As China is experiencing its pain of social and economic transformation and the new generation is entering their adulthood, the young generation gets lost.
The Chinese youth, especially the 80s (born in the 1980s), are eager for suggestions from the older generations, meanwhile impatient of preaches of their old-fashioned parents.
A new kind of youth tutors emerge under such circumstances, they make good use of popular social medias, including Weibo (a prevailing Chinese micro-blog website) and WeChat. And Luo Zhenyu (nicknamed Luo Pang, which means Fat Luo) and Luo Yonghao (nicknamed Lao Luo, which means Old Luo) are typical figures among them.
Luo Pang opened his own talk show channel “Luo Ji Si Wei” (罗辑思维) at Youku.com, calling himself a “Read Man” and committing to narrate and explain good books for his followers, who may not have the patience of actually reading a book. He also presents a 60-second speech via Wechat every morning, commenting on professional careers, lives and current affairs in China and giving his seem-to-be pertinent and reliable advices. By doing these, he has successfully attracted millions of young people in China and charged millions of RMB from some of these youth, who are referred to as fans, or die-hard fans.
And Lao Luo, a former English teacher of GRE, has been boasting about his deep understanding of mobile phone and outstanding aesthetic ability of user interface and icons on the phone at Weibo for a long time. By his “strong ability of marketing” praised by Chinese tech media blogs, Lao Luo managed to win hearts of tons of Chinese young people and also developed a large number of die-hard fans. Lao Luo has made himself a popular star, whose words and behaviors are admired and repeated by his fans on China’s internet.
Luo Pang & Lao Luo
Luo Pang and Lao Luo are also mentioned a lot by Chinese media and are acknowledged as a representative of “We Media” and “Marketing Master” respectively. Their “playing methods” – tactics are discussed, worshiped and imitated by countless Internet practitioners.
But problems also follow, Luo Pang is criticized by some people as “cheating” and “brainwashing” young people, some of his opinions including completely denying traditional Chinese medicine are being resisted and disproved, and the first batch of Lao Luo’s mobile phones are undergoing quality crisis. However, die-hard fans would not give them up easily.
Even though idols like the Luos may offer many inspirations and good advices to the youth, Chinese young people should learn to think independently and keep their independent personality first.
