In the previous stage of internet celebrity, Li Ziqi cherished her feathers and rarely accepted endorsements or commercial advertisements.Nowadays, the signs of Li Ziqi's comeback are becoming more and more obvious, but compared with when she first became famous, the competition in the entire short video track is hundreds of times more complex and fierce. Even now that live streaming has become an important channel for internet celebrities and celebrities to monetize their products, many people are still hoping that Li Ziqi is that special person.
Comeback imminent?
On August 4, 2023, the 751st day after Li Ziqi stopped updating, "The New Yorker" published an article called "Li Ziqi's Internet Pastoral Poetics".
The author said that during the COVID-19 epidemic, he watched almost all of Li Ziqi’s videos.
"In her videos, there is a fairy tale quality. Sometimes, she reminds people of Cinderella working alone in the kitchen." The author writes, "In fact, similar to mainland China, her pastoral poetry evokes Western longings. Under the video of Li Ziqi preparing lotus wine, a woman commented that Li Ziqi made her feel that the traditional way of life of the Attu tribe in Alaska, where she belongs, has returned."
The world has not forgotten Li Ziqi.Not long before this article was published, a Romanian fan left a message under Li Ziqi’s last YouTube video and said that in four days, she will stop updating for two years."Every few days, I check your channel to see if you have updated. We miss your calmness, your drive."
This fan said that through Li Ziqi's videos, he fell in love with the Chinese traditions she spread.
Then, on September 15, Li Ziqi appeared in a video: the 33-year-old Li Ziqi was standing on a rural road, wearing a white T-shirt and black pants, with long hair above her waist, and several grapefruit trees bearing fruit behind her.The video was shot for the Chinese Farmers Harvest Festival, for which she is the promotion ambassador.
“The countryside is vast and has a lot to offer,” Li Ziqi said in the video.She also said, "In the future, I will continue to insist on bringing more high-quality content in my own way."
This sentence was regarded by the outside world as her declaration of return.
In 2021, a dispute broke out between Li Ziqi and his MCN company Hangzhou Weinian (hereinafter referred to as "Weinian"). On July 14 of that year, Li Ziqi stopped updating. In October 2021, Li Ziqi took Weinian to court. The subject of the lawsuit was Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ziqi Culture"), in which she is the legal person and Weinian holds 51% of the shares. The court is the Intermediate People's Court of Mianyang City, Sichuan Province.
Mianyang is Li Ziqi’s hometown, and Fucheng District of Mianyang City is the registered place of Ziqi culture. The company was co-founded by Li Ziqi and Weinian in 2017.
It was not until December 2022 that the two parties finally reached a settlement.At that time, Weinian officially issued a statement stating that the settlement was completed under the mediation of the Mianyang Intermediate People's Court. Today, Li Ziqi’s shareholding ratio in Ziqi Culture has reached 99%, while Hangzhou Weinian only accounts for 1%.
Checking the official website of Mianyang Municipal Government, you can find a lot of information related to Li Ziqi. It is not difficult to see that even in the days when the watch is suspended, "Li Ziqi" is still an important cultural symbol in Mianyang and Sichuan.
In January 2023, Li Ziqi's name appeared in the report on the implementation of the 2022 National Economic and Social Development Plan and the 2023 Draft Plan in Fucheng District, Mianyang City. When referring to the "accelerated gathering of innovation platforms", the report pointed out that it has "successfully attracted the Li Ziqi brand headquarters base."
In March 2023, Li Ziqi’s name appeared in a document from the Organization Department of the Fucheng District Committee of Mianyang City. This is an announcement about the plan to commend the leading talent team and elite talents who have made outstanding contributions to the construction of the "Four Strong Districts" in 2022. "Li Jiajia (Li Ziqi)" appears among the elite talents to be commended, and his identified identity is Ziqi Cultural Corporation.
In addition, at the beginning of 2023, the official website of Mianyang Municipal Government also published an article titled "Comprehensively Creating Mianyang Memory Street in the City to Stimulate Consumption Vitality". The article points out that it is necessary to"Grasp the 'Li Ziqi' internet celebrity brandPublish Miracles”.
In July 2023, Li Ziqi also appeared in a promotional video for the Chengdu Universiade. In this video, she puts on gloves to make Zigong tie-dye; wears a cheongsam and sews Shu embroidery stitch by stitch. The style is the same as before.
Not long ago, the founding meeting and the first member representative meeting of the Sichuan Internet Representatives Association were held in Chengdu. The media discovered that "Li Jiajia (Li Ziqi)" was also included in the list of vice presidents.
"I have finally waited for this day, please update with revenge."After learning about Li Ziqi's possible comeback, netizens expressed their excitement on Xiaohongshu.
Cultural value behind commercial value
There is no doubt about Li Ziqi’s ability to carry goods and her commercial value. The two-year suspension of updates will have a self-evident impact on this ability - "Leopard Transformation" statistics stated that,In two years, Li Ziqi lost 8.34 million followers on Douyin, Weibo, and Kuaishou.
The suspension of updates is related to Li Ziqi’s character. When being interviewed by Xinbang and asked to describe herself in three words, she said:Stubborn, neurotic, able to endure hardships.
Her explanation for being "neurotic" is that she "often doesn't carefully consider the pros and cons of something, and just does it if it feels right." Because of this stubbornness and "psychosis", when she had a dispute with Wei Nian, she would choose to stop the intense action of killing each other.
However, interestingly,Despite losing followers on Chinese social media, but on YouTube, the number of fans of Li Ziqi isInstead, it increased from 15 million to 17.7 million, an increase of 2.7 million in two years. A special episode about New Year’s snacks she pinned to the top of her YouTube homepage has been viewed an astonishing 126 million times.
Picture: Screenshot of Li Ziqi’s YouTube account
There is no doubt that Li Ziqi is a well-deserved top player in the video world.Part of the reason for stopping updates and increasing fans may be that on platforms like YouTube, high-quality content will be more relevant.long tail effect,Everyone is more tolerant of “slowness”.
It’s hard to explain clearly in one or two sentences why Li Ziqi’s videos can break through the limitations of language and culture and gain widespread overseas influence. But one thing is for sure, her videos have aBlank space——They are very quiet, except for background music and birdsong, there are very few human sounds.There is almost no need for translation, and audiences from different countries can understand it and connect with their own cultures.
Meditation originated in India. The Indian media "TheHindu" once linked Li Ziqi's works to meditation: "These videos are carefully shot and of high quality, showing all of Ms. Li's actions from chopping firewood, climbing trees, and picking fruits. These are all to show a healing calmness, which has a kind of beauty that people often find in online meditation videos." This is a sense of relaxation.
Some Western media have linked Li Ziqi to Thoreau, the author of "Walden Pond", and the trend of retroism in the West. In their view,Li Ziqi represents a slow life aesthetics.
Li Ziqi is indeed very slow. On Youtube, she has posted a total of 127 videos. Sometimes, she updates monthly, and sometimes, she updates half-monthly. In an interview with Sina, Li Ziqi once mentioned that she is relatively casual in life, but at work, her colleagues complain that her obsessive-compulsive disorder "has reached the point of perversion." She often shoots the same shot multiple times and only stops when she is satisfied.
Wang Fawan, the 35th generation descendant of Dongyuan wood movable type printing in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, once said in an interview video that Li Ziqi came from Sichuan to learn movable wood type printing from him. Wang Fawan rarely paid attention to the Internet. He didn't know who Li Ziqi was, so he taught her as an ordinary student.
"This little girl is very smart. After three days of learning, she can write the reverse characters beautifully." Wang Fawan recalled that Li Ziqi learned for three months.
"This is probably the reason why there is no second Li Ziqi. You can't just sit in the live broadcast room and bring the goods."Under this video of Wang Fawan, a netizen commented like this.
The sense of blank space in Li Ziqi's video is also reflected in the creation of Chinese artistic conception.Different from other fast-moving short videos that "burn after reading", this sense of artistic conception makes her videos look very high-end.
Dai Wangyun, a doctor of folklore at East China Normal University, once pointed out that the reason why Li Ziqi is so popular in China isPartly because of the way she represents Chinese culture and "Chineseness", more and more Chinese people are beginning to see theBeauty, elegance and eternitysomething. The fact that Li Ziqi's China is so popular overseas has in turn increased hermystery.
Of course, Li Ziqi also has critics, especially in the West. But many criticisms are caused by the West's inherent vision of China and have nothing to do with her personally.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, Li Ziqi became even more popular. More than one foreign viewer said that these videos gave him healing power. “We have her to thank for getting us through those days when all we wanted was comfort,” an article in the Los Angeles Review of Books read.
There are many people trying to gain traffic by imitating Li Ziqi.
A famous example is BepTrenDinhDoi, a Vietnamese Internet celebrity with 200,000 fans on YouTube. Whether in video content or style, she can be said to be a "high imitation" of Li Ziqi. But after posting 31 videos, she stopped updating. One reason may be poor traffic. A video before BepTrenDinhDoi stopped updating had only 95,000 views.
Picture: Screenshot of "high imitation" Li Ziqi BepTrenDinhDoi's YouTube account
Her video shooting time is short, the lens is not beautiful enough, and it lacks the romantic feeling of pastoral pastoral.
Li Yapeng's pastoral retreat videos were also considered to be imitating Li Ziqi. Some netizens said that compared with Li Ziqi, Li Yapeng's video sound effects are noisy and lack a sense of harmony, and he keeps yelling. "Except for the similar pictures, I don't think anything else is very similar."
It didn’t take long for Li Yapeng to start live streaming.
Is Li Ziqi unique and irreplaceable? Around this topic, people hold different opinions and there is endless controversy. But in any case, an indisputable fact is that for more than two years, in the field of Eastern life aesthetics, no video blogger's work has the popularity and influence of her work, and it is sustainable. Another fact is that even if the update is stopped, Li Ziqi's fan stickiness is still very high.
Excellent content will always be the moat of the video industry.Capital can burn money to create a lot of things, but it cannot create a video like Li Ziqi's. The environment, costumes, and plot can all be imitated.But creativity and aesthetics are difficult to imitate.
This is why intellectual property is valuable.
Switch to live streaming?
Will Li Ziqi go to live broadcast to bring goods? Before Li Ziqi released her first comeback video, many people were already asking this question.
In fact, when Li Ziqi released his first video in 2016, live streaming had just started and had not yet become a trend. From 2016 to the end of 2021, Li Ziqi has never done any live streaming.
And live streaming is indeed an attractive piece of cake - Zhiyan Trend's "2023 China Live Broadcasting E-commerce Industry Status and Development Trend Research Report" shows that China's live streaming e-commerce market size will be 3.48 trillion yuan in 2022, an increase of nearly 178 times from 19.64 billion yuan in 2017.
According to data from China Economic Times, this number is expected to become 4.56 trillion by 2023. In other words, from 2017 to 2023, the average annual growth rate of this market is more than 75%.
This is a pretty astonishing number.
There is also an obvious Matthew effect in live broadcasting, and it is easier for top anchors with appeal to monetize their products.Compared with Kuhaha's content creation, the way to monetize goods through live broadcast is shorter and faster. From a business perspective, live streaming is a good business.
In April 2023, Jiemian News reported that both Douyin and Taobao Live had contacted Li Ziqi, hoping to invite him to attend the live broadcast.
But on the other hand, live streaming is also a double-edged sword. Live-streaming merchandise sells too quickly and often varies in quality, resulting in numerous complaints. The "Public Opinion Analysis Report on Consumption Rights Protection for Live Broadcasting" jointly released by Consumer Network, the University of International Business and Economics Consumer Protection Law Research Center, Beijing Sunshine Consumption Big Data Research Institute and other institutions in May 2023 studied the consumer rights public opinion data of 14 anchors for live broadcasting and found that five anchors including Crazy Little Yang, Li Jiaqi, Liu Genghong, Luo Yonghao, and Simba accounted for 90.97% of the public opinion on rights protection.
Anchors also iterate quickly. Not long ago, Li Jiaqi "overturned" because of "angry" netizens, while Wei Ya had already faded out of the world for tax evasion.
These turmoils had nothing to do with Li Ziqi.
At least in the last stage of internet celebrity, Li Ziqi cherished her feathers and almost refused to accept endorsements or commercial advertisements. Many Internet celebrity video bloggers will embed advertisements in their videos, but this phenomenon has never appeared in Li Ziqi’s videos.
At that time, Li Ziqi's role was to concentrate on video creation, and Wei Nian was doing the "mundane work" of making money. The latter’s monetization methods are mainly video advertising and selling goods.
In terms of video playback advertising, the third-party marketing platform Noinfluencer once estimated that Li Ziqi’s YouTube playback volume will bring about US$500,000 in advertising alliance revenue every month. After Li Ziqi stopped updating, Noinfluencer estimated that her video’s monthly advertising revenue was still between US$101,700 and US$123,800.
In terms of selling goods, in 2018, Weinian launched the Li Ziqi Tmall flagship store. Currently, this flagship store has 6.9 million fans. In addition to the popular snail noodles, it also sells purple sweet potato steamed rice cakes, osmanthus nut lotus root noodles, rice noodles, etc. In addition, Weinian also built a snail noodle factory. In the Dolphin Think Tank's "2021 Most Promising New Consumer Brands in China" list, the Li Ziqi brand's sales in 2020 were 1.6 billion, of which snail noodles accounted for 500 million. Jiuqian data shows that on the "Double 11" in 2022, in the Tmall snail noodle category, the sales volume of the Li Ziqi brand ranked second, and the Weinian brand "Smelly Bao" ranked fifth.
One fact is that Li Ziqi is not among the shareholders of Weinian.The conflict over sales was once a reason for disputes between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian.As a result, Li Ziqi entered a period of silence that lasted for more than two years.
Nowadays, the signs of Li Ziqi's comeback are becoming more and more obvious, but compared with when she first became famous, the competition in the entire short video track is hundreds of times more complex and fierce.
Even in the pastoral route that she is good at, a group of new people have emerged in the past two years, such as Zhou Zhou who takes the route of exquisite paintings, Shan Bai and Peng Chuanming who make homespun cloth, oil paper umbrellas, white cotton paper, Hui ink, etc. from scratch.
But if we want to take a closer look at content production capabilities,To shoot an excellent rural video, the threshold is actually very high. The vast majority of such videos are still at the level of "discussing things."
This may be the reason why Li Ziqi is called "the meal replacement blogger on the entire Internet" by fans. The number of traffic and fans can be quantified, and the number of clicks and sales can be quantified, but aesthetic pleasure and emotional resonance cannot be quantified and are even harder to copy.
An obvious reality is that there are many people like Li Ziqi, but none have truly reached the level of influence she once had.
However, such "uniqueness" also limits Li Ziqi's commercial realization options to some extent. It is hard for people to imagine that this ancient-style girl is sitting in a carefully arranged live broadcast room, flashing slightly confused and melancholy eyes, promoting a certain product.
Even now that live streaming has become an important channel for Internet celebrities and celebrities to monetize,There are also many people who hope that Li Ziqi is the special person..
"If there is someone who has a similar temperament to me, whether it is advertising, Taobao, branding, or long videos, I will consider it. Now many Chinese time-honored brands, intangible cultural heritage and other traditional culture-related companies have come to me for cooperation. I am also considering basing the business model on these meaningful things, such as making a brand with traditional culture that young people like." Li Ziqi once said in an interview with Xinbang.
Maybe it would be good to just keep going like this.
access:
Jingdong Mall