{"id":18103,"date":"2019-02-20T09:40:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T17:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=18103"},"modified":"2023-09-29T11:50:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T18:50:40","slug":"is-this-real-life-the-live-streaming-craze-explained","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/is-this-real-life-the-live-streaming-craze-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Real Life: The Live Streaming Craze Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>By Siyi Chen<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When my dad, a small businessman from Southeast China, asked me, his social media-savvy daughter, how to utilize the internet to help sell his agricultural products, the first thing that came to mind was live streaming. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the TV shopping channels you watch,\u201d I tried to explain to him, \u201cExcept you access it on your phone. For example, on <\/span><b>Taobao<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (China\u2019s biggest online shopping website), you\u2019ll find a section dedicated to live streams. There you\u2019ll see tons of videos in which hosts display products or try them in real-time. As they display, a link to that particular product will pop up on your screen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An example of Taobao live streams:<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u6dd8\u5b9d\u76f4\u64ad \uff0d Taobao - Live streams are for selling\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mL583BVo2bE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI still don\u2019t get how it\u2019s different from TV shopping,\u201d my dad said, looking unconvinced. I continued: \u201cWell, you can engage with the host in real-time and make a request or comment like, \u2018I want to see if that earring matches that dress,\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m 5\u20193 and weigh 105 pounds, would I look good in that skirt?\u2019\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing that ultimately convinced my dad, or rather, shocked him, was the fact that the number one live streamer on Taobao, <\/span><b>Viya<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, made over $4.2 million dollars in 2017. She\u2019s only 32. As a matter of fact, none of the top 10 live streamers on Taobao is over 32 and they made an average of close to $2 million dollars per person in 2017, according to a ranking released by the website. These Taobao live streamers are kind of like Instagram influencers. They help businesses promote and sell products and get paid in commissions. <\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Viya, the so-called Taobao blogger who \u201cearn a house in one night\u201d, broke her own record in this year\u2019s Tmall Double 11 with over US$43.47M in sales. Her followers will buy whatever she recommends without even reading the product. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vxRtefsuDn\">https:\/\/t.co\/vxRtefsuDn<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ap4q93Apxx\">pic.twitter.com\/ap4q93Apxx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; China Internet Watch (@ChinaInternet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChinaInternet\/status\/1075784405392736256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 20, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The marriage between live streaming and e-commerce is the newest development of China\u2019s ongoing live streaming craze. As a young industry in China, live streaming sprouted in the early 2000s, exploded in 2015 and 2016, got heavily regulated in the following two years, and is now taking on new shapes and even making its way to countries outside China. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The live streaming industry offers us a great lens through which we can understand modern China: an emerging tech giant desperate to cash in on the future of the internet; a country with a nationwide thirst for material success but also a deepening class divide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Rise of Live Streams in China<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It started with gaming. Think <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twitch<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the US, the live streaming platform mostly focused around video gaming. Some gamers enjoy watching others play. They also want to talk with the player or discuss the player\u2019s performance with other viewers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then, people started talking about something other than games. Platforms like <strong>YY<\/strong>, featured in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/peoples-republic-of-desire\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People\u2019s Republic of Desire<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, started to have live streamers chat with viewers, or sing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the earliest successful live streamers, <strong>MC Tianyou<\/strong> (later named Li Tianyou), revealed on a TV show in 2017, that he makes $11 million dollars a year. Before Tianyou started live streaming, he was a street vendor. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does he do on his show? Mostly chatting. Sometimes he raps, about life, love, men and women, in very down-to-earth lyrics. More on Tianyou in this segment below:<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"China\u2019s internet celebrity economy booms---What is China?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kAekbFepK3U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You may wonder how anyone can make money from live streams. A simplified explanation is that live streamers make money from \u201ctips.\u201d Viewers buy virtual gifts with real money and \u201ctip\u201d live streamers with these gifts. Live streamers then redeem the gifts for money. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes tipping or gifting becomes a competition to flaunt wealth, to fight for attention and induce envy from other viewers. Some big patrons tip in thousands or hundreds of thousands. Such competition helps live streamers get more money. (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People\u2019s Republic of Desire<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> does a nice job explaining the whole economy and ecosystem behind all this.) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But before it became a game of flaunting wealth, live streaming started as something very grassroots. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A popular kind of live streamers are hosts like Tianyou or <strong>Big Li,<\/strong> one of the main characters in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People\u2019s Republic of Desire<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. They don\u2019t look like big-shot celebrities. They dress like common folks, talk like your neighbors and call themselves \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diaosi,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d a self-deprecating term that basically means \u201closer.\u201d These live streamers are essentially a mirror image of their viewers, a big percentage of which are working class. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The difference between the two is that the live streamers have \u201cmade it\u201d: they reached a level of material success that\u2019s unimaginable to the real working class. But the important thing for the viewers is that they are or at least <em>used to be<\/em> part of the working class.<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.pbs.org\/viralplayer\/3023671833\/\" width=\"1024\" height=\"664\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The very beginning of the live streaming craze almost felt like a party for the working class. Except it\u2019s just a fantasy that\u2019s sold to the viewers, to make them believe that they brought one of<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> them<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> up the social ladder, against all odds, with their collective power. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is probably the ultimate reason why factory workers spend a big portion\u00a0or even <em>all<\/em> of their salary on tipping their favorite live streamer. Their goal? To help the live streamer win the \u201cmost popular host or hostess\u201d competition, as featured in the film. They want to win in the virtual world because they hardly can in real life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2015 and 2016, live streaming exploded in China. At its height, there were more than 700 live streaming platforms. Some live streamers made more than A-list TV or movie stars. A Deloitte Consulting <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> estimated the Chinese live streaming market would reach $4.4 billion in 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To become popular, live streamers rely heavily on rich patrons who can tip more than just a few dollars here and there. Smart investors even found a business model. They \u201ctip\u201d in big amounts to help a little-known live streamer become popular. Once that live streamer gets popular and receives more tips, the investors cash in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Diaosi<\/em> ultimately become an observer in this game of capital. They\u2019re being used to fulfill the business model, yet with zero benefits in the process, and end up losing money. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People\u2019s Republic of Desire<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> captures this cruel and crucial truth about the live streaming industry by beautifully portraying not only the live streamers but also the viewers, the anonymous faces behind this craze. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Future of Live Streaming in China and Beyond<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting in 2017, the Chinese government <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">strengthened regulations<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on live streaming, mostly because they wanted to control what\u2019s being said or shown. New policies were released. Platforms that violated the policies were shut down. As a result, at the end of 2017, the number of live streaming platforms went down from 700 to around 200, according to a Chinese live streaming industry report from a Beijing think tank that researches the online entertainment industry in China<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Live streamers who violated rules were also shunned. Tianyou appeared on a Chinese TV program in early 2018, confessing that he mentioned drugs on his show. Soon after, Tianyou disappeared from the limelight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, that doesn\u2019t mean live streaming has seen its days in China. It\u2019s just becoming a more regulated industry instead of a wild market. The capital also centralized: China\u2019s tech giant, Tencent, purchased or bought shares in a lot of major live streaming platforms, paving the way towards industry monopoly. Live streaming companies are also exploring new business models. Marrying live streaming to e-commerce is one of the new experiments. Some companies are organizing more offline events, managing live streamers as a talent agency. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interestingly, the industry is also making its way to countries outside China. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two years ago when I was working for a website called Quartz, on a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">video<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about live streaming [see below], I came across\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LiveMe<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a Chinese live streaming company developed in Beijing but targeting markets outside China. According to a more recent Quartz<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, LiveMe made $100 million dollars in revenue in its first year, mostly from US viewers watching US live streamers, though they\u2019re present in countries other than the US, like Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"China&#039;s billion-dollar livestreaming industry\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aVh4bN0ymoA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even though no other place has been as passionate about live streaming as China, its rise tells us a bigger story about the time we live in, one I believe everyone can find something they relate to. Maybe it\u2019s the anxiety over your identity, about your place in the society, what it means to be successful and how to get there; or simply the longing to be connected to someone&#8211;even if they\u2019re complete strangers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><b>Siyi Chen<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist. Born and raised in Zhejiang, China, educated in New York City, Siyi currently splits her time between both places. She worked for the video team at Quartz (qz.com) for two years after graduating from NYU with an MA in News and Documentary. Her documentary projects are supported by IDFA Bertha Fund, Chicken and Egg Pictures, and SFFILM. When she\u2019s not making documentaries, Siyi writes in both English and Chinese about tech, media and documentaries in a cross-cultural context.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Siyi Chen When my dad, a small businessman from Southeast China, asked me, his social media-savvy daughter, how to utilize the internet to help sell his agricultural products, the first thing that came to mind was live streaming. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the TV shopping channels you watch,\u201d I tried to explain to him, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1357,1877],"tags":[],"topic":[1216,1239,1262,1250,1263],"class_list":["post-18103","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-the-films","category-lifestyle","topic-arts-and-culture","topic-identity","topic-labor","topic-music-2","topic-poverty-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is This Real Life: The Live Streaming Craze Explained | PBS | Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What does the live streaming craze in China, the US and the world tell us about society and loneliness? 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