not that everything is wrong. Xibei’s battle objectively promoted the transparency of the entire industry, and he has a share of the credit for the implementation of the national standard for prepared dishes.
The problem is that when criticism and traffic are closely tied together, the audience learns to discount all words uniformly. After his credit is ruined, even if what he says is true, it is only worth the price of a hot search.
The entire network collectively replied "Don't answer" to a negative review from a big V. The winner is not Mr. Savage, and the loser is not just Luo Yonghao, but every ordinary consumer who still wants to be taken seriously.
After all, when the wolf really comes, someone has to shout, and someone has to be willing to listen.
Comments