● The rice circle has perfect hierarchical rules and distinct internal classes. A small number of core fans have the right to speak in the circle. When individual ordinary fans express different opinions, they will be besieged.
● It is precisely because of profitability that some capitalists ignore their social responsibilities and form various interest groups to try their best to harvest the "money bags" of fans.
● Rectifying the rice circle is not to rectify the fans, but the gray industrial chain behind the rice circle. Stars should be self-disciplined, platforms should perform their duties, fans should be rational, society should participate, and laws should be taken.
□ Trainee reporter Zhang Shoukun
□ Reporter Wen Yuanzhen
"I didn’t see him praising XXX in the group today, so I kicked him out of the group according to the group rules."
"×× has endorsed a new product, and I have already started. You should also buy it quickly and send screenshots."
"Someone said something bad about my brother. Everyone rushed to the comment area to fight back according to the previous unified requirements."
… …
The reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" recently joined the fan base of many popular stars as fans, and saw the above similar conversations every day. Most of the members of these fan groups are teenagers, and in some groups, "post-00" even accounts for 80%.
The frequent occurrence of chaos in rice circles (referring to fan circles) has become one of the most concerned social phenomena. From the idol talent show, fans of contestants raised more than one million yuan to be suspected of illegal fund-raising, to voting for "Aidou" to buy a large number of yogurt drinks and then dumping the yogurt, and then to the popular artists suspected of violating the law and committing crimes, there are still many fans waving flags and shouting for them. Since this year, various news events exposed by fan idolize have emerged one after another, and the chaos in rice circles has also pushed the fan culture to the forefront of public opinion.
Many experts said in an interview with reporters that with the help of capital and platforms, some fans invested a lot of money and time in idolize, some artists got carried away, and the bottom line of morality and law fell, which made the wrong values of "following the five senses with three views" worse and worse, which brought great harm to the physical and mental health of the public, especially teenagers, and even provided the soil for illegal fund-raising and traffic fraud, so we need to make efforts to stop this bad style in time.
There are many checkpoints, and the group is strict
Clear structure and clear division of labor
At first, the reporter applied to join the fan base of many popular stars, but he ran into a wall everywhere; Those who joined occasionally were quickly kicked out of the group.
Xiao Ke, a 15-year-old junior high school student in Beijing, told reporters that in order to successfully join a popular star fan base, it is necessary to cross many barriers: Weibo’s super-talk level is not less than 10, and he should pay attention not only to the star himself but also to the studio, and the number of Weibo about the star in his personal Weibo is not less than 50; In this way, the application for verification may not be passed, even if there are still a lot of group rules to abide by after passing, you will be kicked out of the group if you are not careful.
And if you want to reach Weibo’s level 10, even if you sign in and post every day, it will take at least two or three months.
Later, the reporter joined five star fan groups through various channels, and found that these fan groups all had a clear division of labor, including a hit group, a publicity group, an anti-gang group, and a purification group. Among them, the anti-gang group is responsible for searching and sorting out the "black materials" of stars on the Internet, so that it is convenient to complain to the platform customer service with other fans; The Purification Group is mainly responsible for sorting the entries of Weibo and other search platforms.
"Sometimes the key word of a star’s single is ‘ Ugly ’ , we will use ugly to make sentences, ‘ Xx new songs are really not difficult to understand ’ ,‘ Xx’s new song is so beautiful that I can’t control it ’ , to reduce the single and ‘ Ugly ’ The negative correlation of the word. " Xiao Yun, a senior one student in Tianjin, is in the purification group of a popular star fan group. She has a lot of experience in "purification work".
Li Danlin, deputy director of the Academic Committee of the School of Cultural Industry Management of China Communication University and director of the Department of Law, said that "rice" is a transliteration of "fan", and the circle they form is called rice circle. In fact, this kind of organization with clear organizational structure has already become a normal state in rice circle culture.
People’s criticism of the chaos in rice circles is one of the important factors: once there is negative news about a star on an online platform, the fan base of the star will organize fans to try their best to grab the front row of comments and fight back. The reporter saw that the fans were full of such remarks — — "I would rather be scolded by myself than my brother." "If you don’t control the evaluation and let the black material fly all over the sky, it will affect my brother’s reputation and business value."
The class is clearly defined and rejects dissent.
Traffic fraud deformity idolize
In addition to control and evaluation, the blind pursuit of traffic has also spawned a large number of "data flooding" incidents. A few years ago, a Weibo forwarded by a star exceeded 100 million, which caused an uproar on the Internet. Subsequently, the supervision of relevant departments continued to strengthen. In the "Net Net 2019" special action organized by the Ministry of Public Security, the Beijing police arrested a gang suspected of developing and launching an App called "Star Aid" to create fake traffic.
The reporter’s investigation found that the rice circle has perfect hierarchical rules and distinct internal classes. A small number of core fans have the right to speak in the circle, and when individual ordinary fans express different opinions, they will be besieged.
A few days ago, among the fans, the reporter first affirmed the efforts made by a star for disaster relief, and then put forward the view that first-line disaster relief should be done by more professional people. The group immediately exploded, and many friends came out to accuse the reporter, and some even sent private letters to insult the reporter.
The reporter found in these five fan groups that there should be no opposition or even questioning voice to the stars and their behaviors, and even if some constructive opinions are put forward, they may be attacked by groups.
Li Danlin believes that with the development of the Internet, fans and stars have developed into a close and deep interaction relationship, but in this process, many malformations have occurred, and fans will have some behaviors that go beyond the bottom line of social ethics and even constitute crimes. The emergence of "black powder" and "stalking fan" in recent years can illustrate this problem.
Guo Xiaoming, a lawyer of Sichuan Juheng Law Firm, explained that "black powder" refers to a group of fans who maliciously discredit idols; "stalking fan" refers to the fans who follow the stars all the time, peek at "Love Bean" and infringe on the privacy of the stars. The behavior of these fans is morbid, which interferes with the normal life of the stars, and may also be suspected of illegal crimes.
On July 15th this year, a star found a suspected location tracker in his car, and his company issued a statement saying that it had handled it with the police, condemning the act of reselling personal information such as the artist’s home address and shooting location, and urging everyone not to believe or even participate in paying for such information.
After a traffic star was recently detained in criminal detention, many fans posted comments on the Internet, such as "My brother is innocent" and "going to rob the prison". "Do you want to give XX a chance? The official announced that he should be the spokesperson, telling everyone that he still needs to be given a chance. The bad guys also need a chance. What do you think?" A screenshot of a brand WeChat group aroused public anger, and the brand quickly issued a statement saying that all those who made inappropriate comments were expelled.
The black hand of capital pushes blindly.
Repeatedly harvest the vermicelli purse
According to the Research Report on China Red Man’s Economic Business Model and Trend released by iResearch, the market size of fan economy related industries will exceed 4.1 trillion yuan in 2020, and it is expected to exceed 6 trillion yuan in 2023.
Raising funds to help, reselling tickets, etc. can all be used as names to circle money. In the rice circle, many fans spontaneously set up fan clubs through the internet, and also set up branches in different regions, including the general meeting and branches of the support club. According to the characteristics of members’ expertise, they carry out the division of labor such as "standing sister, anti-triad, shooting, propaganda and copywriting". But with the influx of capital and the temptation of interests, many fans will no longer be pure.
There is a saying in rice circles: No money, no idolize. And the money that fans spend on idols is likely to end up in the pocket of "powder head".
The so-called "Pink Head" refers to the most appealing fans who are familiar with the artist’s itinerary. All the on-site support, voting on the list, and fundraising for the press conference are organized by "Pink Head". In recent years, news such as "powder head" corruption and running away with money have often been exposed.
It is understood that "rice circle fund-raising support" can be roughly divided into three categories: first, it includes physical returns, such as selling albums and peripheral products, and using the profits to support idol-related activities; Second, it does not provide in-kind returns, but promises to use the fans’ real money for the draft vote and give gifts to idols; Third, we agreed to raise funds for idols and promised to provide returns but failed to cash them.
In 2018, when bar owners, a star post bar, handed over, there was an unclear account. Some fans questioned that bar owners had embezzled nearly 2.09 million yuan in publicity expenses. Subsequently, bar owners released Weibo’s clarification and resigned, which ended in nothing.
Li Danlin said that the star is actually not a person, and there is not only a studio behind it, but also many capitalists who support it. They want to use the star effect to achieve business goals. "For example, in the event of milk hit the list, in order to obtain commercial benefits, the capital side did not hesitate to design some rules that violated general ethics and even laws to implement corresponding behaviors. At the same time, for those stars with problems, they may also use relevant resources and strength to help them wash away their misdeeds. "
Guo Xiaoming also believes that it is precisely because of profitability that some capitalists ignore their social responsibilities and form various interest groups to try their best to harvest fans’ "money bags"; Some chaos in rice circles is not only ignored, but even fueled by the wrong concept of "black and red is also red", intensifying the contradictions among fans by means of speculation and data fraud.
According to Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, one of the most important reasons for the chaos in rice circles is the flow economy. "Traffic can represent a star’s commercial value and liquidity, and to a certain extent, it has become the star’s ‘ Works ’ . With the extensive development of social media, especially since the rapid development of the media, the rice circle economy has begun, and the stars or the capital behind them can form a huge powder circle to serve themselves through pyramid marketing and brainwashing idolize. "
"In addition to the network platform, some satellite TV stations should also bear the responsibility. The variety shows held by some satellite TV stations are actually a star-making movement. They don’t pay attention to the performance level, real talents and practical learning, but let the stars debut by means of face value and topic, which easily leads to excessive entertainment and objectively aggravates the chaos of rice circles. " Zhu Wei said.
The chaos in rice circles has a bad influence
Misleading teenagers’ values
At present, there are a large number of minors in the rice circle, and these improper value orientations have a great influence on them.
The Research Report on the Internet Use of Minors in China in 2020 shows that fans’ support through the Internet has become a new online social and recreational activity for underage netizens. Among all the educational levels surveyed, 11% of junior high school students, 10.3% of senior high school students and 5.6% of primary school students are online fans.
Li Danlin said that a qualified artist must first reach a corresponding level in professional skills. However, many stars asked him what excellent music works he had and what classic characters he had created, but no one could answer them. However, he occupied the online hot search list for a long time and attracted fans by hype, which provided young people with a wrong value orientation.
Zhu Wei told reporters that the biggest impact of the chaos in rice circles on young people is that the values formed by it are outside the mainstream values. Some people rely on the fan economy to make profits, and the core of everything they do is to serve the capital. Many teenagers are ostensibly in idolize, but in essence they are brainwashed by the use of capital, which makes them deeply involved.
"Nowadays, the chaos of rice circles has spread to all aspects. This irrational behavior caused by idolize has led some people to treat others and things easily. Its harm is not simply the influence on the consciousness of minors, but it may cultivate extreme emotions in society, because in many contexts of rice circles, opposition is not allowed, which is a very terrible phenomenon. If it is not rectified in time, the consequences will be unimaginable. " Zhu Wei said.
Work together to make rules and draw red lines
Cut off the gray industrial chain
In Guo Xiaoming’s view, the rectification of rice circles is not the rectification of fans, but the gray industrial chain behind rice circles. Stars should be self-disciplined, platforms should perform their duties, fans should be rational, society should participate, and laws should be taken.
In June this year, the Central Network Information Office deployed a two-month "Qinglang & lsquo; Fanquan ’ The special action of "chaos rectification" focuses on cracking down on behaviors such as inducing minors to help raise funds, high consumption, and voting.
Recently, the Central Network Information Office, the State Administration of Radio and Television and other departments have announced the phased results of rectifying bad fan culture: more than 150,000 negative and harmful information have been cleared, more than 4,000 illegal accounts have been disposed of, more than 1,300 problem groups have been closed, 814 bad topics have been dissolved, and 39 small programs suspected of fund-raising and drainage have been intercepted.
In addition, the network platform is also active.
Since June 15th, Aauto Quicker has carried out special rectification on the chaos in rice circles, comprehensively cleaned up harmful information and contents, resisted the unhealthy trend of rice circles, focused on rectifying the behavior of "inducing minors to have no bottom line idolize", and effectively created a clear cyberspace. A total of 290 illegal videos and 110 illegal accounts were handled.
On the evening of August 1, Tencent issued an announcement. Through user reports and security inspections, it was found that in the criminal detention of a star according to law, there were some harmful behaviors such as rumors, attacks, fund-raising and topics. The platform has seriously dealt with the accounts that publish and disseminate relevant bad information.
On the afternoon of August 6th, the administrator of Weibo issued a document saying that in recent years, some problems such as irrational support and list-brushing of star fans have intensified, which has challenged the scoring mechanism of star power list. The list can’t comprehensively and objectively reflect the social influence of stars, and it also deviates from the healthy interactive ecology of stars and fans. Weibo decided to take off the "star power list" and carry out multi-dimensional transformation and upgrading.
"When controlling the chaos in rice circles, in addition to standardizing the behavior of artists, we can also consider strengthening the management of fan groups through industry associations. For example, relevant fan organizations are regulated by industry associations. " Li Danlin said.
However, Li Danlin also pointed out that a realistic problem is how to supervise the fan support organizations and support clubs? This group, which was originally organized by fans spontaneously, now many people see the benefits and business opportunities, and even get improper and illegal benefits from it. "There should be corresponding norms, but who will formulate this norm, and whether large-scale fan organizations need to be registered according to law and supervised by relevant departments are all issues that need to be considered."
Li Danlin believes that when artists have some anomie behaviors that do not violate the law, it is difficult for public authorities to intervene. At this time, online platforms are needed to fulfill their social responsibilities. "The platform connects stars and fans, and bears certain management responsibilities. It should promptly make early warnings and adjustments to inferior artists to urge them to regulate their own behavior."
Zhu Wei suggested that there should be an age limit for young people who participate in Ying Yuanhui. Teenagers under the age of 18 should not participate in activities offline; Online activities should also be carried out in strict accordance with the relevant regulations of the Network Information Office, as well as information service management measures and platform regulations. For some problem groups, the capital side or platform should stop it in time. (Cartography/Gao Yue)