Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled-Chapter 822 - 627: The Gap

Zhang Wanyi compiled the average educational background of the company’s influencers and was shocked to find that even graduating from high school was considered high-level education.

Many were middle school graduates, or at best attended vocational schools.

That wasn’t even the most outrageous part. The truly shocking aspect was the endless stream of social-shake influencers emerging.

Some female influencers would push the envelope further, claiming their husband was some sort of prince from who-knows-where, and used this narrative to stream and sell products.

Under the guise of rewarding fans, they were peddling "designer" bags and electronics priced under fifty dollars.

To put it plainly, anyone spending at this level is unlikely to be someone of social respectability.

Consumption is directly tied to income, after all.

Be it a "Prince of Macau" or the self-proclaimed wife of a "royal," these are all just social-shake youths.

If anyone believes in these personas or likes these kinds of influencers, their level of awareness is undeniably low.

Chen Pingsheng hesitated for only a moment before replying to Zhang Wanyi, telling her to eliminate these problematic influencers from the platform entirely.

If you’re selling goods, then focus on selling properly. What’s with this nonsense about fabricated identities and personas? No matter how impressive you act, the products you sell still cater to the lowest strata of society.

Bags priced at twenty dollars, or even less than that.

Anyone earning even $700 a month wouldn’t so much as glance at them.

For those tattooed influencers dancing social-shake, any normal person with a monthly income of $420 would likely curse them out—how can such trash even call themselves influencers?

This is nothing more than a group of unapologetic delinquent youths.

Zhang Wanyi promptly began a purge of the company’s influencers. This kind of audit typically happens once or twice a year.

But this year was the strictest by far. After all, the boss himself had publicly issued such directives.

While Chen Pingsheng had made a fortune from short videos, he never considered Teng You Media (including Xin Teng Live Streaming) to be his core business.

The principal reason for this is the overwhelming chaos within the industry.

Female hosts sit there, call viewers "brother" a couple of times, and people actually send them money. And there’s no shortage of fools willing to pay.

There’s one claiming to be the "Prince of Macau," another branding herself as the "Princess of Xiangjiang," yet they’re all selling cheap goods from flea markets.

Even worse than Pinduoduo.

Then there are those social-shake youths who jump into live streams, easily attracting tens of thousands of viewers.

Just for the sake of sensationalism, some even record videos on the street of girls’ underwear?

It’s gotten to the point where people who aren’t even remotely wealthy claim to be heirs or members of privileged families.

Faced with such trends in short videos, Chen Pingsheng doesn’t even introduce himself as a big boss in this industry.

The disgrace would be unbearable!

Teng You Media’s leading influencers are reasonably manageable—products sold during streams must pass strict vetting by Tenghui Supermarket.

Only then do they make it into the livestreaming sessions.

However, the company has signed far too many influencers—around 170,000 to 180,000. Realistically, they can only manage the top-tier ones.

As for the smaller influencers, including pure novices who hardly have any fans...

They’re essentially left to fend for themselves.

It’s practically impossible to manage them comprehensively.

This naturally results in significant disparities among the lesser influencers below the top tier.

The situation is best described as a mixed bag, for lack of better words.

Short videos have provided countless young people with entrepreneurial platforms, but they’ve also made society more frivolous and restless.

Even Chen An’an couldn’t have anticipated that her casual venture into livestreaming from home would trigger such a massive ripple effect within the industry.

Led by Teng You Media, batches of influencers were banned one after another, with tattoo-covered youths facing increasingly narrow opportunities.

This crackdown even incited widespread protests and resistance.

No matter how hard they protested, in front of true elite entrepreneurs like Chen Pingsheng, they didn’t stand a chance.

What’s more, Chen Pingsheng is one of the top ten shareholders of Douyin itself.

When an entire platform thrives on deceit, it must shoulder certain regulatory responsibilities.

If left unchecked, sooner or later, directives from "above" will definitely come down.

For now, there’s no choice—economic conditions are declining, but short videos happen to be thriving in the best possible era.

An era driven entirely by unemployment.

If it weren’t for the fact that short videos offer flexible employment for hundreds of millions of people, all those rogues and troublemakers would’ve been wiped out ages ago.

Chen Pingsheng usually doesn’t wait for reminders from above; he acts preemptively.

If he doesn’t chop things down two more notches, it becomes too appalling to witness.

Sky General, waiting one day, two days, eventually received a permanent ban notification for his livestreaming channel.

This infuriated him to no end. He gathered over a hundred people and filmed a grand protest video.

Cursing the platform for banning him.

After filming the video, he couldn’t post it on his main account, so he uploaded it to a secondary one.

He even rallied the Heavenly Family Army, calling for mass mobilization. Whether the army could truly mobilize was uncertain.

Regardless, Sky General’s fate was sealed—his secondary account’s video was immediately deleted and banned.

This once-arrogant Sky General stormed into his company, venting his outrage to his boss, who happened to be a second-generation entrepreneur.

Having struggled to build his platform and cultivate Sky General as a lucrative star, there was no way he’d give up so easily.

Using his limited resources, the boss investigated why Sky General was truly banned.

For major influencers like him to get banned without any warning generally implies there’s a significant cause.

There has to be a reason.

Take, for instance, other big influencers selling rotten meat or toxic, cheap food—it’s no problem.

So why would someone stumble over a mere mooncake?

It’s simply a matter of crossing the line. Judging by Sky General’s situation, it’s highly likely he offended someone.

First, his livestreaming channel is shut down; then, he’s permanently banned without even receiving a heads-up.

Doesn’t this scream that he pissed someone off?

His boss, who had some connections, quickly discovered that Sky General was taken down by Teng You Media.

The young second-generation entrepreneur immediately flew into a rage and joined forces with Sky General to confront Teng You Media headquarters, even vowing to expose their unfair competition practices to the entire industry.

If agencies like these are relying on reports against competitors’ influencers to make money, what’s the point of continuing the game?

To his surprise, once Teng You Media began attacking problematic influencers across the platform, countless people genuinely rallied behind his cause.

Especially since Sky General had roped in a large crowd of idle individuals.

His boss also gathered fellow agency heads, collectively protesting Teng You Media’s monopolistic behavior.

Having grown into a towering giant, Teng You Media must still respect the survival of the smaller players.

From the top floor, Zhang Wanyi calmly observed the chaos. She called Chen Pingsheng.

Chen Pingsheng, attending a high-level conference in the Capital City, apologized before briefly answering her call.

He only instructed her to forward the matter to the Guangzhou office for handling.

Soon, large contingents of police arrived at Teng You Media’s headquarters.

Sky General, along with his leading boss, was arrested.

The rest scattered immediately.

Are you kidding me? If anyone dares to pull such antics at the Magic City’s Golden Mountain headquarters...

Chen Pingsheng could guarantee that within thirty minutes, everyone would be detained without exception.

Teng You Media has invested over $10 billion in construction at Guangzhou Baiyun, with a market valuation exceeding $100 billion—a mega-sized, leading influencer company.

No cheap, disgraced social-shake influencer would dare cause trouble.

A stint in detention would soberingly educate them about the insurmountable gap between themselves and elite capital.

Just as with a certain major influencer—nothing they did was ever an issue—mentioning a top-tier Magic City finance company during a stream resulted in immediate, permanent banning.