Last week, WeChat Video Account was once again trending on the Internet. In stark contrast to the joy Zhang Xiaolong felt when he announced that "Video Account users exceeded 200 million", this time it was trending because of pornography.

According to China.com, "a large amount of 'soft pornography' content appeared on the 'Nearby' page of WeChat Video Account, and many netizens said that the recommended videos they received were almost the same."

In the early days of the wild growth of mobile Internet, many apps, including those within WeChat, used "pornographic" content for promotion in order to quickly gain users. It was during that period that the term "hooking up" went from online jargon to the forefront.

Nowadays, when the mobile Internet has entered the era of oligopoly, soft pornography is unable to drive more new traffic, and the various princes have long retired and regarded reputation as the basis of their livelihood. Who wants to play the trick of soft pornography? It is no exaggeration to say that they don’t even want to mention this original sin that has gone away. Just like when Zhu Yuanzhang reached the top, words such as monk and beggar had to be avoided.

With 1 billion daily active users, WeChat is the most successful app on China's mobile Internet today. It is even considered a pioneering app in the world. In theory, WeChat is the healthiest and most hygienic app today. In fact, it is indeed the case. Their tolerance for pornographic content is incredibly low. However, it was in this environment that WeChat Video suddenly overturned.

Maybe this is not WeChat’s original intention, otherwise WeChat officials would not have responded in a short time and removed the promotional content. But what about Video Account? Is it anxious enough to take risks in order to increase traffic and new users?

Zhang Xiaolong announced in June that the number of users of Video Account exceeded 200 million. How come the traffic started to become tight in less than half a year? If there really was "300 million or 400 million" traffic, why did Video Account go through the wind and rain and resort to the "Wenzhou-style measures"?

The “water content” of the video account

At the beginning of 2020, WeChat Video Account was officially launched. Six months later, the data exceeded 200 million. Although Douyin's daily active users were close to 600 million and Kuaishou's daily active users were close to 300 million, there were only 940 million people in China who could access the Internet. Many people were questioning whether Video Account was late to the party, but because it was backed by WeChat, many people were still bullish on Video Account.

Due to Zhang Xiaolong's ambiguity, there is no official statement on whether the 200 million he mentioned refers to the number of users or daily active users. Many online commentators tend to believe that this number represents daily active users, but considering the population of China, the establishment time of Video Account, and the context of Ma Huateng's words in Zhang Xiaolong's circle of friends, "Isn't it just 100 million?", the number of 200 million users is more reliable. It is impossible for 900 million Chinese netizens to spend their time every day flipping through Douyin, Kuaishou and Video Account.

Therefore, the first conclusion of this article is: the pornographic content of the video account is just a superficial phenomenon, reflecting its internal anxiety about the depletion of traffic and difficulty in attracting new users.

According to data from Zhike Research Institute, in mid-2019, the user overlap between Douyin and Kuaishou was 46.5%. After entering 2020, short videos have been surging, quickly sinking from first- and second-tier cities to fourth- and fifth-tier markets. By mid-2020, Douyin's traffic from third-tier cities and below accounted for 82.9%, an increase of about 60% year-on-year. Coincidentally, in the context of increasingly difficult new users, Kuaishou also gained 30% of new users by relying on sinking traffic.

Although there is no third-party research data on WeChat Video Account on the market, combined with QuestMobile's research data on the usage time share of Internet giants' apps, from mid-2019 to mid-2020, only Toutiao and Kuaishou apps increased in usage time, and Tencent apps still accounted for the largest share, but also had the largest decline, reaching -4.3%.

Considering that both Toutiao and Kuaishou achieved a 3% increase in usage time, why did the Tencent data, which had an additional 200 million traffic flows, drop by 4.3%? What's even more strange is that this happened without cannibalizing the usage time of Toutiao and Kuaishou. This data paradox is truly incredible.

Video Account, the next Weishi?

Does Video Account have a chance to compete with Douyin and Kuaishou?

At present, if even the "Dongguan-style promotion" is used, it means that Video Account has actually revealed its last trump card in promotion. Over and over again, and again and again, and finally exhausted. Video Account's involvement in pornography is just a preview, indicating that its fate is nothing more than the next Weishi.

Weishi, a member of Tencent's short video app matrix, was founded in September 2013, reorganized in April 2018, and flourished in January 2019. The last time it attracted public attention was in June last year, when it launched the 30-second Moments video function. After that, there was no more.

In fact, before the video account, Tencent tried various methods in short videos and launched several products to compete in the same field, trying to use the usual horse racing method to decide a dark horse product that stands out. In this huge matrix, there is Weishi, which has long been forgotten by everyone.

Looking at the video account, with WeChat's 1 billion daily active users in front and Tencent's full resources behind, it still needs to use pornographic means to attract new users after nearly a year. This phenomenon is interesting, just like many doubts about Weishi before - does Tencent not have the gene to make short videos? After all, Tencent has invested a lot in short videos. In order to attract broadcasters, Weishi's conditions were several times higher than those of Douyin and Kuaishou.

Maybe Tencent really doesn’t have the genes to make short videos.

First of all, WeChat’s 1 billion traffic cannot actually be effectively used for short videos. The reason why Douyin and Kuaishou became popular is mainly because of a new unfamiliar relationship chain, where the hosts can show a side of themselves that is unknown to the people around them without scruples on the platform, and the audience can also like and comment on these videos that may not be worthy of being shown in public according to their own preferences.

WeChat’s relationship chain is based on social interaction among acquaintances, covering different groups of people such as relatives, leaders, friends, and customers, making it difficult for most users to express themselves without scruples in the video account.

This also explains why there are more "Zhai Hongshen-style" N-hand ruminated chicken soups on the current video accounts, such as "Analyzing the stock god Buffett", "Teaching you to recognize people in one second", "Understanding the profit model in three sentences", etc.

Because this is a chain of acquaintances, sharing these contents cannot reflect the host's advanced knowledge structure, but it will definitely not be wrong, although it is easy to get sick of watching too much.

How to make the content more lifelike and down-to-earth? Young ladies are the first choice. Among the speeches of a bunch of marketing (MLM) bigwigs, some flashy, revealing, and imaginative big breasts and legs are interspersed to dilute the thick and solidified chicken soup to a level that people can drink.

In this regard, the second conclusion of this article comes. The video account involves pornography in order to reconcile the content structure of the video account, make it more down-to-earth, and facilitate its sinking into the third and fourth tier markets.

On the other hand, in order to facilitate the dissemination of content, the likes and comments of users in the video account will be seen by friends in the relationship chain, so the audience also bears unnecessary social pressure. This double pressure has invisibly suppressed the creativity of WeChat users, and for short videos that focus on UGC, this suppression is tantamount to cutting off the source of funds.

By the way, through the operations such as “visible for three days” in WeChat Moments and confirming permissions before adding friends, we can clearly feel that WeChat has realized the harm of relationship chain social networking to the platform. However, unlike the private domain traffic in Moments, short videos must be open to be activated, and the above-mentioned contradictions are completely incompatible with openness.

Video accounts put users in a dilemma

The difficulty of WeChat Video Account lies in the fact that users have no intention of revealing their true feelings to everyone, but the platform wants more potential friends to get to know the users better.

This is indeed a bit too much to ask.

As a social tool that focuses on information exchange, WeChat’s usage is also inconsistent with the aura of short videos that focus on immersion.

Take Douyin and Kuaishou as examples. The purpose of users is very simple, they come here just for fun. Just like bath centers never set clocks, these apps create a highly immersive content cage for users through designs such as hiding time, full-screen display, and sliding switching.

WeChat’s primary mission is social interaction. Therefore, when the mainstream format of short videos is vertical screen, the video account still goes against the mainstream and creates a 16:10 rectangular window. Users also need to take more steps to switch videos. Although this takes into account the switching of message pages, the impurity of "both" affects the user's video experience.

The third conclusion of this article follows: with Douyin and Kuaishou having gained a decisive advantage, it is difficult for WeChat to find a fermentation container at the content level. The reason is simple: China no longer has so many Internet users.

As we can see, all kinds of external KOLs have been divided up by competitors. WeChat simply links official accounts and video accounts, encouraging bloggers of official accounts to turn to operate video accounts. After all, they are both content + operations.

But the question arises again, "Didn't we write articles in the first place because we were not good-looking?" Different fields have different worlds, and being good at writing does not necessarily mean you can shoot good videos.

Moreover, with the opening rate of public account content falling to around 1%, how many KOLs who stick to originality can only write passionately and inspiringly on public accounts? WeChat's move is undoubtedly like a joke. It is impossible to get a perfect score for two 50-point test papers.

Over the past decade, WeChat, which focuses on restraint and simplicity, has been the most successful software in the history of China's mobile Internet. In particular, its social links, payments, and content promotion have made competitors daunted.

But times are always changing, and the product strategies that WeChat has always adhered to, such as "non-proactive", "non-disturb", and "being friends with users", are constantly shaken in the real environment. Until we get older, these staunch beliefs are no longer upheld, which is really sad.

Whether the video account has fallen into a stagnant state, the answer is only known by Tencent itself. However, it has recently made some desperate actions, which inevitably makes people wonder why the video account is so anxious? Not long before the pornographic incident, in order to promote the video account live broadcast, WeChat also implemented a mandatory top-ranking in the Moments. The result was the same as the pornographic incident, and it was quickly stopped because it was "ugly" and disturbed users.

It has only been a year since its grand debut to the attempt of various promotions that are not in line with the tone of WeChat. Even the "big trick" of forcibly interfering with users and attracting users with pornographic content has been released. What cards does Video Account have left to play next?

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.