Undoubtedly, the rising star Guo Youcai has achieved another major victory in the Douyin algorithm - he's like a bullet, effortlessly piercing through the social barriers constructed by Douyin, spreading indiscriminately into the recommendation lists of hundreds of millions of netizens.
New Douyin data shows that previously, the number of viewers in Guo Youcai's live broadcasts was only tens of thousands; but after May 3rd, the number of viewers per live broadcast has remained above a million, with a single live broadcast on May 16th attracting over 27.74 million viewers and breaking a billion likes.
Correspondingly, Guo Youcai's TikTok followers have also sharply increased. On May 10, Guo Youcai's account had just 190,000 followers, but after being selected by the algorithm, he gained 3.14 million followers from May 9 to May 12, and on May 15, he gained 1.13 million followers in a single day. As of May 26, Guo Youcai's TikTok followers have exceeded 13 million.
"I've seen the same question in several groups: 'Is it too late to copy Guo Youcai now?' The people asking include MCN partners and owners of TikTok accounts with millions of followers, but they all feel that the lifecycle of top IP is being compressed again," a TikTok anchor told Huxiu.
He believes that from Zhang Tongxue, Xiucai, Yu Wenliang to Wen Huijun, Wang Po, Guo Youcai, the "legend" of amateurs becoming top influencers is repeatedly staged, but the window of going viral is getting shorter, more like a "creating idols" movement of rapid rise and fall.
Guo Youcai "breaks through" on TikTok
In fact, from Zhang Tongxue, Xiucai, Yu Wenliang to Wen Huijun, Wang Po, Guo Youcai, the rise to fame of these ordinary people can be clearly deconstructed. For example, the various analyses of Guo Youcai's rise to fame can be roughly divided into two aspects:
On one hand, Guo Youcai started from humble beginnings but did not lose the essence of fighting against fate.
This young man, born in 1999 in a rural area (Heze, Shandong), now only 25 years old, still lives passionately and vigorously despite facing the hardships of losing his mother at the age of 10 and dropping out of school to work at 13. He is a sentimental singer during the day and transforms into a barbecue master at night. After struggling in the live streaming world for seven years, he finally hit the TikTok algorithm and became an overnight sensation.
Guo Youcai's Rise to Fame
Coming from a poor rural background, dropping out of school to support himself, finding true love in hardship, and achieving fame and glory in his hometown overnight—Guo Youcai's growth trajectory is like a naturally crafted inspirational script for the underdog climbing up from the bottom of society.
On the other hand, the combination of nostalgic filters, expressions of hardship, and unique appearance make Guo Youcai highly recognizable.
When you come across Guo Youcai on Douyin, the nostalgic filters and old-school appearance will catch your eye. Coupled with his soulful rendition of "Promise," it's easy to empathize with his struggles in life. Through his heartfelt singing and nostalgic filters, Guo Youcai swiftly presents the image of a rural youth striving for success in a vivid and authentic way.
After watching Guo Youcai's videos, a short video creator confidently concluded that the vintage train station, retro filters, and nostalgic makeup should be guided and packaged by a professional team.
"Sporting a big retro hairstyle, silver wire glasses, a wide suit paired with a floral shirt, a red and white striped tie, and black leather gloves, these details exude a sense of era and recognition. Most ordinary people cannot achieve such a systematic IP shaping. The performance environment and camera language clearly show careful planning."
The individual further added, "After applying a layer of nostalgic filter to his shots, it easily resonates with a generation. The song 'Promise' hits the memories of audiences who have experienced significant changes over time." According to third-party data, Guo Youcai's fan base is mostly aged between 31 to 40, with a male-to-female ratio of 67% to 33%.
In response, Chen Huizhong, Associate Professor of Sociology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, believes that Chinese people have a nostalgic mentality, indicating that our society is undergoing rapid changes and development, with many things being replaced by new ones before being fully digested by people—"Nostalgia is a summary of the past."
As a result, voices of reflection have emerged in the market: Is such precise operation and promotion truly driven by "nostalgia," or has marketing thoroughly understood the public's aesthetic preferences?
In fact, when the spotlight of idol-making met Guo Youcai, doubts were destined to surge afterward.
Indeed, during Guo Youcai's explosive rise to fame, national internet celebrities rushed to Heze South Station, fearing to miss out on the opportunity to capitalize on this massive wave of attention. As crowds flocked from all directions, the three major telecom operators deployed signal vehicles to the scene, setting up additional network base stations overnight to ensure the smooth operation of the converging live broadcast army—a scene of "chaotic dance of demons" in the live streaming world unfolded in a grand and spectacular manner.
Screenshots of the melee at Heze South Station
Soon, like a flood, the traffic devoured this once sparsely populated station, prompting officials to halt all entertainment activities at Heze South Station Square. Meanwhile, Guo Youcai's recommended data on Douyin also began to cool down gradually.
At this point, the situation took a double turn. Internet critics who rushed to the scene criticized: Why does this era push internet celebrities to the top of the nation? Furthermore, they elevated the Guo Youcai effect to a reflection on the local level:
"The mass live broadcast event created by Guo Youcai and his behind-the-scenes promoters, due to its rapid money-making efficiency and the quick withdrawal from local governments, can be named 'A Dream in Heze'—in this dream, the contribution of traffic to local governments is zero. If we refer to the flattery of the hasty actions, the social reputation is probably negative. 'A Dream in Heze' is comparable to a fleeting dream."
In their view, even though Guo Youcai achieved a sudden wealth leap (according to third-party statistics, Guo Youcai's single live broadcast gift rewards exceeded 1 million, and there were rumors that his signing fee with an MCN reached as high as 50 million RMB), there is still a distance from social class promotion. Therefore, he still cannot step onto the stage—critics firmly believe that internet celebrities are just an ugly symbol entangled in various interests.
Indeed, the barriers built by the elite's predecessors with their own flesh and blood have allowed them to climb to the top of education, basking in the tilt of educational resources. However, the efforts of ordinary people who have struggled all their lives to climb up are easily dismissed by online critics with a casual "just an internet celebrity," tinged with a hint of intellectual arrogance.
Undeniably, the live show that traveled thousands of miles to Heze South Station attracted speculators, attention seekers, and traffic manipulators. However, there is also a considerable proportion of ordinary people eager to seize this rare opportunity and strive to climb up.
For example, Bao Ran commented, "A large number of grassroots people urgently want to find a way out, from basic needs to social class promotion. When the mainstream channels are blocked, the dammed lake will eventually find its own breakthrough point. The motivation is understandable, the actions are logical, but the results are unpredictable."
After all, this is an immensely complex and rapidly expanding ecosystem in China. According to the latest data from the "China Online Performance (Live Streaming and Short Video) Industry Development Report (2022-2023)," there are currently over 150 million online live streaming accounts, over 1 billion content creator accounts generating nearly 200 billion RMB in market revenue, and creating job opportunities for over 100 million people.
Douyin has finally become the "totem" for internet celebrities' rise.
In fact, from Zhang Tongxue, Xiucai, Yu Wenliang to Wen Huijun, "Dig Dig" Teacher Huang, and Guo Youcai, the vast majority of contributors to the data with millions of likes and tens of millions of views are from the sinking market population.
This aligns with the philosopher Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"—Plato believed that each person is born in a cave they have dug themselves, thinking that what they see is the real world, not realizing that it may just be shadows cast on the cave wall by the sunlight.
From left to right are Wen Huijun, Teacher Huang from "Digging", and Yu Wenliang.
Before this, rural themes have always been the enduring "traffic password" in the short video field of various platforms—however, vulgarity, fantasy, and absurdity have at times been labels attached to short videos with rural themes.
Moreover, in the public perception, Douyin and Kuaishou have different tones and ecological characteristics. A head of an MCN agency told Huxiu that if you want to build a persona, it's recommended to go to Kuaishou, and if you are good at creativity, then Douyin is more suitable.
"Even the smallest account on Douyin has a chance to go viral, with many overnight sensations, but the problem is that even for influencers with tens of millions of fans, their lifecycle is very short, and the decline in popularity can be very bleak; for a small account on Kuaishou to become popular, you need to invest a lot of resources in the early stages, you can collaborate with others, send gifts to popular anchors, it's a process, but as long as you establish your persona, loyal fans will wait for you every day, unlike Douyin where once you're out of trend, you're out."
In other words, playing with algorithms is a survival skill for every Douyin creator to capture traffic. Douyin has absolute control over the iteration of top anchors, a slight change in the official content format can cause a wave of people to join or leave; but Kuaishou is not like that, the Kuaishou anchor family remains prosperous for only one reason, they do not rely on content creation, but have built an IP through live streaming and skits on the platform.
Following this logic, the character image of Guo Youcai seems to better fit the "temperament" of Kuaishou—after all, the image recording of rural landscapes originated from Kuaishou, which encourages the use of almost sketch-like methods to record real life, and the fan base is more likely to grow "Guo Youcai".
Early Kuaishou live streamers' mental state
However, when Guo Youcai swiftly swept through Douyin like a thunderbolt, not only did he catch the attention of brands and businesses to the vibrancy of Douyin, but also led to Douyin's rural and nostalgic content landing softly.
"Guo Youcai's rise may be Douyin's way of accelerating the capture of the traffic in the sinking market." A short video observer believes that, compared to the past where MCNs created idols on Douyin, the platform is now embracing rural youth and the sinking market by cultivating more figures like Guo Youcai.
In other words, from Zhang Tongxue, Xiucai, Yu Wenliang to Wen Huijun, Guo Youcai, it's just another algorithm-driven descent led by Douyin—only this time, the algorithm's chosen internet celebrities no longer undergo the survival of the fittest based on the mainstream aesthetics of the top-tier cities.
This means that the trend is for traffic to flow downwards—Douyin and Kuaishou are expanding their advantages by penetrating various niche categories and competing with each other to seize the advantages of competitors' niche categories.
Especially when the entire short video industry growth is reaching its peak and the monthly active user base is entering a fluctuation phase, Douyin and Kuaishou, seeking growth against a high base, must achieve it through the mutual friction of various niche categories.
A head of operations at an MCN frankly told Hu Xiu that Guo Youcai's popularity on Douyin rather than Kuaishou is not surprising: "The underlying logic of the outbreak lies in Douyin having a larger and more generalized audience base. From Daigula K, Maomao Jie, Qiu Yong to Zhang Tongxue, Xiucai, Yu Wenliang, and then to Wen Huijun, Wang Po, Guo Youcai, the top stream of the flowing water, the unshakable Douyin."
So, when Guo Youcai conquered one Douyin hot list after another, and Weibo's trending topics, simply studying accounts couldn't find the answer. Everyone has now turned their attention to the platform's intentions. "Traffic is almost equivalent to the platform's currency. Relying solely on algorithms to snowball is impossible to sustain such high popularity for so long. This may be the direction of the platform's next trend." Therefore, many creators have embarked on pixel-level replication, with Li Youcai, Wu Youcai, and Liu Youcai all emerging on the platform one after another.
However, the ultimate ROI, chasing bestsellers, and industrialized DOU+ placements are the underlying logic of the Douyin ecosystem. The emergence of vertical super IPs is just a "tool" for its territorial expansion.
After all, in this "turning stones into gold" game, Douyin holds the ultimate decision-making power.
