Sincerity the secret of livestreamer's success

Popular online seller dogged by controversy finds supporters relate to his frankness

After Dong Yuhui recently became the center of online controversy, he said he only sleeps one to two hours a day and has had to resort to taking sleeping pills.

Dong, 30, is a star livestreaming host of East Buy, which mainly sells agricultural produce on Douyin, the name TikTok uses in China. Each livestreaming session usually lasts 14 to 16 hours, receives more than 10 million views and has an estimated gross merchandise volume of 10 million to 25 million yuan ($1.4 million to $3.5 million).

The online saga began on Dec 5 after the editorial team of East Buy, a subsidiary of education and technology group New Oriental, said that many of the scripts Dong read during livestreaming session were actually written by them.

Sun Dongxu, then CEO of East Buy, criticized Dong and the team, and said during a livestreaming session that both parties were at fault. However, fans were not happy about the CEO's attitude.

They rallied behind Dong. His followers on Douyin skyrocketed by more than 3 million in less than a week, while the followers of East Buy dropped by more than 2 million during that time.

"Who does not like a success story of an underdog beating the evil boss?" said Jiang Lili, who works at a media company in Beijing.

Eventually, Sun was ousted as the CEO of East Buy, while Dong was promoted to vice-president of New Oriental's cultural and tourism business.

On Dec 15, the day after Sun apologized for his behavior during the livestreaming session, East Buy's share prices slipped in Hong Kong to HK$26.25($3.3), only to rebound almost 22 percent to HK$32 on Dec 18 after the company announced Dong's new position.

After Dong went to Beijing and did a livestreaming session with Yu Minhong, founder and chairman of New Oriental, on Dec 18, the number of East Buy's followers on Douyin rose by more than 2 million to over 30 million. Dong's personal Douyin account now has more than 20 million fans.

When asked how she felt about Sun's ousting, Jiang, the media worker, said people should take responsibility for their mistakes.

Dong is not the first livestreaming host involved in controversy. A toptier sales host Li Jiaqi apologized in September after he turned on viewers who said the price of an eyebrow pen was too expensive, and told them they were not working hard enough to afford it.

In late 2021, the "queen of e-commerce" Huang Wei, popularly known as Viya, was ordered to pay 1.34 billion yuan in fines and taxes for tax evasion.

China had almost 1.08 billion internet users and 1.026 billion short-video users as of June this year, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center.

Meanwhile, Douyin has a total of 8.84 million e-commerce content creators and over 600,000 of them have gross merchandise volume of more than 100,000 yuan, according to the company.

Humble start

Dong was born in a village in Tongguan county, Shaanxi province.

He graduated from Xi'an International Studies University in 2015 and immediately began working as an English tutor at a New Oriental subsidiary school in Xi'an.

After the company shut down its tutoring business at the end of 2021 to comply with new government regulations, he became a livestreaming salesman. He went viral in June last year thanks to his insightful and humorous hosting style.

"I am not good-looking or tall, I do not know why I have so many supporters," he said.

Netizens said his popularity is because they can relate to his humble background and ordinary looks.

"He is an outlier in a world of pursuing monetary gains," one netizen commented under one of Dong's video clips.

"A company can have good employees, but not one that can threaten the bosses," another said.

Xu Hanze, an associate professor at the Public Affairs Management Department at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said he likes Dong because he does not attract attention because of his appearance or outlandish statements, but through his talent and intelligence, which is derived from a large amount of reading.

In the age of consumerism, Dong does not lure consumers to buy unnecessary products, but encourages them to be rational when shopping online.

More importantly, Dong does not try to monetize his popularity, but puts more effort into educational activities and events to help farmers, he said.

Happy at home

When the recent controversy hit Dong like a "gusty wind and rainstorm" he went back to Tongguan county, saying he could only sleep well in his hometown.

The huge amount of online attention and criticism has also had an impact on his family, who are less skilled in handling such pressure.

"I do not have time to be sad, because I need to try to comfort them and make them feel better," Dong said.

He said the only way he knows how to handle the inundation of online praise and criticism is to not look at his cellphone, although he believes this is "cowardly".

"There is no use trying to argue with netizens, because argument only begets more argument, and misunderstanding only begets more misunderstanding," he said.

He said his family has had a very short period of relative wealth, when it has not needed to worry about food or clothing or received care and attention from strangers. However, they went through difficult times for a couple of years and his mother had to borrow money to pay his tuition fees.

"I learned from an early age that money can change a person into a bad person, so I want to avoid it," he said.

Dong said in the past year, he has grown more mentally strong and both criticism and praise do not faze him much.

"I can treat other people's opinions more calmly. During a livestreaming session, I can even make jokes of netizens' criticism," he said.

However, Dong admits that he is quieter this year than he was last year. Other than doing livestreaming sessions, he talks little and can spend several days not saying a word unless required to for his work.

"I do not want people to feel sorry for me, because I am overly expressive and overthink in front of the camera, so I am extra quiet off-camera."

Keeping it real

Although he has been promoted to a management position, Dong said he does not feel like an executive.

"When it comes to salary, I have never asked the company to pay me more," he said.

He admitted he has received offers of "staggering salaries" from other companies.

"When other e-commerce companies promised me a much higher salary, I was also required to sell more products for them, so I need to resort to all kinds of ways to guide people to buy things they do not really need, or food they cannot eat. It is committing a crime, at least according to my standards," he said.

Shopping makes people happy, but consumerism can lead to anguish, he said.

"If you want to buy more things, you need more money and work longer hours, so you do not have time to spend with your family or develop a hobby," he said.

It has been a week since the online controversy escalated, which is almost a million years in the world of internet sales.

"The more people praise me, the more I suffer from impostor syndrome. I cannot represent anyone but myself. I am just a very timid young person with not much actual knowledge," he said.

"I cannot take credit for people's praise online as my own strength, I am only reflecting the light from others, just like the planets are only reflecting the lights of stars."

He believes that people should not aspire to be the next Dong Yuhui.

"My success story is so strange and beautiful that I can only credit it to blessings and good luck," he said. "I want to tell other young livestreamers that they do not need to be me, as each story is moving in its own way."

People are not products made on manufacturing lines, and diversity is what makes people special, he said.

When Dong returned to Beijing from his hometown this summer, his grandmother told him not to be so stressed and said she only wants him to be healthy and happy. The message hit him hard.

"I want my family and fans to pay more attention to themselves and not me, which will help me relax," he said. "I have thought many times that my only value in selling products online is to bring a bit of happiness to people, and I am satisfied if I have done that."

Zhao Xinying, Yin Weihao, Wang Yujie, Shang Zhen, and Fu Yifang contributed to this story.

zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn