Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 663 The Vampire Count Falls in Love with Me, a 300-Pound Bankrupt Woman
As we entered mid-April, some news from overseas began appearing on domestic news platforms!

It wasn't some high-class news; on the contrary, it seemed rather low-class, and even embarrassing to some people with outdated thinking who hadn't kept up with the times.

Chinese short dramas are becoming a hit overseas!

The reason is that news media in the United States have been reporting on a series of short dramas that have become wildly popular... Short dramas are not new in China. They have been around for two or three years, and last year they developed extremely rapidly.

After Yihai Technology Group, a leading Chinese internet company, promoted short dramas through its various short video platforms, mobile browser platforms, and other free novel websites, other domestic internet companies saw the opportunity and quickly followed suit, thus creating a short drama wave in China.

In addition, although short dramas may seem unsophisticated, they offer genuine emotional value... making you feel good, and keep you feeling good.

This means that even though many people find it outdated, fake, or even vulgar, it doesn't stop them from continuing to watch... especially the middle-aged and elderly, the knowledge-sensitive, and housewives in lower-tier markets, who are particularly vulnerable to short dramas.

Therefore, starting last year, the short drama market experienced explosive growth, with its market size directly comparable to the domestic film market... This market size is enough to prove how wide the audience for short dramas is and how strong their earning power is.

Short dramas have become incredibly popular in China, attracting a lot of media attention last year. However, people just watch them for fun and have become accustomed to them.

However, since the overseas short drama market also became wildly popular starting this spring, it has attracted a new wave of attention from domestic media, especially self-media.

For example, many news reports in the United States are now focusing on the explosive popularity of Chinese short dramas in the American market.

One very clear piece of evidence is that Yihai Technology's short drama app topped the app download charts in the United States.

Although it's not uncommon for apps from China to top the download charts in Europe and America, with one appearing every now and then, ByteDance Video has been a long-term leader in the rankings.

However, this time it's a bit special. It's not a functional app, nor a social app, but a purely short drama viewing app... Moreover, most of the short drama content in the app requires payment to watch, or watching ads, or is free for members to watch, which are all revenue-generating content.

Yihai Technology's promotion strategy in the short drama field involves offering all self-produced commercials, high-quality products, and products with significant traffic value to attract users through a completely free streaming model.

For self-produced commercial products and products from third-party collaborations, the initial phase is free to play, with revenue sharing from advertising or membership-based on-demand viewing occurring later.

Others follow a model where the initial viewing is free, with subsequent viewing requiring payment.

It offers three modes: free streaming, ad revenue sharing, and paid viewing.

In developed countries, the price of paid content or the revenue sharing from advertising are generally quite high, which means that the revenue from short dramas will be relatively high.

Yihai Technology's short drama app topped the download charts in the US, and the explosive growth of the short drama market naturally attracted the attention of local US media.

This local news attention was then shared by many self-media bloggers, eventually making a large number of Chinese netizens aware of this situation: Chinese lowbrow short dramas have actually become popular overseas!
It's not just popular in ASEAN countries, but also in the United States and even Europe.

This attracted a lot of attention... Some netizens even watched the American short film after seeing the news, and said: It's the same clichéd plot, the domineering CEO stuff, but with a different actor and English lines, it doesn't seem so strange anymore. It actually looks pretty good.

This is a very interesting phenomenon of mother tongue shame...

When people read or watch works in their native language, if they encounter content that does not conform to their aesthetic or value system, they are more likely to experience negative feelings such as rejection or shame.

However, if the same thing were said by a foreigner speaking a foreign language, it wouldn't evoke this negative feeling!
This is a very strange phenomenon!

A contrasting example would be something like this: Honey, I went to get an IV drip today. What kind of IV drip did I get? Thinking of you tonight!
Isn't it tacky? It's disgusting to look at.

But if a foreigner asks, "What's your blood type?", I'd say, "No, you're my type."

It feels different now!

But in reality, there's no real difference between the two... they're both incredibly tacky!
The difference is that the former would make Chinese people nauseous, while the latter would make people in English-speaking regions nauseous...

So, some curious netizens in China went to watch the English short dramas performed by blonde, blue-eyed actors from overseas, and surprisingly found them quite good...

Of course, that's not the point. The point is that a group of netizens discovered that countless big-name directors used to work themselves to the bone, desperately trying to make movies that would be recognized by foreigners... to be precise, Europeans and Americans. In those movies, they would flatter and fawn over foreigners, and in order to please them, they would not hesitate to smear their own country.

As a result, Europeans and Americans simply ignored them and even treated them like clowns.

Early film exports were a complete mess... They had no positive effect whatsoever, and even had a negative one. When Americans saw mainland Chinese films, their first reaction was: You guys are so poor!
anything else?
The American thought for a moment and replied: Your environment is dirty and chaotic.

What other impressions do you have?

The American got impatient: That's it, get lost...

Now, these short dramas, which were looked down upon by mainstream media personnel in China, and even by mainstream directors and actors, have become a hit in the United States...

Most importantly, although many of these short dramas feature blonde, blue-eyed actors speaking English... anyone with even a slight understanding of short dramas or online novels can immediately tell that they're just like the domestic short dramas...

They're all about domineering CEOs falling in love with me, or the crooked-mouthed dragon king showing off and getting slapped in the face.

At most, the domestic version is about "a domineering CEO falling in love with a 40-year-old divorced woman with a child," while the international version is about "a vampire count falling in love with a 300-pound bankrupt woman"...

The obesity rate in the United States is very high, especially among the lower and middle classes. Due to time, money, and the cost of living, they can only eat high-calorie junk food and have no time or energy to exercise. After all, everyone is busy working, earning money to pay rent and student loans. Where do they find the time and money to eat healthy food and lose weight?

Therefore, high-calorie Western fast food has become their best choice... After working several jobs, they are exhausted when they get back to their rented rooms, so where do they have the time and energy to exercise?

So there are low-income women weighing two or three hundred pounds everywhere on the streets... well, the same goes for men.

Meanwhile, the bankrupt American woman weighing 300 pounds also dreams of a noble and mysterious vampire aristocrat falling in love with her...

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The origin of short dramas comes from new media online articles, and their core logic is the same: to weave the most beautiful dream for people in the middle and lower classes, and it is a fast-food-style beautiful dream that is directly and decisively forced into their minds!

However, this foreign short drama, which has a strong domestic short drama style, has become popular abroad?

This has left many people puzzled, and some have even broken their guard, especially older cultural workers: "Are these Americans crazy? How can they eat such vulgar things?"
This even somewhat shattered their beautiful illusions about Europeans and Americans... How could you be so vulgar, like these country bumpkins?

You are noble Europeans and Americans, the symbol of advanced culture, and you watch high-class cultural works. How can you watch such vulgar things as short dramas?

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Some people dedicate their entire lives to culture and still don't realize that while cultures differ, human nature is universal...

Short dramas, on the other hand, directly address the most basic human needs: to weave a beautiful dream for the audience that could never happen in reality!
Then, it is precisely and quickly forced into the audience's minds!

The continuous stimulation of people's brains produces dopamine, endorphins, and other substances... which is why short dramas have very tight plots and fast-paced conflicts.

Of course, the explosive popularity of short dramas abroad is not accidental... On the contrary, it is the result of vigorous promotion by Yihai Technology Group. In terms of content production, in addition to attracting domestic short drama content manufacturers to cooperate, various subsidiaries of Yihai Technology Group, especially Yihai Culture, have produced a large number of high-quality short dramas for promotion and traffic generation.

These high-quality short dramas... may be somewhat different from what outsiders consider to be high-quality film and television works.

It's not about having a big-name director or actors, nor is it about hiring a well-known short drama, adapting a top-tier IP, or even having high-cost special effects.

The "high-quality" works mentioned here refer to the work of a large group of psychology experts, content experts, and algorithm engineers at Yihai Culture. They repeatedly studied and analyzed the preferences and aesthetics of overseas audiences, then sorted out several core elements, adapted some online novels, or even created original scripts, and finally produced these high-quality works.

Leveraging Yihai Technology Group's significant technological advantages in audience segmentation and algorithms, targeted content can be pushed to the target audience...

Strictly speaking, this was a highly technical and precise cultural marketing campaign!

Ordinary film and television production companies couldn't do this kind of thing...

In order to break into the American short drama market and then export corresponding modern technology and culture, Yihai Technology Group has a whole bunch of experts... They don't do anything else but study what consumers in lower-tier cities in various overseas countries like to watch!

As for the elite groups in various countries, these people are difficult to deal with. They are very clear-headed and are basically already users of Zhiyun products, so there is no need to carry out targeted promotion.

But it's different for people in the middle and lower classes... These people need targeted marketing!

Even now, many middle and lower-class people in Europe and America still think that Chinese people are country bumpkins... Not everyone has the ability to collect and discern information.

Even if there are news reports about China's technology, they won't read them...

At this point, we need a medium like TikTok that can directly reach every corner of society and a large number of low- and middle-income users to tell them that China's technological products are awesome.

We also need short dramas, a medium targeting lower- and middle-class groups, especially those in rural areas, to repeatedly brainwash them: the CEO's car is a Blue Ocean Motor, the CEO's butler is an intelligent robot, the CEO's phone is a Zhiyun S series phone...

Yihai Technology promotes short videos and short dramas globally... One of its core functions is to promote the high-tech products of Zhiyun Group and other companies.

Otherwise, Xu Shenxue wouldn't need to bother figuring out these internet social and entertainment products...

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The short dramas have become a hit overseas, attracting a lot of attention from netizens and making many domestic investors drool over the US dollar in overseas markets... The previous explosion in the overseas short drama market was basically dominated by Yihai Technology.

Now that the trend has taken off overseas, it's natural that a large number of domestic investors and short drama content creators will jump in to make money!
After all, the purchasing power in regions like Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea is still quite strong...

Yihai Technology welcomes this. Although Yihai Technology Group has a subsidiary called Yihai Culture that produces short dramas, it is still only one company, and Yihai Culture's short drama products are either commercials or commercial promotional videos, so the coverage is relatively limited.

For the overseas short drama market to truly develop, Yihai Culture alone is not enough; it needs a large number of third-party content partners to work together.

After all, the Yihai Short Drama APP can't just have a few hundred dry short dramas; it needs a large number of short dramas for viewers to choose from.

At this point, it would be great if a large number of third-party content partners joined this content ecosystem.

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Just as the short drama became a hit overseas and attracted the attention of many people in China, Yihai Technology Group was making final preparations for the release of the second expansion pack for its flagship product, the top-tier virtual game "Mortals," as well as a series of supporting marketing activities.

The game "Mortal" is not only incredibly popular in China, but also extremely popular in the Asia-Pacific region, and even has a significant market share in Europe and America. It is currently the virtual game with the highest market share in the world, and its ability to generate revenue is quite impressive.

In March of this year alone, the peak number of concurrent online users on multiple servers around the world exceeded 300,000. This is a virtual game, and at a time when virtual devices are still scarce, having this peak number of concurrent online users is quite remarkable.

The actual player data is even greater, since not all players are online at the same time. Behind the highest concurrent online player count is several times the number of daily active players.

The massive number of concurrent online users, coupled with the high spending power of virtual device players and the successful operation of Fanren Games, has enabled Fanren's global revenue to reach 3.5 billion yuan in March of this year.

This is just monthly revenue, not annual revenue. If you calculate it for the whole year, it would be close to 40 billion...

Furthermore, with the continuous increase in virtual devices, this data will continue to grow. Yihai Technology Group internally predicts that the revenue of the game "Fanren" this year is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan.

Such ordinary people have become the world's most profitable virtual game, and not just the most profitable virtual game, but actually the most profitable game product in the world.

It's worth noting that the second highest-grossing game globally is also a virtual game... and it's still Kingdom of Kings, a game under the Yihai Technology Group, which remains firmly in second place in the global market.

The third place goes to Microsoft's large-scale virtual reality game released last year, Poseidon's Wrath, a Western fantasy game that was very popular in the US and European markets.

Fourth place goes to Magic Light Technology's Magic Light Demon Blade, the dark horse of the gaming industry in recent years... Relying on a martial arts fighting game, it managed to occupy the fourth place on the global virtual game list.

Although this game doesn't perform well in the European and American markets and is rarely seen on the charts, it has consistently held the third position in the Asia-Pacific market, and sometimes even surpasses Kingdoms of the North to take the second place. So despite its poor reputation, this game is actually quite profitable!

The gameplay is quite magical. A group of rich people play a game of chivalry and rivalry, fighting over love every few days, and even engaging in PK battles, assassinations, and murders for some inexplicable reason, making it very similar to the world of martial arts novels. It has even formed its own internal cultural circle, leaving many people who don't play the game completely dumbfounded.

However, the players in this game are all wealthy and willing to spend money, so its revenue is very high.

With just this one game, Magic Light Technology has become a top-tier game company in China and even internationally!
The boss, management, and core technical personnel all made a fortune, and with their money, they continued to poach technical talent from all over the world.

They used their financial power to completely overhaul the original terrible graphics and simulation technology... After multiple upgrades, the Magic Blade still retains the same visual style and looks the same as before, but in reality, the core components have been almost entirely replaced.

Without such significant and continuous changes to the cast and quality, this game wouldn't have had such a long lifespan and remained popular to this day.

After multiple upgrades, Magic Blade is now considered a top-tier large-scale virtual game in terms of graphics and realism. Of course, it's still not as technically advanced as Mortal's Blade.

Yihai Technology Group has invested a huge amount in the game "Mortals," from technical talent to funding... It is also the world's first virtual game to use artificial intelligence technology, with the NPU and monsters in the game incorporating artificial intelligence technology.

In some specific game scenarios, AI-generated real-time graphics technology has even been introduced... However, this technology requires too much computing power, so it cannot be easily experienced by players and can only appear in specific situations. Nevertheless, it is still a huge technological breakthrough.

Currently, the game "Ordinary People" has become the most profitable single product under Yihai Technology Group, and naturally it has received high attention.

The second expansion, which cost a huge sum of money to develop, is the most important part of the expansion. This time, the release of the second expansion is not only about adding more content, but also about further upgrading virtual technology and increasing the application of artificial intelligence technology in the game, such as making NPCs more human-like and monsters can be flexibly adjusted according to the difficulty level of the task.

Alongside the second expansion pack, the first Global Sect Competition will also be launched!
This time, Yihai Technology incorporated the popular and eye-catching element of sect competitions found in online fantasy novels, creating a sect competition with a global reach.

Players on each server first compete against each other, then regional competitions, and finally a select group of top players are chosen to participate in a global competition!

This popular sect competition was warmly welcomed by players, especially the top players, who were all eager to make a name for themselves globally.

Even ordinary players can participate in some low-level sect competitions in their respective servers, enjoy the competition atmosphere of online novels, and then get generous competition rewards!

(End of this chapter)