Online live broadcasts have become new opportunities for young people in northeastern towns with a maximum monthly income of 300,000

In 2016, the live broadcast industry developed strongly under the aegis of capital, claiming to have a market share of 100 billion yuan, and even pushed the video new media industry into an explosive stage. On the other hand, due to increased competitive pressure, stricter policies, serious losses, and difficulties in financing, it may face a "life-and-death disaster" at any time after the "Hundred Regiments War".

Original title: In my hometown in Northeast China,"Elderly City", doing live broadcasts has become a new opportunity for young people

. 24 hours is the distance between the city where I live and my home. It takes a 19-hour train ride from Beijing to the nearest station to home, and then another 5 hours by bus to bump home.

My hometown is Xingkai, a small town located on the Sino-Russian border in Heilongjiang Province. It is located in the northeast of Mishan City in Jixi. The Wusuli River, a Sino-Russian border river, flows near the town. Thousands of miles of ice are frozen and thousands of miles of snow are the norm in winter for our residents here.

After the town underwent intensive renovation of residential buildings and roads around 2000, its appearance has not changed for more than ten years. The biggest change is that the door selling grilled cold noodles has changed to selling malatang, and so on.

Unlike the previous generation, who mostly worked in nearby farms, ranches, and dairy factories, this generation of young people who do not want to continue working in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery rarely return here to endure the snowy and ice days of Heilongjiang in winter after going out to school and working.

My mother, who welcomed me home, jokingly called this the "elderly city".

The anchor with a monthly income of 300,000 yuan and the town residents with a monthly income

of 3,000 yuan have known since I can remember that most of the people in the town rely on the four "big units" of land, pasture, dairy factory, and mosaic brick factory. With the closure of the mosaic brick factory in the late 1990s, employment opportunities in the town became even more scarce. At that time, the fourth aunt's family and the neighbor's uncle chose to leave the town and go to other provinces to find job opportunities.

In the past 20 years, there have been no new job opportunities here.

The hometown town is a microcosm, and the entire northeastern territory of China seems to be facing an employment crisis. The development of the Internet field is close to blank, and emerging business formats such as mobile Internet and e-commerce seriously lag behind the country. Statistics show that in 2015, the GDP growth rate of the three northeastern provinces was at the bottom of the country, with the three provinces of Liaoning, Heiji and Kyrgyzstan ranking first, third and fourth respectively in the country. In the first quarter of 2016, the GDP of Liaoning Province experienced negative growth and continued to be at the bottom of the country.

The economy of Northeast China has been experiencing cold weather all the way. The three northeastern provinces, whose GDP once accounted for seventy to eighty percent of the country, seem to have been forgotten by the Internet era before they can react.

But this land abandoned by investors and young people, with the emergence of live broadcast phenomena such as "One person, I drink drunk", has finally caught the wind of the Mobile Live Video Broadcasting industry, or even occupied it.

It is difficult to count Northeast anchors active on major live broadcast platforms, but there is no denying that they are becoming the backbone of the anchor market. Half of the top 20 anchors on almost every platform are Northeast.

Who among the young people from Northeast China does not have many friends in their circle of friends who are engaged in the live broadcast industry?

I have known Xiao An for 15 years. I first met him in primary school and was assigned to a class in junior high school. The four girls looked at each other very well, and their temperaments and personalities complemented each other, so they became close friends.

During the summer vacation of 2007,"Happy Boys" became popular all over China. We went out at 4:30 every morning for "morning exercise", preparing to participate in the "Super Girl" debut in the form of a women's group. Of course, this dream was eventually killed, firstly because I was out of tune, and secondly, teacher education should focus on academic education.

When we learned that Xiao An became an anchor in 2015, the other three girls of us were still interning at our work unit, thinking that she alone fulfilled the four of us dream of a star.

Compared with the complex and heavy economic background of Northeast China, Xiao An's reason for choosing to be an anchor is simple and straightforward-he has fans, makes money, and can sing his favorite songs. Why not?

From Crazy Live Broadcast, to Qixiu Live Broadcast, and now to Momo Live Broadcast, Xiao 'an has changed three live broadcast platforms. At present, Xiao An's Momo live broadcast room has 80,000 fans, and about 1,000 fans are online every day.

"The most profitable monthly income is 300,000 yuan, and the less is about 20,000 yuan." An said.

In the eyes of peers who have just entered society, this is an income that is beyond reach. As a result, Xiao An became the fastest among our classmates to "build a moderately prosperous society". In the past two years, more and more young people are engaged in the anchor industry in small towns with a permanent population of less than 20,000 and residents 'wages of only 3,000 yuan, which seems to have become a new employment opportunity.

Northeast big marten and outsiders 'eyes

In mid-January this year, Xiao An wore a mink he had bought, drove a car he had just bought, and wrapped in a big red envelope for his parents, and returned home from Harbin for the New Year.

For this day, she gave up all her vacations.

As a professional anchor, Xiao An set himself a six-hour live broadcast time a day. 9:00-12:00 in the morning, 17:00-20:00 in the evening, plus the time spent making up and debugging musical instruments, I have basically not eaten to order in the past two years.

During holidays like the Spring Festival, traffic on the live broadcast platform will increase. Xiao 'an will not miss such an opportunity, and her agency will not allow it. Since he started working as an anchor in the summer of 2015, Xiao An has not given himself a vacation. "You can't rest if you want to do well." An said.

This year is the third year that Xiao An has signed a contract with her brokerage company. The company helps her promote the live broadcast room and provides a certain basic salary and welfare guarantee, provided that she takes 20% of her income every month. Relying on this sense of belonging, Xiao An never had the idea of going it alone.

In addition to high-pressure working hours, young anchors also have to bear the "black eye" from society.

Fan Fan lives in Shenyang. In June last year, he started to broadcast his life live on Yingke. Sometimes he sang, sometimes he chatted about family affairs, and he also did live travel. Fan Fan is not a professional anchor. He has a job in a property management company and will broadcast it probably once or twice a week in his spare time to earn some extra money.

"In fact, my friends around me asked me to become an anchor for Amway two years ago. At that time, I went to the live broadcast room to take a look. Many of them served as social outlets and talked too casually to each other. At that time, being an anchor gave people a very bad impression." Fan Fan said.

Xiao An was once subject to a lot of prejudice because of his profession. It was not until the end of last year that he dared to tell his parents his real profession. Now, when Xiao An's parents miss their daughter, they occasionally visit her in their daughter's live broadcast room.

The live broadcast environment is gradually improving, but there are still loopholes.

Recently, Xiao An discovered that someone pretended to be himself and went to chat privately with fans and took the opportunity to defraud money. Some fans were defrauded of more than 5000 yuan at most.

"The scammers target these fans who often reward me, use my avatar and tone to chat with them, and then borrow money, or take out a WeChat number that impersonates me and asks them to spend money on it." An said.

After the incident happened, Xiao An did not let these scammers feel better.

"Every time I go live online, I repeatedly repeat that my WeChat will not add fans, warning everyone not to be deceived. I also collected some evidence and wanted to catch this scammer."

In Xiao An's view, these crooked ways have affected the reputation of the anchor group. Xiao An wants to make money based on his true skills openly.

Why do Northeastern people like to be anchors?

Money is one of the most important reasons why young people in Northeast China are keen on live broadcasting.

The time when An received the most rewards was when Laifeng was broadcasting "Zhou Xing", which gave her a taste of the sweetness of doing a live broadcast.

The so-called Zhou Xing selection is to rank the anchors based on the reward gifts they receive. "During that time, some of my fans rewarded me with more than 100,000 yuan a day in order to promote me as Zhou Xing." An said.

Fan Fan also has a deep memory of the highest reward he received. Sometimes there are many vulgar words in the live broadcast room, and Fan Fan generally doesn't care about them. However, once an audience's message was too obscene and unpleasant. Fan Fan, who was blunt and fierce, couldn't bear the tone and scolded the other party, and was always at the upper hand. "Someone rewarded me with 513 yuan just while I was scolding."

In contrast, the per capita disposable income of residents in the three northeastern provinces is much lower. Only Liaoning Province is slightly higher than the national average, and Heilongjiang and Jilin Province are both lower than the national average.

The dairy factory in our township is one of the pillars of the local economy. Any business changes and personnel adjustments will involve the survival of many people in the town. Their average salary is less than 3,000 yuan, but it is enough to support their families. It is conceivable that an ordinary anchor may have difficulty surviving in first-and second-tier cities with income, but he can live a good life in third-and fourth-tier cities.

Secondly, it is determined by the diverse frank and straightforward character of the Northeastern people.

"Most Northeastern girls are cheerful, chatty, expressive, and good at dressing up. The most important thing is a good mentality. These factors are mixed together and help us quickly gain popularity in the live broadcast circle." Fan Fan said.

Judging from the Northeast sketches that are screened every year during the Spring Festival, Northeastern people are very good at opening up the conversation. Shaking baggage, telling jokes, being clever, using talk show mode to attract fans, and even creating live chat rooms are all what Northeast anchors are good at.

But in essence, they do not have the right to speak and the rules of the game in this market.

The lack of talent, capital, innovation, and entrepreneurial mechanisms still restricts the development of Northeast China's mobile Internet industry.

Xiao An sometimes also thinks about his future.

In 2016, the live broadcast industry developed strongly under the aegis of capital, claiming to have a market share of 100 billion yuan, and even pushed the video new media industry into an explosive stage. On the other hand, due to increased competitive pressure, stricter policies, serious losses, and difficulties in financing, it may face a "life-and-death disaster" at any time after the "Hundred Regiments War".

Compared with the crazy industry, the question facing Xiao An is how long can anchors go on this road?

Editor: Nancy