University Student Fights the “Fakers” on WeChat – and Makes Money While Doing It
Zhang Lin, a college student and Wechat success story, makes money by producing comedy videos around Tsinghua University, treating campus life with an irreverant wit.
Text by Wenyu Fang and Yuqi Ning. Graphics and sidebar by Sasha Urman. Photos and video by Graham Dickie.
There are well over eight million official Wechat accounts out there, according to parent company Tencent. Out of these, though, only 1% make any money.
Zhang Lin is part of the rarefied group that has found a way to profit on their social media cachet – and she’s done it before finishing college. Zhang earns more than 10,000 yuan for each of her posts on what has become the most popular and indispensable social media platform in China, publishing everything from her dorm at Tsinghua University.
Zhang, a master’s student in journalism, channeled her media savvy into her official account named “U R Tasty” and focuses on the stories of interesting people and happenings on campus. She has found a niche audience among students, focusing on the hot topics in their lives: content for students by students.
The official account is run by Zhang and Zhao Yingnan – her soulmate, she says. The two started the business with a series of articles introducing influential figures at Tsinghua who are extraordinary but not traditional model students. Then the official account went through a transitional stage with a new focus on the problem of ordinary college students before arriving at its current iteration – an off-the-walls, irreverent video comedy platform that skewers campus conservatism.
"Just be interesting!"
“It is a we-media platform on which some pretty guys are up to some monkey business,” the account description reads in Chinese. “We are too young to simmer a thick soup for the soul. So we just invite you to have a sip of our interesting stories.”
At the time Zhang created “U R Tasty” in 2015, WeChat official accounts run by individuals were not yet common place. And they definitely did not represent the attitudes of young people, Zhang said.
“The public opinion atmosphere at Tsinghua was dull and serious, which was dominated with official voices,” Zhang said. “Why can’t I set up an interesting platform on WeChat myself?”
Her only guide was, and remains, to be interesting to young people and keep their attention.
“Most of the female wanghong in China” – social media celebrities – “put appearance first and a great number of them do plastic surgery,” Peking University student and U R Tasty follower Zheng Yajie said. “They are beautiful but without any distinguishing features. But Zhang Lin is different – her creativity and sense of exaggeration is attractive. She is unique and interesting.”
An outsider
“The school always trains us to become adept pieces of the mainstream media and walk onto a bigger stage,” Zhang said. “So what if I don’t?”
Defining her official account as well as herself as non-mainstream, Zhang decided to cover more “unorthodox” stories.
“Tsinghua is large and you can encounter a lot of different people here,” Zhang said. “We cannot stay by ourselves in our own bubbles. Just go out of it and see the world of possibilities.”
Inspired by everyday experience and observation, Zhang developed a series of stories to express opinions that do not chime in with authoritative voices. Her videos, which brim with authenticity, treat university life with a facetious and ironic tone. They also, of course, make liberal use of memes.
Take her video about the university entrance exam as an example. By poking holes in students’ fantasies of what college life is like, she expresses the naivety of believing the trials stop when you get into the school of your dreams. She blankets frank wisdom inside self-aware humor. “Getting lost and dreams running aground on reality makes for an even tougher challenge apart from academic burden when you step into university,” she says in the video.
In effect, Zhang has turned into something of a voice for her generation.
“Her posts have struck a chord with me and I like her depictions of college students,” Zheng said. “It feels like she knows what we are worrying about and what are the problems we are facing.”
A sexy “style”
Some of her posts are pure satires of campus life and her pet peeves: “How to be a Tsinghua socialite,” “A guide book on ‘model couples’ at Tsinghua,” and “A survival guide on how to be a student with 4,000 yuan living expense per month.”
“What I really cannot stand are the ‘fakers’,” Zhang said. “To be real is the new political correctness in my opinion.”
One of the reasons why Zhang’s posts resonante is that she is open-minded about sex and other sensitive topics that most official account would pass over.
“What I insist on is a kind of ‘style’—I want to underscore the positive energy in an ironic and sexy means of expression,” Zhang said.
As the “CEO” of her official account, she is keenly aware of her audience and what they are lacking in the current media environment.
“The way in which we represent what we want to say is widely accepted by the generation after 90s even those who were born after 2000,” Zhang said.
Zhang firmly believes that there is a group of people similar to her, and that their voices are being drowned out by the flood of stodgy official accounts.
“Having an understanding of this means grasping the selling point,” Zhang said.
“Advertisements are never my pursuit”
“U R Tasty” grabbed the attention of some corporations in only two months’ time. The page view for the first post shot to 5,000; the second post doubled that number.
Zhang and her partner Zhao became campus celebrities almost overnight. The topics of their official account became hot issues that students murmur about after class, and they draw large numbers of comments and reposts.
The wide recognition in Tsinghua has drawn in larger companies including Apple, Xiaomi, Youdao, NetEase. The companies usually contact Zhang and Zhao by email or directly through her official account. The two choose the one that fits with the theme of a psot.
Payment is up to the sponsor, who decides based on page views. For this reason, their income is unstable – they are not rich by any means. Zhang joked that there will be more posts if they both run out of money, like in November, when they used up money in Taobao on the so-called “double eleven.”
“The advertisement has brought considerable revenue for me, but it will never become my pursuit,” said Zhang Lin, “I will always give priority to my audience and provide what they would like to see. The baseline is that all of the contents are original and interesting.”
A success of friendship
“It is like a child of my friends and I,” Zhang said. ‘U R Tasty’ is the most telling witness of our youth.”
After getting her bachelor’s degree, Zhang said she “cried for a whole night. It makes me feel lonely.” While she stuck around Tsinghua to pursue her master’s, her collaborator Zhao has gone to Vancouver and the account binds them together in spite of the distance.
“U R Tasty” is still a product of their friendship. Zhang and Zhao write the script together. If Zhao is the protagonist in the video, he will record it in Vancouver and send it to Zhang for editing. The collaboration continues after three years, as does their friendship.
“I’m still not an wanghong”
Although Zhang has mainly focused on students at Tsinghua, she wants to expand her audience further to include more young people across China.
“I am still not qualified to be called a wanghong now, but it is a commendatory word for me,” said Zhang Lin. “The degree of recognition is still rather low. Only a small number of students know me, most of whom are from Tsinghua.”
Zhang believes that Internet celebrity economy is a new trend and calls the business logic reasonable. She is part of an emerging movement and sees a future in it, saying it will form an ever-increasing part of “modern society.”
The Booming Industry of Wanghong (Sidebar)
Wanghong(网红) – that’s “internet celebrity” in Chinese. They are famous and they earn a lot of money. And the industry is growing at a breakneck speed. In 2018 the internet celebrity market in China is projected to be worth 100 billion yuan, indicating an almost twofold increase from 2016, when the market was valued at 52.6 yuan.
Yearly incomes of top wanghong even surpass those of famous Hollywood stars. For example, fashion blogger Zhang Dayi got $46 million in sales from her Taobao shop in 2015, when the industry was still in its early stage of development. For comparison, Johnny Depp earned only $30 million the same year, according to Forbes.
There are two types of internet celebrities in China – so-called fashionistas like Zhang Dayi who make money mainly from sales in their own shops and those who get money from sponsors for promotion of their products.
The second kind of internet celebrities usually make funny or interesting videos. The topics of the videos can be very different. For example, wanghong Ms Yeah is famous for her funny videos about cooking, and the BackDorm Boys became some of the first internet celebrities in China by filming inside their college bedrooms.
For this kind of wanghong the number of views per each video or post is what counts. The more views, the more money they are able to attract from sponsors. Ms Yeah, who charges $73,000 for promotion of a product in her videos, has more than 300,000 followers on Youtube and some of her videos were viewed more than 1 million times. As of now, though, she is the exception, not the rule.
The majority of wanghong promote themselves not on Youtube, which is banned in China, but on WeChat. Top wanghong boast hundreds of thousands of views per each post. But to make money from advertising you need even less. As long as you can secure several thousands of views per post, you will be able to find sponsors eager to advertise with you.
New woman
The ideal life of Zhang Lin is free and unrestrained. She knows what she is chasing and what she really wants, she says. It is her self-recognition that impelled Zhang to change her major when she was a sophomore from medical science to journalism, putting her on the path towards U R Tasty.
“I don’t want to be a queen,” Zhang said. “I prefer to do my own business in the corner, rather than being a focus of the spotlight.”
Zhang is happy where she is: an outsider recording the world around her.
