The popularity of internet celebrities

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Without double eyelids, a high nose bridge, or a sharp chin, nor a celebrity boyfriend – how on earth did Papi become famous? **Yes: short videos! On April 21st, the promotional ad featuring Papi Sauce generated 22 million yuan in revenue, drawing a great deal of attention. It’s not just video clips that can be sold for money; emoji packs can as well. On June 24, an emoji pack named Aikeli Li – “A top Vietnamese actress” – was released on WeChat Shop, and it was quickly used extensively in users’ WeChat conversations. Who could have imagined that short videos would become a hotspot in the world of self-media? I thought Papi’s content was just for entertainment, and that the comedian Aikeli Li was simply being humorous by mocking himself; I never expected these internet celebrities to become so popular in 2016 and throughout the years that followed. Live streaming, which is more immediate and interactive than short videos, has further fueled the growth of internet celebrities. AngelaBaby streams while playing games, Fan Bingbing streams the entire Paris Fashion Week; Tian You, the \"King of Rap\", emerges as a star in streaming rooms… What were once seen as boring and superficial streaming activities have become another internet phenomenon that has sparked widespread excitement among people. 2016 can be regarded as the \"year of internet celebrities\". Over the course of this year, internet celebrities ceased to be a somewhat sarcastic term and instead entered the realm of industrialized operations. According to Analysys iResearch, the scale of China’s internet celebrity industry is expected to reach 52.8 billion yuan in 2016, and exceed 100 billion yuan by 2018. Among the ways in which internet celebrities generate income, e-commerce and live streaming are the main sources. It must be said that \"internet celebrities\" have become the biggest trend on the Chinese Internet in 2016. As a unique social phenomenon in the virtual world, this array of colorful fashion colors represents the fruits of the times, an indication of societal openness and diversity, and a window through which we can observe the aesthetic preferences and mental states of today’s youth.