Young people are becoming more rational and "short-sighted", and the "long-term fishing" strategy of capitalists is failing. On December 13, Dong Mingzhu put the former "successor" Meng Yutong on the opposite side at Gree Electric's 2023 college student induction ceremony. Dong Mingzhu confirmed that Meng Yutong was fired from the company. She also said that when she was a secretary, she "couldn't even write a single article." Meng Yutong became an Internet celebrity with the help of Gree's platform. "We can no longer tolerate such people in Gree."
On the evening of December 18, Dong Mingzhu once again talked about Meng Yutong in a live broadcast. Faced with doubts about hiring the wrong person or having problems with her eyesight, Dong Mingzhu said, "It's not that she hired the wrong person. It's her own choice. The path of life is her own. She determines her own values in life. It's up to you to decide what kind of person you choose to be. Now it's hard to say what it will be like in five years." Related topics have become hot searches.
The last time Dong Mingzhu publicly criticized Meng Yutong was more than half a year ago, and she was still bitter about it, even though she could not tolerate a grain of sand in her eyes.
What makes him ashamed is that Meng Yutong, the president of Gree, has been tied to the corporate reform chariot from the beginning.
As for the subsequent efforts to eat traffic, become Internet celebrities, want to go solo, and break up with each other, it quite means that they are trying to please, wait for the opportunity, and rise up.
Dong Mingzhu wanted to make money in this Internet "traffic pool" dominated by young people, but she maintained a arrogant persona of being "absolutely correct". The "successor" Meng Yutong chose to leave, but the value needs of each other were not matched enough. Times are changing, and today's young people are becoming more and more rational and realistic. It is inevitable to part ways with the "blessing-type" corporate culture.
1. Fall in love and kill each other: earn enough character and then retreat bravely
Meng Yutong, who has almost no resume, was airborne to Gree. From the beginning, it was the result of Dong Mingzhu's "personal voice".
In 2021, Meng Yutong participated in the variety show "We Are New in the Workplace". At that time, the girl in her early 20s relied on her self-confidence, maverick and hard-working character to quickly get out of the circle. Among the competitors on the same stage, she was spotted by the guest Dong Mingzhu.
Low profile, willing to endure hardship, and high resistance to pressure, these are Meng Yutong's surefire skills to knock on Dong Mingzhu's heart.
In order to create a "likable" character, Meng Yutong even gave Gree the option of becoming a full-time employee with an expected monthly salary of 4,000 yuan during his first interview.
This operation played right into Dong Mingzhu’s ambitions.
Behind the shrewd character marketing, Dong Mingzhu, who has always been outspoken, was also confused.
Afterwards, Dong Mingzhu publicly hired Meng Yutong as his CEO secretary, and Meng Yutong was transferred to Gree.
With a big tree at his back to enjoy the shade, Dong Mingzhu’s endorsement directly created the protagonist cage for Meng Yutong as Gree’s “successor”.
The fact is that Meng Yutong's life at Gree was not easy.
Occupying a high position, with countless bright titles, and the respect and recognition given by his boss, this young man fell into a contradictory cycle of self-doubt and self-satisfaction.
Meng Yutong once publicly stated that he worked continuously without taking a break, and his hard-earned monthly salary was no more than that of a fresh graduate at the same level. He was on call 24 hours a day, and the 996 service was overwhelmed... The "reality" of the workplace between the lines had already laid the groundwork for "leaving".
Source: Weibo
Behind the high status of star employees, there is endless torture?
At this time, business elite Dong Mingzhu began to show his "fox-like" side.
In a hurry, Dong Mingzhu chose to "sacrifice" Meng Yutong for Gree.
In other words, Dong Mingzhu was playing a big game from the beginning to build momentum for Gree and her own reputation as an Internet entrepreneur.
Gree at this time is like a hot pot, and Dong Mingzhu is the ant in this hot pot.
The 2022 financial report shows that Gree Electric’s total revenue is 190.2 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.265 year-on-year, which is about half of Midea’s 345.7 billion yuan in the same track. And in the first quarter of 2023, revenue will be 35.69 billion, an increase of 0.44%.
The "downward" pressure on Gree's performance is huge.
And Meng Yutong's air landing, with the help of the traffic label of "the next Dong Mingzhu", has made Gree more popular on the Internet.
With the gimmick of hype, Dong tried to use the identity and gimmick of Meng Yutong to prop up a new world for Gree's development and open up a second growth point.
It's a pity that Meng Yutong quit first.
Joining the company with Meng Yutong is technology self-media person Wang Ziru. In Dong Mingzhu's talent plan, one type is the hard-working person represented by Wang Ziru, who can bring value to the company that is equal to or even exceeds its own price; the other type is the Internet celebrity represented by Meng Yutong, who can enjoy the Internet dividends and develop an online delivery model.
What Dong Mingzhu wants is a secretary who has Wang Ziru's tact, Dong Yuhui's warmth, and is on call 24 hours a day. Meng Yutong is not the best choice.
Although his ability is average, he is better at expressing himself. This is the most pertinent evaluation to describe Meng Yutong.
Meng Yutong is not Gree’s “next Dong Mingzhu”, but an “Internet celebrity” who is well versed in the ways of the Internet.
Dong Mingzhu also thought about this, and pooled the entire company's efforts to create the "Pearl Yutong Selection" Douyin account, and took advantage of the situation to open the Pearl Yutong air-conditioned live broadcast room and the Pearl Yutong ice-washing live broadcast room. She wanted to use the traffic halo given to Meng Yutong to monetize her influence and reap a wave of traffic dividends.
However, reality slapped Dong Mingzhu hard.
In 2020, Dong Mingzhu personally carried out the live broadcast of the 618 promotion, setting a new record of sales exceeding 10 billion in a single live broadcast; and Meng Yutong's first live broadcast of the goods, despite Dong Mingzhu's platform, the single GMV was only 620,000, which was far lower than expected.
Relevant media concluded that Meng Yutong had at least ten live broadcasts in April 2022, with each live broadcast lasting one or two hours. In front of the camera, Meng Yutong danced inappropriately and shouted vigorously, which was already incompatible with the work content of a secretary of a company in the world's top 500 companies.
Facts have proved that the "next Dong Mingzhu" gimmick was not misplaced. Compared with snacks, daily necessities and other small items, unpopular categories such as Gree home appliances are difficult to compete in emerging channels.
Meng Yutong is not Dong Mingzhu, he is just an unsightly substitute. The trick of grafting others onto others does not apply to Gree.
In August 2022, Meng Yutong, who had been on the job for less than a year, was pushed to the forefront. The "Pearl Yutong Selection" account avatar changed from a photo of Dong and Meng to a photo of Dong Mingzhu alone, and the account name was changed to "Gree Pearl Selection". Dong Mingzhu once again became the protagonist of Gree's live broadcast matrix.
If you think about it carefully, it feels like "killing the donkey by removing the mill".
However, Gree only announced to the public that Meng Yutong began to focus on behind the scenes and rotated to other positions in the company.
Having both wants and needs, Dong Mingzhu is overwhelmed by his harsh criticism and is out of place in a company that relies on seniority. Assistant is just a role that is difficult to fulfill both roles.
If you don’t carry the goods well, you will throw them away after using them. Now that you've decided to leave, all that's left is to earn the "breakup fee."
Until now, Meng Yutong's entire online account has been prominently labeled as "Secretary to the CEOs of the Top 500 Companies". Gree has given him the persona and aura of a "professional elite", and the young Meng Yutong has the capital to market himself.
If you can't wait for the "long", it's better to fish for the "short".
On one side is the infinitely beautiful blue ocean of the Internet, and on the other is the floundering "successor" character of Gree. Meng Yutong just chose the path that young people would choose nowadays.
Dong Mingzhu, however, jumped to the front of the stage and used her condescending status as a corporate CEO to confront the decentralized Internet public. She went against the trend and could only hit the wall.
The woman's "cursing" was just because Gree was angry because he had made someone else's wedding dress.
2. Self-marketing: “Really delicious” Internet youth rice
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dong Mingzhu used Gree to make Meng Yutong's wedding dress.
It's just that this wedding dress was obtained by Meng Yutong through the "dark under the lamp" operation.
After wearing the hat of "the next Dong Mingzhu" and landing in Gree, Meng Yutong's Douyin account increased by more than 800,000 followers in three days. Dong Mingzhu strongly supported Meng Yutong, combined with her for live broadcasts, and registered multiple trademarks to completely build Meng Yutong into Gree's "Internet celebrity".
Currently, Meng Yutong's personal Douyin account has over 2.3 million followers, Xiaohongshu account has over 1.3 million followers, and Weibo account has over 300,000 followers. With many tags such as graduate from a prestigious school, secretary to the president, etc., Meng Yutong's many conditions for becoming an Internet celebrity have matured.
Working alone, even though there is no endorsement from Dong Mingzhu, there is room to do whatever one wants. There is no 996, no superiors and subordinates, and no big pie that cannot be eaten.
Leaving Gree's aura, "Workplace Elite" changed its appearance, and "Exquisite Young People" came online.
The "2021 Domestic Youth Weekend Survey Report" shows that among the most popular ways to spend the weekend, "sleeping until you wake up naturally" ranks first. 996. With working weeks, alternate days off, and online working, young people have fallen into a "workplace Pavlovian" cycle where work and life are difficult to separate, and exploiting every opportunity has become the norm.
Exquisiteness has become the ideal state of young people. Internet content with "exquisite life" as its selling point has been tried and tested in the circles of young people.
"Young man" Meng Yutong quickly won the support of a large number of young people.
Take Meng Yutong's Douyin account as an example. Before joining Gree, he posted many videos of dancing, special effects, etc. in which he appeared. After joining Gree, his style began to shift toward the elite in the workplace. After leaving Gree, Meng Yutong gradually returned to the track of refined life. After announcing her choice of school for the postgraduate entrance examination, Meng Yutong's Douyin account even posted multiple videos of her personal study and chat, with each video receiving over 100,000 likes.
Taking Xiaohongshu as an example, Meng Yutong has more than 1 million fans on Xiaohongshu. His notes cover workplace skills, daily outfits, beauty tips, inspirational chicken soup, hot search responses, etc., with rich topics. Every once in a while, Meng Yutong will release a video to "bring goods" in the form of product recommendations, Double Eleven unboxing, cosmetics reviews, etc. According to 21st Century Business Herald, a senior person in the field of live streaming e-commerce stated that Meng Yutong is considered a super V on the Xiaohongshu platform, with monthly advertising income of approximately 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan.
For just one advertisement, the quotation reached the level of 200,000. In November, its Xiaohongshu account launched two promotions. Not counting platform traffic subsidies, the advertising revenue from one platform alone reached 400,000.
Through content and sales, Meng Yutong has found a way to market himself in the long term.
For young people, whether it is exquisite appearance, exquisite life, or the aura of a prestigious school, success is elusive. Over time, young people gradually empathize with themselves to set exquisite life situations and lose the most basic judgment.
This is how the circulation of traffic came about.
There is no 9-to-5, no workplace rules, and Meng Yutong, who has witnessed the overt and covert struggles of the Gree Group, has achieved strategic contraction in his life and entered a "self-marketing" half-retreat state.
The unhurried Meng Yutong, resting on the credit of two years of working for Gree, continues to manage his own personality and promote his smooth life.
It's too early to say how long this wave of youth rice will last.
3. Behind the "blessings": young people are "short-sighted"
A well-fed man does not know that a hungry man is hungry.
Dong Mingzhu criticized Meng Yutong for "only wanting to use Gree's platform to become an Internet celebrity." The implication is that you, Meng Yutong, are ungrateful because Gree promoted and cultivated her so much, but the result was an unhappy ending and full of victim remarks.
After criticizing Meng Yutong, Dong Mingzhu continued to say a tasteless statement - making money is like a walking corpse.
To put it bluntly, in the eyes of business elites like Dong Mingzhu, absolute recognition and absolute obedience to leadership are the most basic qualities of corporate employees. Traditional corporate values prefer diligent and down-to-earth employees.
Their saying is that as long as you work hard, promotion and salary increase will come later. In the eyes of many young professionals, Dong Mingzhu's work thinking is old-fashioned. The promises given by such traditional entrepreneurs are often empty promises. After all, the channels for the company's growth are controlled within the company, and they are getting smaller and smaller.
Whether it is Meng Yutong or Dong Yuhui, star employees seem to have become "unstable factors" that make it difficult for companies to settle.
Dong Yuhui, who is full of literary and artistic talents, is about to win the Oriental Selection building, but former Oriental Selection CEO Sun Dongxu regards it as a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh of the "supporting soldiers and self-respect". He "runs" Dong Yuhui through several operations. Internet fans collectively stopped being fans of Oriental Selection and ended up with chicken feathers all over the floor.
The angry young people may not understand the "labor" stratification under the delivery model, but what everyone sees is a beating of Dong Yuhui, a hard-working employee by Dong Yuhui, a leader of Dongfang Selection. It is clear at a glance what is right and what is wrong, and the storm of public opinion is getting bigger and bigger.
The profit-seeking nature of capital has doomed the subsidiary relationship between the company and its employees from the very beginning.
Source: Weibo
The strong corporate culture of traditional companies has no place for survival among young people who pursue freedom and are undisciplined. They favor tangible benefits and cannot accept or want the pie drawn by their bosses. Once young people stop "cows and horses" for capital, capital will look for new "cows and horses."
The conflict was successfully passed on to the workers themselves, who became involved in the fight while capital watched the fire from afar.
Dong Yuhui and Meng Yutong are different. One managed to stay, while the other was forced to leave.
Dong Yuhui and Meng Yutong are the same, they are both young people who want to get the rewards they deserve.
Wildfires are burning, and behind the "blessings", the "short-sighted" mentality of young people is spreading. If the early bird has no worms to eat, who will get up early?
4. Conclusion
Meng Yutong ran away after being scolded, which is different from Dong Yuhui, but the same.
On the one hand, young people who are moving up in class are being pursued and intercepted by capital; on the other hand, young people who are lying down are being denounced and complained by capital.
In the Internet era, capital that cannot monopolize the right to speak has finally felt the constraints of the young public.
Meng Yutong with "survivor bias" will not be a role model for young people, but at least it is the attitude of young people.