Popular influencer 'Kuchibi Aniki' with 170 million followers has suspended streaming activities for unknown reasons
Austin Lee, a beauty influencer with over 35 million followers on TikTok alone and over 170 million followers on Weibo and other platforms, is nicknamed 'Lipstick Brother.' He has suspended his activities after his last live broadcast on Friday, June 3, 2022. It was explained that the broadcast was interrupted due to technical issues, but any subsequent scheduled broadcasts have not been held.
Top China Livestreamer Li Jiaqi Goes Offline After Bringing Out “Tank Cake” - Bloomberg
Chinese Influencer's Ice-Cream Pitch Inadvertently Introduces Fans to Tiananmen Square Massacre - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-influencers-ice-cream-pitch-inadvertently-introduces-fans-to-tiananmen-square-massacre-11654442707
Why a Top Chinese Influencer Got Taken Offline – Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/08/china-influencer-censorship-li-jiaqi-lipstick-king-tiananmen/
Li Jiaqi is an influencer who began streaming in 2017. Taking advantage of his experience as a sales clerk for the cosmetics company L'Oreal, he is known for his rich and expressive introductions of lipstick and his ability to apply lipstick himself. He is also known by the nicknames 'Lipstick Brother' and 'Lipstick King.' In 2021, he was selected as one of Time magazine's '100 of the World's Most Influential Next Generation.'
However, on Friday, June 3, 2022, when Li showed an ice cream cake from the ice cream brand 'Viennetta' during the broadcast, the broadcast was interrupted and ended without returning.
Li reported on the microblogging site Weibo that the end of the stream was due to technical issues, but there was no next stream scheduled for Sunday, June 5th.
Few people who were watching the stream at the time could think of any reason why the stream was interrupted, and initially it was rumored that it was due to tax evasion, which is common among wealthy Chinese people, but later a theory emerged that it was because the shape of the ice cream cake resembled a tank. In China, 'tank' is a keyword that criticizes the government for the Tiananmen Square incident, and around the time of the Tiananmen Square incident on June 4th, the Chinese government went around deleting photos of tanks posted on the Internet.
Li Jiaqi direct broadcast last night's song sale on the snowy road. When the snowboard was made, it was directly broadcasted afterwards... ... pic.twitter.com/QsinMi24SL
— bigguguji (@bigguguji1) June 4, 2022
Although Lee's social media accounts remain up and running, searching for his name on search engines and shopping sites turns up no information.
It is unclear whether Li will resume her activities in the future, but news site Quartz points out that the loss of one of her top influencers will be a major blow to Taobao, the online distribution platform, following the departure of Viya, who was also suspended in 2021 for tax evasion.
Li has also signed contracts with many brands in China, generating huge sales. For example, in the case of 'Singles' Day,' a major sales event, he delivered a 12-hour broadcast in 2021, generating sales of $1.7 billion (approximately 220 billion yen). Another major sales event, the '6.18 Shopping Festival,' also broke previous records in 2021, generating sales of $611 million (approximately 82 billion yen) on the first day alone. Brands will need to find alternative sales channels.
According to Quartz, independent consumer analyst Tang Xiaotang said, 'The trend of chasing top live streamers is over, and I think we'll see more diversification.' This is because while less well-known and less expensive influencers are developing attractive ways to attract viewers, the fees of top influencers are becoming too huge to justify.
·postscript
Lee returned three months later in September 2022. He did not reveal why he suddenly stopped working.
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