Page 21 - 161 varsity ebook

/ 19

“ them continuously. Then the effec-
tiveness will depend on the conscious
behaviour [of companies],” she says.
[Officials from media companies] play Edited by Fiona Cheung

dumb but I think they know what they are Sub-edited by Eve Lee

doing when they manipulate fans to make

money.

”

work as usual. “So [fans were] like nors should not make a monetary
scaring ourselves,” she says with a contribution because their money
laugh. comes from their parents.
Before the Qinglang campaign, But she also acknowledges that
online fan clubs encouraged fans to sometimes it is hard to avoid spend-
write comments about their idols and ing money on idols. “Rules of survival
repost them as much as possible to show require fans to contribute mon-
increase traffic data related to their ey to help their idol debut. The regula-
idols. Fans now stop doing reposts, tion is established [by the programs].
as Weibo cancelled ranking lists of ce- Fans can only follow the game rules,”
lebrities’ popularities in August due to she says.
the crackdown. “[Officials from media com-
Although now fans have to fol- panies] play dumb but I think they
low stringent rules, some fans like know what they are doing when they
Liao see the bright side of the cam- manipulate fans to make mon-
paign. They now spend less time ey,” she adds.
on writing comments and re- Jing Zhan, asso-
posting online. ciate professor of the
“The campaign saves Department of Gov-
my time … Now we main- ernment and Public
ly chat in our [fan] group,” Administration at the
she says. Chinese University
Fans also have stopped of Hong Kong, thinks
contributing money to idols idol survival shows is an
directly with apps like Taoba (桃 effective business model that
叭) and Owhat now as the campaign entertainment industry has built in
bars variety shows or entertainment recent years.
businesses to charge fans for star- “Companies are driven by prof-
chasing. it … but they will have to face some
Yvonne Lin, a fan and also a fresh government restraints during the
graduate, tries to cover all costs of star Qinglang campaign,” she says.
chasing by herself. Her idol is Liu Yu, Zhan also thinks that it is hard to
a candidate who attended Chuang evaluate the long-term effect of the
2021, an idol survival show produced Qinglang campaign this year. “Some-
by Tencent this year. She thinks mi- times the government introduces
some policies and does not enforce