Original hedgehog commune editorial department hedgehog commune

Become a symbol, against a symbol.

Text | Chen Shoucheng

Editor | Chen Meixi

"What I received was not all kindness, and what I felt was not all sincerity."

In May 2023, Dong Yuhui described his live broadcast career for more than a year in an interview with the World Wide Web. In this year, in order to show his best image, "his brain has been running at a high speed", so "long-term sleep is very poor, and his cervical spine is also very poor". At the same time, he also needs to accept "slander, humiliation, attack and satire" from all directions.

Although the theme of this interview video is "Happiness is to love yourself first", judging from Dong Yuhui’s expression, he was not happy at that time.

This unhappy state has been continuing. At the end of the same year, a small composition incident broke out, and Dong Yuhui once again fell into a serial hot search that he had already been bored with.

As a result, the Spring Festival in 2024 has just ended. He created one of the biggest hot searches in the new year because he was "tired of hot searches": # Dong Yuhui emptied Weibo.

Once again, the public opinion field lacking new events is in uproar because of Dong Yuhui, but this is definitely not Dong Yuhui’s original intention.

Contradictory Dong Yuhui

Dong Yuhui has many labels: a former New Oriental teacher, an intellectual and a scholar, one of the most influential anchors with goods at present, and an idol sought after by a certain group of people.

These identities achieved each other. The scholar made him a teacher, and the experience of New Oriental made him an anchor with goods. The intellectual’s "eloquence" made him a "super online celebrity" and thus became the favorite son-in-law of many "mothers-in-law".

In the past, these identities were mixed together, which became a necessary factor for Dong Yuhui to succeed in the secular level (such as economic and corporate status). When the types of super anchors are already quite rich, he killed them by virtue of his own scarcity, which not only achieved himself, but also achieved the selection of the East. Very classic narration of Bole and Maxima.

If Dong Yuhui is a shrewd and calculating economic rational person, these identities will become his magic weapon to win in shopping malls. Not only can he gain a higher voice within the company, but he can also easily find potential buyers who are willing to pay a high price. In fact, according to Dong Yuhui’s own statement, he did receive quite a number of cooperation invitations after the small composition incident last year, and there was also a huge annual salary offer of up to 200 million.

But the situation is just the opposite. The scholar Dong Yuhui has never been able to abandon his most persistent and boastful identity. As an intellectual and a scholar, "self-conceit" prevents him from becoming a real businessman, and of course he can’t treat himself as a marketable commodity to seek a high-priced contract. Even, he can’t be a real "anchor" in the traditional sense. In the face of some commodities, he shows a rather unprofessional "avoidance".

However, fans have also recognized Dong Yuhui more. In the eyes of fans, the more "self-satisfied" Dong Yuhui is, the more he can show his "pursuit", the more he can prove that he is a living person, not a puppet controlled by capital, and the more worthy of fans’ "shooting" through consumption.

In this combination of online celebrity idol and reading for everyone, Dong Yuhui is almost invincible in the live broadcast room. His live broadcast time was reduced, and someone wronged him; He can’t get the right to sign the essay, and some people complain for him; He was laid off from work, and someone rushed into the competitor’s live broadcast room selected by the East, as a resistance to the top selection of the East, forcing Yu Minhong to speak out, and Sun Dongxu became an abandoned child.

From an economic point of view, these identities do not constitute contradictions, but have quite miraculous effects. If these identities belong to a pre-planned person in online celebrity, and professionals plan the layout from the beginning, and finally create "Super online celebrity Dong Yuhui", it can be analyzed as a classic case.

But it happened that Dong Yuhui was not a created image, but a frank and true person. Super online celebrity is not the first identity he will choose. Intellectuals, scholars, even teachers, are the self-cognition he is more likely to choose first. In him, these contradictory moments of identity have already constituted his internal creation and consumption, and even if he gains wealth, he can’t hide or make up for it.

The expectations of fans for him first formed a cage of performance. In the live broadcast room, he needs to maintain his "high-speed brain", constantly produce golden sentences and small compositions, and always show his best state. Outside the live broadcast room, in the face of doubts and criticisms, he must also show generosity and "try his best to understand and help everyone."

The background color of Dong Yuhui’s "scholar" makes him unable to really integrate into modern business rules. As an anchor in online celebrity, he may have realized that public opinion "has nothing to do with right or wrong, but only emotions", but he is unwilling to compromise in the face of surging emotions. Even this time, he doesn’t want to roll with the punches with humorous or wise golden sentences.

In the live broadcast room, he insisted on talking about right and wrong. "I’m right. Why should I give up?"

Outside the live broadcast room, he chose "the anger of a man." "I can’t solve this problem, I can only escape instinctively."

Dong Yuhui’s Man’s Wrath

Dong Yuhui described his act of emptying Weibo with "the anger of a man": I know that I can’t solve the problem, but I am willing. In other words, even if nothing can be changed, he will express his position and attitude.

Anger came from a negative hot search about him: Dong Yuhui refused to explain underwear, which attracted some users to attack him for "discriminating against women". Just as he had already felt it in May last year, slander, humiliation, attack and irony came to his face.

Dong Yuhui, who had been annoyed for a long time, finally decided to fight back: to gain his "Ah Q victory" by emptying Weibo and quitting the platform.

But as Dong Yuhui himself knows, the tree wants to be quiet but the wind will not stop, and the hot search will not disappear because of his disgust and concession. His actions have attracted more discussion about him. In the eyes of those who hate him, he has one more crime: # Dong Yuhui can’t enjoy the traffic bonus and escape from public opinion. The implication is that since Dong Yuhui relies on the Internet to eat, he must put up with these disputes.

In fact, the controversy has existed for a long time. On the first day of Dong Yuhui’s popularity, the discussion about him never stopped. And all this stems from his complex identity and content value with community penetration.

Unlike more online celebrity anchors who are focusing on making a fortune, such as Tik Tok’s Big Wolf Dog couple, Mao Mao’s sister (worry-free media), Aauto Quicker’s Li Xuanzhuo, Yu Dagong (looking at technology from afar), Taobao’s live broadcast of Lieer Baby and so on. These people do not have cross-circle and cross-community influence, but Dong Yuhui is the result of the joint efforts of multiple platforms, and has always exerted influence on the whole platform.

Among them, Weibo, which Dong Yuhui dislikes most, is one of the important promoters of Dong Yuhui.

Looking back on Dong Yuhui’s road to explosion, for a long time, the bilingual delivery and knowledge delivery of Oriental selection and design failed to be "red". It was not until its cargo fragments spread to Weibo, causing a concentrated discussion in public space that Tik Tok algorithm added fuel to the fire and injected traffic into the East Selection Live Room.

After the popularity, Dong Yuhui’s development shows the characteristics of being concerned by the whole platform. He sells goods, but he doesn’t just sell goods. He wants to say that the killer whales in Alaska are jumping out of the sea. He responded to commodity disputes and not only responded to disputes, but also said that "grain cheap hurts farmers". He didn’t just explain and respond to the public opinion that didn’t need to be taken seriously. He wanted to say that "being misunderstood is the fate of the expresser".

These famous sayings that he blurted out can always touch the public’s mood to a greater or lesser extent, and therefore attract more people’s attention. Of course, as he himself said, "What he received was not all kindness, and what he felt was not all sincerity."

No one can please everyone, let alone such a super online celebrity that spans the whole platform. Some people think that he is knowledgeable, while others think that he is not profound enough; Some people think he has character, others think he is too pretentious; Some people think that he is a successful person, while others think that he is a middleman and capitalist who gets something for nothing. Both sides of the story have been written simultaneously since the day he exploded.

Of course, there are also some interesting parts of the incident. Before Dong Yuhui made it clear that he disliked hot search this time, Dong Yuhui scored only 7 points in Hufu, a fairly moderate score. Hot reviews are mostly one-star and two-star, and there is no lack of malice towards him. After Dong Yuhui and Weibo drew a clear line, his tiger pounce score came to 8.1.

Dong Yuhui, how long will it last?

Obviously, the development and change of public opinion has come to Dong Yuhui’s advantage.

In the eyes of some iron powder, Dong Yuhui’s move has further consolidated his study for everyone, which is more trustworthy. Even if it is not iron powder, there are many people who are equally disgusted with hot search, so they expressed sympathy for Dong Yuhui and increased their goodwill towards him.

Dong Yuhui, who had already expressed his anger, was more rational in his later response. He said that emptying Weibo but not canceling it was to prevent fake numbers, and keeping his own account could also keep everyone concerned and allow everyone to criticize.

It seems that this matter will come to an end soon. What is puzzling is, what role does Oriental Selection play in it?

Since the essay incident, Dong Yuhui’s identity in the company has undergone some changes. On the surface, he obtained the status of senior partner and a separate account with Hui. In this incident, some people close to Dongfang Selection said that it was Dong Yuhui’s personal behavior to empty Weibo, and Dongfang Selection officials did not respond too much to this matter.

This situation may correspond to Dong Yuhui’s victory in the essay incident. In the previous judgment of fans, Dong Yuhui was restricted by the company (Sun Dongxu), but now he can empty Weibo at will or refuse to explain the goods. It can be seen that at least within the company, he has considerable freedom to act.

This is not a good signal for the capital market. The other side of freedom means "out of control", what’s more, Dong Yuhui is still an irrational intellectual.

The uncontrollable characteristics of intellectuals actually deeply influenced this company earlier. Previously, Yu Minhong had said that he didn’t know about Dong Yuhui’s authorized slicing business, and stopped the business after learning about the relevant situation.

But in fact, slicing with goods is a common operation of the head anchor in the industry. Some practitioners believe that Yu Minhong’s decision is due to the uncontrollable nature of Dong Yuhui. "It’ s said in the live broadcast room, so many people slice and spread repeatedly, and it’ s easy to overturn."

However, even if Dong Yuhui’s sliced goods are not spread out in a large area after this, his every move in the live broadcast room will still be repeatedly observed and spread, and the authorization of sliced goods will be terminated, which only reduces the probability of being repeatedly watched by a magnifying glass.

On the way to becoming online celebrity, no one can avoid the fate of being symbolized. Only some people accept this process frankly, while catering to the audience’s inherent expectations of themselves, while using this expectation to make an equal exchange in the capital market. Some people don’t even feel that they have become symbols, so they can only be forced to accept fate’s arrangement for themselves.

Dong Yuhui, on the other hand, is aware of his own symbol system and deliberately confronts the symbolized life.

Unfortunately, people’s imagination of public figures will almost inevitably move towards labeling and symbolization. Regarding Dong Yuhui’s imagination and expectation, he will definitely stay in the fixed collocation of some words.

How long will Dong Yuhui be popular after this incident? This is an eternal question about online celebrity’s life cycle. But for Dong Yuhui himself, this may not be a problem to consider.

He’s already tired.

Original title: "Dong Yuhui: The Anger of an Intellectual online celebrity"

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