Online live streamers receive certificates in a training graduation ceremony for live-streaming stars in Beijing. Photo: FILE

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China’s live-streaming industry emerged in 2005, and it boomed in 2016. By 2018, the industry engaged roughly 456 million people, meaning that more than half of Chinese internet users have watched live streaming shows. A total of 1,450,000 people became online streamers in 2017 and the number rose to 2.2 million in 2018, according to a 2018 white paper on the live streaming industry covering 28 mainstream platforms.

 

Regulation
Online live streamers are diverse due to the enormous market size. To solicit attention, some live streamers will resort to every conceivable means. Some of them have broadcasted their mom taking a shower, while others have broadcasted people taking drugs or jumping from a building. Their obtrusive acts have repeatedly crossed the legal and moral bottom line, indicating an urgent need to straighten out the online streaming environment. To this end, in 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and other departments jointly launched the “Notice on Strengthening Management of Online Live Streaming Services.”

Stricter management remarkably reduced extreme behaviors in online streaming rooms, but some streamers still violated regulations such as smoking or cursing. Sometimes these acts are made deliberately as streamers know they can evade punishment. While some acts come from streamers’ lack of understanding of regulations and norms.

At the outset of 2018, Guangming Daily’s website, with the support of the Central Network Office, established a streamer blacklist based on an online sharing system. Up to now, more than 2,100 streaming stars have been blacklisted. “Some of them were driven by money and were involved in pornography and drug deals on purpose. But most people on the blacklist were ignorant about regulations. Smoking and swearing seem not to matter, but once being banned, they will find it extremely hard to do anything online; sometimes they are prevented from opening online stores,” said Song Leyong, deputy general manager of Guangming Daily’s website. Therefore, it is essential to educate and train streamers to protect their long-term interests and clean up the cyber environment.

In November 2018, the Live-Streaming Branch of the China Association of Performing Arts held a training class in Shanghai. Professionals interpreted policies, regulations and law enforcement cases. They also elaborated on streamers’ ability, image and etiquette. It was a small-scale training class attended by a handful of video-streaming content examiners from various platforms and the streamers who profited significantly from virtual gifts that can be purchased by fans.

The recent training organized by Kugou is part of a larger-scale initiative in which all streamers on the platform can apply to participate. The training is set to become a regular event. Huang Xuanting, head of Kugou Live-Streaming Academy said that the training has opened more than 140 online courses since its launch in May 2018, 30% of which touch upon policies, laws and regulations, aiming to teach streamers how to behave during live streams without violating the rules. The training has turned out effective as “the participants’ number of wrongdoings has dropped by 67%,” Huang added.

 

Values
Honggege, a graduate from the School of Music at Southwest University, used to be a teacher. Despite having advanced music literacy, she was extremely nervous when she first engaged in the live-streaming industry, without knowing how to act in front of a camera or interact with viewers. “My hands were shaking ” at the beginning, she said.

Many new streamers choose to imitate their successful counterparts in how they go about attracting fans and getting more virtual gifts that can be purchased by viewers. However, it is almost impossible to learn more. In this industry, most online stars are left to perish on their own. People say this is often the case that all streamers, no matter how popular they used to be, can only stay in the spotlight for three to five years.

A majority of viewers watch live broadcasts out of curiosity. When the curiosity fades away, they will turn a blind eye to these streamers. The reason lies in a couple of factors. A smartphone is the only threshold to live broadcasts and the shows are usually unprofessional without any improvement. Many streamers who claim to display talents have no representative works. Therefore, fans will easily reach aesthetic fatigue. “Fans are mobile. Streamers’ career bottleneck is that we must continuously hone our talent and live-streaming skills so that fans will keep their long-term attention on us,” Honggege said.

Education and training are inseparable from making streamers more professional. Kugou Live-Streaming Academy developed partnerships with multiple performing arts associations and universities and opened more than 140 courses. Of these courses, 70% touch upon basic vocal skills, instrument performance and music theory in the forms of video lessons, live-streaming lessons, one-on-one training and collective training.

Gao Wenjun, an assistant research fellow from the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that as for platform development, a training series can cultivate more excellent streamers and provide better content to attract viewers. In the long run, training can fuel the development of the live-streaming industry.

 

Profession
It is an inevitable question as to whether streamers can perform on a bigger stage, which decides whether streamers can overcome their career bottleneck and create a new space.

Many online stars seek offline development to build themselves into performing stars. In many cases, however, they fail to adapt to professional stages. A musician streamer followed by millions of fans participated in a show. He was embarrassed on the stage when he was required to answer a question about basic music theory. Finally, he got eliminated. In terms of a bigger picture, the live-streaming industry’s scale is stabilizing, promoting a rational development pattern. Currently, it is difficult to establish a foothold in the practice of showing a pretty face, behaving crazy or pushing boundaries. Laws and regulations cannot be violated. Quality content is the only approach to a longer career. Therefore, apart from becoming more standard and professional, streaming needs to be promoted as a profession. 

The industry has been split on whether streaming can become a profession in coming years. Pan Yan, secretary-general of the China Association of Performing Arts, said that a live broadcast is a tool, one can’t claim himself as a streamer only because he is a user of a live-streaming platform. A new profession will be secured when a group of professional streamers emerges. Our association will provide services for evaluating streamers’ ability and establish a vocational education system that can be applied to all live-streaming platforms.

The reality is ahead of professional recognition. At present, a host of professionalized streamers have emerged, many of whom have set up teams for offline development. For example, the Yiren Team, represented by online star Boss Sand, has gathered a group of popular streamers devoted to shooting funny short videos about rural themes. Their high popularity has led to their participation in the film Genius Partner. Most of these streamers still engage in other jobs while only a few of them regard this as a profession by putting all their energy into live-streaming shows.

The professionalization of streamers has a long way to go. It is a mission impossible for just one or two platforms alone. Instead, it requires the collaborative efforts of platforms, performing associations and industry authorities. Huang called for more live-streaming platforms to join in the effort to train streamers, empowering the industry through talent education, hoping that one day streamers can claim their work as a profession like anyone else’s.
 
This article was edited and translated from Guangming Daily.

edited by MA YUHONG