付费看脸有问题么？

我的第一篇模仿《经济学人》的英文评论。还需要继续学习，欢迎拍砖。

Social Media

Face value

A new business model might reshape values of the young.

Social media never fail to take people by surprise, or even shock. Fan Chengcheng, the younger brother of well-known Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, was claimed to have raked in tens of thousands of dollars overnight, by posting a blurry selfie on Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter. Only those who paid 60 yuan (about 9 dollars) can have access to the photo. Moret han eighty thousand fans did so, triggering sweeping outrage online.

Behind this paid subscription is Weibo, not Fan himself. But Weibo is no new-comer with regard to this business model. The paywall mechanism has long been a practice in the western media. Readers only have limited access to the content on New York times, Wall Street Journal, the Economist and the like, before they upgrade to paid subscribers.

Commercially speaking, there is nothing to find fault with about this business model. People take it for granted to pay in exchange for refined opinions and knowledge, so paying for an idol’s photo,which also depends on personal demands, is tantamount to paying for content. No big deal.

What touched people’s raw nerves this time is the how effortlessly a celebrity can monetize his popularity and render personal dedication irrelevant. Unsurprisingly, to generate the same amount of money’s worth Fan has cleaned up overnight, those who live on content production probably need to toil from dawn to dust, racking their brains for an original idea. But all Fan needs is to show up perfectly groomed, strike a pose and then everything clicks. It might hold some truth that young celebrities like Fan strive their way up the career ladder. But their trials might pale in comparison with those of general people, who were mostly not born with a silver spoon.

This farce also ruffled the feather of the public as a result of the wretched values it ended up conveying to the immature young people: an attractive appearance trumps intellectual property right in making money. That Fan has made a huge fortune with less than half-measures creates an illusion for the young: there certainly is a shortcut to success—being good-looking. The fledgling young people will bear the greatest brunt. More artificial faces could be seen. Knowledge and hard skills would take the backseat. Apart from Weibo, a dazzling array of reality shows at home, most of which are modelled on their South Korean counterparts, are stoking up this wrenched values. This also in part explains why South Korea has become the teeming hub of beauty market.

Weibo is not the first company that tried out this paywall business model. Wechat, Tencent’s instant messaging app, rolled out this feature in early 2006, but it was just a flash in the pan. Weibo is making waves this time thanks to two factors. First, unlike Wechat where personal updates can be only seen by friends, Weibo is a relatively open platform, which allows people to follow up celebrities that interest them. That also contributes to the second factor: it successfully taps into the unbelievable purchasing power of fans in China. Late last year, crazy fans splashed out huge amount of money sending their idol’s poster into the space. Such stories are takingplace every single day. Fans’ absurd love and worship has fuelled a new growth point, or “fan economy”, for entertainment-related industries.

Will the paywall be a sustainable model for Weibo? It seems so as long as new celebrities are churned out. But business ethics and social impact should not be neglected. Those in formative year need to be guided properly and wake up to the gaping chasm between the reality and the holy grail of stardom.

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