The Chronicle of Liu Moxi's Odd Jobs - Part 08

Liu Dong and Chen Youcai drank until late into the night. Originally, Chen Youcai intended to bring up the issue regarding Liu Dong's livestreaming during the dinner and inform him of a company decision. To his dismay, Liu Dong's enthusiasm for alcohol flared up, and the two of them got completely carried away. Unable to hold his liquor, Chen Youcai ended up passed out under the table, and the important business they needed to discuss was left by the wayside.

This crucial matter stemmed entirely from Liu Dong's livestreaming performance.

After Liu Dong had been broadcasting for a month, once the platform's cut and individual income taxes were deducted, the company's take was a mere few thousand yuan, which wasn't even a fraction of his base salary.

At first, Chen Youcai had thought nothing of it. Even new livestreamers, despite undergoing rigorous and formal training, inevitably encounter various issues when facing the camera for the very first time. That holds true even for professionals, let alone the ordinary folks recruited by self-media companies.

Nervousness, the disruption of unexpected problems, and the nitpicking of netizens—especially when dealing with keyboard warriors harboring psychological issues—make it extremely difficult to smoothly control the room, even for someone with the skills of a news spokesperson. The psychological challenge is immense.

Chen Youcai had even offered Liu Dong some words of encouragement, noting that pulling in such tips in his very first month of broadcasting was already quite impressive. Moreover, Liu Dong had worked exceptionally hard during his training period at the company; aside from streaming for eight hours, he practiced singing four hours every single day without interruption.

His hard work had won the recognition of both the company and Chen Youcai, which was why the company unanimously decided to assign Liu Dong to Chen Youcai for management. This fully demonstrated the company's high expectations for him.

If things went smoothly and according to the company's scheduled process, Liu Dong would soon become a rising internet celebrity.

However, things in life rarely go as one wishes eight or nine times out of ten. Over the next two months, Liu Dong's performance figures not only failed to grow but actually dropped, leaving Chen Youcai deeply depressed.

After countless reviews and analyses of his past livestreams, Chen Youcai and the company reached a unanimous decision: Liu Dong needed medical aesthetics—in other words, plastic surgery.

At the dinner table, a sober Liu Dong looked at the passed-out Chen Youcai and wondered if there had been something important Chen Youcai still needed to tell him, filling him with intense regret.

He could only blame himself for working too hard lately and failing to keep his composure when suddenly presented with an opportunity to drink away his sorrows. Gazing at the dozen or so empty wine bottles arrayed across the table, Liu Dong suddenly realized that his alcohol tolerance was surprisingly high after all.

Several days later, Liu Dong was wearing a face mask because he had just undergone facial surgery. Since he was a singing streamer, he had no choice; until he fully recovered from the operation, he couldn't sing. He could only chat lightly with his fans in front of the livestreaming camera.

At the very beginning, seeing the continuous growth of follower numbers on his account, Liu Dong felt quite smug and self-satisfied, never expecting that his personal charm could be so potent. Yet, the moment his first livestream ended, his sense of accomplishment vanished into thin air.

As it turned out, those so-called fans were entirely fake accounts hired and paid for by the company to liven up the atmosphere and boost the account's engagement metrics.

From that moment on, Liu Dong's sense of accomplishment never rose again, because he knew that without professional management, without chat room administration, and without fake accounts to control the room and guide the chat flow, genuine fans would never cheer him on, encourage him, applaud him, or send him tips.

Because of this, Liu Dong sank into a slump for quite a while. Chen Youcai, however, comforted him, telling him that this was simply his job, and in the future, hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers would pay attention to him.

Yet no matter how many followers you have, they are merely the targets of your work. The slightest display of unsatisfactory performance will lead to unfollows, and your follower count will drop accordingly.

This explains why some singers can toil in obscurity for a decade, only to achieve overnight fame across the land the moment their voice cracks. People in the industry call this a metaphysical phenomenon—complete bullcrap! In reality, it simply means the streamer has struck a certain singularity within the public's inner psyche, subverting their worldview or upending their previous perceptions.

None of that matters, though. What matters is you yourself. The reason modern streamers can become popular "internet celebrities" even without idol traits boils down to the aforementioned reasons.

Pay no attention to the follower numbers displayed on your account; they are merely numbers. Recognize your own position—you aren't famous yet!

Liu Dong listened in a daze, only half-understanding. But his singular takeaway was that he now felt entirely like a tool—a tool kneeling on the ground while gazing up at the starry sky.