Huayu: I'm being coveted by young actresses.

Chapter 29: Pioneering a New Era of Money-Making in the Chinese Entertainment Industry

Aside from his ex-girlfriend Meng Ziyi, other celebrities who were close to him also reposted his Weibo posts.

For example, junior students Zhang Jingyi and Zhou Ye, as well as teachers He and Huang, whom everyone likes.

Gu Luojin sent WeChat messages to express her gratitude to each of them.

Helping you is a favor, not helping you is my right.

……

Tian Xiwei, a sophomore at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, became quite fascinated by Gu Luojin and his new songs after watching the new season of "Aspiration" the day before yesterday.

After learning that her favorite male celebrity was about to release a new song, she anxiously awaited the song's release date.

This time she wants to buy ten tickets to support her favorite star.

As a newcomer to the entertainment industry, she has already played many supporting roles, but her popularity has been mediocre, and she hasn't made much of a splash.

The moment she saw Gu Luojin in "Aspiration", she was instantly captivated by him.

After searching for his information and comparing it with her own, she found that Gu Luojin's path to fame was almost identical to the one she was on, which strengthened her resolve to become a big star.

"I, Tian Xiwei, will definitely become a big star."

……

Li Li, a top student in her senior year of high school in Guizhou Province, was organizing her thoughts on the science subjects when her phone rang with a message of special concern from her good friend Dong Yuechen.

Take a break; maybe a new idea will come to you.

After giving myself a great deal of psychological comfort, the brief pleasure brought by playing on my phone once again won out in the battle against guilt.

Excited, I opened my phone. The screen saver wasn't any other celebrity, but a handsome photo of Gu Luojin. I saw a WeChat message from my best friend Dong Yuechen.

"Lili, Jinbao is releasing a new song at noon today, go check Weibo for the news." This is the nickname fans use for Gu Luojin.

As Gu Luojin's loyal fans, they naturally wouldn't miss their idol's latest news.

"Okay, I'll go check it out right away." As high-achieving middle school students, the two were able to become good friends by having common idols as topics of conversation.

"With just five minutes left, my new song 'The Wind Rises' will be released on three major music platforms. Please give it your support."

Rather than calling them three major music platforms, they are actually two major music platforms.

In 2016, Tencent spent 26 billion yuan to acquire the music platforms Kugou and Kuwo.

The album contains eight songs, but only four are official tracks, and four of those are instrumental versions of the official tracks.

If it weren't for the huge popularity of "Produce Camp" back then, with all 11 debut contestants having massive fan bases, the album's sales would be unbelievable.

Capital has written its intention to make money blatantly on its face.

But the one who took making money to the extreme was Brother Chicken, who brought "Qige" into the Chinese entertainment industry.

First, put the money in your pocket and then slowly release the songs.

After so many years of development, Dongda University not only has pre-sale housing and pre-sale cars, but also pre-sale songs.

This world is crazy; even mice are bridesmaids for cats.

In April 2021, Chicken Brother released an album called "Mystery", which contains 11 songs.

Three songs were released on the day of the sale, while there was very little news about the other songs.

By August, four months had passed and the release was still not complete.

After being criticized by state media, several songs were released overnight, including one 52-second song and one 41-second song.

Generally speaking, this wouldn't be considered a song, but Brother Chicken still considers it a paid song.

There's another song that hasn't been released yet, and another is a solo song that was adapted during his time in the group. Even the "purchase prompts" on the album's sales page were only modified after criticism from official media.

I don't know when the remaining six songs will be released, and five of them don't even have names yet.

Industry insiders say it's outrageous.

In terms of making money, he pioneered a new approach in the Chinese entertainment industry.

All I can say is that their behavior was extremely disgraceful.

"Lili, how many tickets do you want to buy?"

"Let's buy the same thing."

If her best friend buys a certain number of tickets, she'll buy the same number. She can't let her best friend outshine her; otherwise, how will she ever be able to compete in the entertainment industry?

"I'll buy 100 copies. My idol has finally released a new song, and this is exactly the time when he needs our support."

"My bestie, we're on the same page! Let's both buy 100 tickets."

……

Upon its release, "The Wind Rises" sold 16 copies within 30 minutes at a price of 3 yuan, generating 50 yuan in sales, making it his first double gold record.

"The Years," which he released while still in school, was recorded by a record company and released alongside the TV series "The Journey of Flower." It was not released as a single and therefore does not count towards his achievements.

How well a record sells depends on what it achieves in a single day.

It's also a time to test the commercial value of popular celebrities.

From the current perspective, the sales volume of 16 copies is not bad, and compared with the industry, it is even somewhat excellent.

Yang Chaoyue, who debuted in 18 with Rocket Girls 101, released her new album "Transparent" in 25, which took two hours to reach double gold record status.

In comparison, his achievements have surpassed those of Yang Chaoyue, who has been famous for a long time and has already entered the ranks of the post-95 actresses.

But it fell far short of his expected results. His comparison was not with female celebrities, but with the young actor Jackson Yee, who had already achieved fame at a young age and had a large fan base.

"Better Days" moved him so much that he wanted to improve himself.

This kind of opportunity only comes once; if you miss it, you'll never have another chance.

Although he had room for error, "Better Days" not only enabled him to achieve a qualitative leap, but also broke down the barriers between different circles.

Don't worry about being confined to the small screen of television dramas like Hu Ge.

As expected, he was still a mediocre person.

Compared to true top stars, he still has a way to go.

Xiao Zhan is the most skilled at harvesting韭菜 (a metaphor for exploiting investors), with his single "Light Spot".

Some fans bought 5.2 copies, and the total sales across the internet reached 1.6 million.

Although the song sold well, it failed to break into the mainstream and was more like a self-indulgent song among fans.

Gu Luojin didn't know whether it was bought by a real person or by the company.

None of that matters anymore. Kou can go, and so can I.

"Xiaolu, if we haven't achieved double platinum status by 7 PM tonight, let's use our backup plan."

Even the best wine needs advertising; in modern society, there's too much fragmented information, and without proper promotion, it simply won't gain traction.

Relying solely on a few hundred thousand fans to generate buzz is insufficient to drive organic promotion among netizens, so they resort to other methods to increase free exposure.

"Brother Gu, in that case, you'll have to spend your own money."

"Spend money, you can make a lot of money with a little. You can't catch a wolf without risking your cub."

"it is good."

Gu Luojin felt that she really didn't have enough money, and her desire to make money was extremely strong at this moment.

Celebrities not only have their companies take a cut of their earnings, but they also need to build their own teams.

You also have to pay a protection fee to platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Tencent, otherwise they won't let you trend on social media or remove negative information, and they might even prevent you from participating in some events.

This explains why the three major platforms are willing to lose money upfront to pour 100 billion yuan into the entertainment industry – to cultivate the market and achieve a monopoly.

They not only prey on audiences and merchants, but also exploit the upper echelons of celebrities.

Earn money on the platform and spend it on the platform; don't even think about taking a single penny home.

As a male celebrity, he doesn't need to spend money on skincare like female celebrities do.

He's probably the first reborn fan who still needs to spend his own money to buy his own songs and promote himself.

Hold……

However, fate seemed to play a little joke on him.

Two hours later, "The Wind Rises" reached a sales amount of 78 and a sales volume of 26 copies, achieving the triple gold record ahead of schedule.

Having achieved three gold medals, how far is platinum record from here?

This achievement made Gu Luojin feel that she had the potential to become a platinum extract.

His heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down; the growth rate was terrifying.

Male celebrities are more likely to attract fans than female celebrities, a fact that is vividly demonstrated in the film market.

In movies, many actresses are merely decorative figures, for a simple reason: they can't carry the box office and won't get audiences to buy tickets to the theater just for them.

Including the role in the chick flick that made her famous, and the film's cumulative box office of 99 billion yuan.

Among the top 100 actors in China's box office rankings exceeding 10 billion yuan, only five actresses made the list: Mary, Little Yellow Duck, Zhang Xiaofei, Jia Ling, and One Finger Zen.

Among the top ten actors with box office earnings exceeding 200 billion, only Mary is one, and the other is a voice actress.

Logically, since none of the voice actors appeared on screen, can this be considered a box office result?

This thing is included in the box office rankings thanks to one person.

Huo Siyan, the former top socialite in Huayi Brothers' public relations department, had her husband, Du Jiang, include the box office revenue of movies in which he played third, fourth, and fifth billing roles in his own box office statistics.

The key question is, did the third and fourth billing roles affect the box office?

Will audiences go to the cinema to buy tickets to watch your movie if you play a supporting role?

He typically takes credit for others' achievements, so when the media promoted him as a box office star with billions in revenue, he was ridiculed by many netizens.

Despite the jokes, he's firmly established himself as a box office star with over 10 billion yuan in revenue and has secured numerous resources.

When companies in the industry realized something was wrong, they started to claim the title of "10 billion yuan in box office revenue" for their own artists.

Having learned from the experience of crossing the river, many artists now implicitly follow a rule when calculating individual box office figures: only works in which they played the lead or second lead role are counted.

"Brother Gu, it seems your fan base is quite solid. Should we release a battle report?"

"That's a good option."

A report that a single had sold 78 copies appeared on Weibo's trending topics list and was praised by Gu Luojin's fans.

Seeing how well Gu Luojin's single was selling, Zhang Bichen felt extremely uncomfortable.

The enemy's success is more painful than one's own failure.

"You guys think that since his singles are selling so well, and we're so happy about it, should we take this opportunity to smear him? Otherwise, I'll feel uncomfortable and have a lot of anger to vent."

Zhang Bichen hasn't fully grasped the lessons learned from the previous two experiences, but her PR team has given in.

"Sister, listen to my advice, let's not cause him any trouble for a while."

"We've already dragged a bunch of celebrities into this to take the blame, and now the attention and buzz have finally been diverted."

"Netizens and their fans aren't chasing after us, let it calm down for a while. If we drag out another batch of celebrities, we'll incur the wrath of the community."

"Instead of actively creating leverage for him, we should wait for him to make a mistake."

"If he makes a mistake and we catch him red-handed, even if we relentlessly attack him, netizens won't support him."

As the saying goes, a gentleman's revenge is never too late, even after ten years.

Zhang Bichen agreed with the PR team's earnest explanation, but she still felt uncomfortable because she had been severely criticized by netizens last time.

These netizens have no sense of sportsmanship; they're all attacking me personally and demanding I protect my family.

I still haven't dared to open my own comment section, and I'm having my assistant delete a little bit every day.

Why should I have to keep a low profile while Gu Luojin can act like a big shot and be admired?

"Let's reconsider this matter. If we don't have a good entry point, we won't take action."

"There will always be people who can't stand his emergence and will choose to take action."

"When the time comes, we'll just watch from the sidelines. If neither side can start a fight, we'll add fuel to the fire. That shouldn't be a problem."

Zhang Bichen's retraction of her statement made her public relations team very nervous.

"Sister, don't worry. We may not be good at settling things, but we certainly have the ability to stir up trouble."