Live broadcast rewards help opera actors double their income, opening up a new path for the dissemination of traditional culture

According to the "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" released by the China Internet Network Information Center, as of December 2021, the number of Internet users in my country has exceeded 1 billion, and the Internet penetration rate has reached 73%. The rapid development of Internet technology has also led to the rise of many emerging industries, the most typical example of which is live streaming.

Workers, farmers, artists, chefs... The emergence of live streaming has given people of different ages, professions, and identities the opportunity to show themselves, and has also told us many new stories.

In 2018, Shroud, a well-known foreign anchor, received a $500 reward from the person who wanted Shroud to visit the channel of a music anchor. The music anchor suffers from type 1 diabetes and has a 5-year-old daughter to raise. The huge medical bills did not overwhelm the mother, and she chose to supplement her family income through live streaming.

This is a typical story of the "live broadcast era". As a new form, live broadcast affects more than just individuals. The promotion of opera culture is very representative: recently, Wang Qin, an 82-year-old representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage of Yangju Opera, began to teach Yangju Opera art on Douyin. After learning that Douyin is popular among young people, Wang Qin decided to teach students in this way.

Wang Qin's videos have also been welcomed by many netizens on TikTok. In Yangzhou Opera, non-object performance is an important skill. There are many changes in the hands, such as "sky, earth, cloud hand, sun, reverse cloud hand, moon, night..." Under the close-up of the camera, all the audience can feel Wang Qin's superb skills up close and intuitively.

For an industry like opera that relies on offline performances, the outbreak of the epidemic in early 2020 was undoubtedly a major blow. Theaters were forced to close. It should be noted that the income of opera actors was not high to begin with, and the inability to perform was naturally worse. Therefore, many opera actors began to settle in platforms such as Douyin, hoping to earn income through live broadcasts.

Yue Opera actor Chen Yu tried live streaming after the outbreak of the epidemic, and his number of fans has grown from a few thousand at the beginning to 200,000 today. Chen Yu's guild has more than 70 anchors, all of whom are professional opera actors. Thanks to live streaming, many members' income has doubled.

Yue Opera actor Yu Yuchan currently has 880,000 fans on Douyin. She calls Douyin's live broadcast room her "second stage" and sometimes the tips she gets from a live broadcast can even exceed her income from the troupe. Some fans said that the tips are like ticket money for the performance, which makes Yu Yuchan feel warm.

There are many opera anchors on Douyin who are professional actors like Chen Yu and Yu Yuchan. Some of them once wanted to give up this industry because of low income or too much hardship in traveling around. But now the popularity of opera on Douyin live broadcast has helped them regain their professional confidence and stay in this industry, which has also played an important role in the inheritance of opera culture.

In addition to helping actors earn more income, live streaming has also played an important role in promoting opera culture. According to the "2021 Douyin Intangible Cultural Heritage Drama Data Report" officially released by Douyin, as of November last year, Douyin's intangible cultural heritage drama videos had been played 60 billion times and received 2.2 billion likes. The average number of broadcasts by quyi anchors was 3,719 per day, with revenue increasing by 232% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that the main audience for watching opera on Douyin are young people born in the 1990s and 2000s, accounting for 52% of the total audience. In the past, when talking about the difficulties faced by traditional opera, "young people don't like it" was the most frequently mentioned point. However, perhaps young people do not dislike opera, but lack a channel to access it.

The role of the live broadcast industry in promoting traditional culture has also attracted the attention of Zhang Yiwu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. During this year's National Two Sessions, he brought a proposal on "Using New Media to Promote the Popularization of Knowledge and the Dissemination of Traditional Culture". Zhang Yiwu believes that experts and scholars from all walks of life should be encouraged to broadcast science on short video platforms, and they should be allowed to generate reasonable income from this, so as to encourage the creation of high-quality content and enable the whole people to participate in the promotion and dissemination of traditional culture.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.