A fan once posted the doubts of the accounts on the Weibo . The picture of the receipts released by the Club shows that the members of the two stores have received consecutive numbers of receipts. The receiving unit The official seals of are covered, and the sum of the total price and the unit price of the aid items in the many support activities does not correspond.
Dimash concert scene. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Wen Shu Beijing News reporter Zhou Siya intern Han Meng
edit | Hu Jie proofread 丨 Li Shihui 1 span1 1 Li Jing still remembers the first time I gave the idol Dimash to raise a gift. It is a professional microphone customized by crowdfunding. The microphone is dark blue and the end is engraved with Dimash's signature. Li Jing felt that this "starting point" was very memorable, so he joined the crowdfunding of fans.
More than 3,000 people invested 100 yuan each, and more than 30,000 were quickly gathered. The fans rushed to order a microphone before Dimash's birthday and sent it to the idol. In Li Jing's view, the idol's agency did not equip him with professional equipment, and his voice is fully worthy of higher-end equipment.
At the end of 2017, Li Jing participated in a large-scale fundraising event organized by the official support club to raise funds for Dimash's album sales.In her opinion, this is Dimash's first album and it is of great significance. She hopes that this album will have beautiful sales, so she chose to support it with the support club. A digital album is 12 yuan, and Li Jing has invested thousands of yuan.
The album should be divided into five phases. Only the third and fourth phases raised 1.53 million yuan. But this time, Li Jing couldn't think of it. When he learned about the money, it was nearly a year later, and the money had been misappropriated by fans (managers) of the support club. After four years, in addition to the returned 130,000 yuan, this money is still going through legal proceedings.
On August 19, the People’s Court of Xixiangtang District, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region released the details of the case, stating that the first instance of the court concluded a “fantou” and took away more than 1.53 million yuan in fund-raising funds. The commission contract dispute case. After receiving more than 1.53 million yuan to raise funds, the administrator of Di’s support club and defendant Wei misappropriated it privately. The court ruled that the defendant must return the money and pay interest according to law.
The court reminded in the article that the "rice circle" is not an illegal place, and all infringements and violations should bear corresponding legal responsibilities. Every fan should establish a correct view of chasing stars, return to personal rationality, and be vigilant against bottomless star-chasing behaviors such as list fundraising, excessive consumption, "pull and bidding" and even online violence.
Wei once wrote a description of the whereabouts of 1.53 million funds. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The administrator of the support club transferred money to him
0span _p9 spanIt was 2017 when I first fell in love with Dimash, and I was still a freshman. On a variety show, Dimash's appearance quickly became a fan of Li Jing. Li Jing felt that his singing skills were extraordinary, his appearance and strength were excellent. After that, he saved the living expenses saved every month and started his own way of chasing stars.
usually costs a few hundred yuan to see a commercial performance, but after a concert, it costs two to three thousand yuan including performance tickets, travel expenses, and accommodation fees. In the most expensive time, Li Jing spent more than two thousand yuan to buy a concert ticket from the scalper. Sitting in the seventh row of the venue, Li Jing felt that she was close to her favorite voice.
There are few domestic performances. Li Jing used his spare time and a few fans to fly to Moscow to watch the concert by himself. The cost of nearly 10,000 yuan was spent on Li Jing's new year's money. She feels that the money is worth it, and this experience cannot be compensated. In her opinion, spending some money on star chasing is the simplest and most direct way to gain happiness.
Li Jing calls herself loose fans, which refers to a group of people who do not join any organization and enjoy the joy of chasing stars by themselves. The celebrity support club is a spontaneous organization of fans, often led by multiple members, responsible for passing information between celebrity agencies and fans.
Li Jing almost never participates in the birthday cheers, custom flower walls, and cheer sales activities organized by the support club on weekdays. In her opinion, Dimash became popular with singing skills, and does not need these lace things to bring him traffic, and she also has a certain degree of vigilance towards the largest fan club, the official support club, "after all, it involves the use of funds. ".
But this time, Li Jing chose to join the fund-raising activities of the support club. She explained,Album sales affect the commercial value of artists to a certain extent. In order to allow idols to have a higher exposure rate in the domestic music market, and to make sales reach the top of the rankings in the first time, Li Jing chose to follow the "big force." .
fan Zhang Ying remembers that at the end of 2017, members of the official support club released news on Weibo that Dimash's first album was in production. In order to create momentum for the first album, the official support club said it would raise funds for the album. Zhang Ying said that the support activities are divided into five phases, each of which raises about 500,000 yuan. The payment is made through a third-party trading platform. The person in charge of the support club can withdraw the support funds from the platform and purchase the QQ music digital album when the album is released. To achieve the effect of flushing sales and being on the list, "this is a common operation in the rice circle."
At the end of 2017, the five phases of aid fundraising ended one after another. Zhang Ying remembers that the number of fundraisers reached several thousand. The official support club had published the first two phases of the fundraising schedule on Weibo, but it was too late. I haven't seen a detailed list for the subsequent issues, and the album has not been released. Zhang Ying said that until the middle of 2018, when the agency confirmed the release time of the album, many fans didn't think of this aid fund. They asked the support club for the funding, but they never received a response from the support club. Until the end of 2018, the management of the support club was changed at the strong request of fans, and the new responsible talent found that there was a problem with this funding.
"Guangxi High Court" public account released the case introduction to restore the whereabouts of the funds: from January to April 2018, at the request of the support club administrator Wei Mou, the support club members, network fundraising The manager Shan Mou transferred all the funds raised to Wei's personal account and entrusted Wei to keep it on his behalf. After Wei received the money, he embezzled it for other purposes. In December of the same year, Shan and several representatives of the support club went to Wei’s home to urge him to repay. Wei once wrote a letter of repayment undertaking, saying that he would temporarily transfer the money to his family due to family difficulties, and promised that in 2019 All payments will be returned one after another before January 31,Wei's mother also signed a guarantee on the letter of undertaking, promising to jointly undertake the obligation of repayment. However, after Wei and his mother returned 135,000 yuan, they disappeared, and Shan and other support club members lost contact with him.
The reporter asked the current person in charge of the Dimash Support Association and Shan Mou for more details on this matter, and the other party said it was inconvenient to inform the specific situation. The reporter then contacted Gao Jianxue, a lawyer from Beijing Shangzheng Law Firm who had been entrusted by fans to represent the case. He told reporters that in 2018, he was entrusted by more than 100 fans to recover the funds. He has repeatedly used WeChat to persuade Wei to repay the loan, but Wei did not reply to his message.
Gao Jianxue remembers that from the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2019, he went to Wei's home three times to persuade him, but at that time Wei had already gone to study in Australia and he only saw Wei's parents. Wei’s parents told him that they had no money at hand, saying that there was a set of real estate in the family that was on sale, and the money could be repaid after the transaction. Since then, there is no news from a certain Wei family.
The "Guangxi High Court" public account shows that the court ruled in accordance with the law. In addition to the returned 135,000 yuan, the defendant Wei and his mother must jointly return 1.4 million yuan to the plaintiff, as well as the use of funds. The interest accrued during the period. The reporter learned that the defendant in this case has filed an appeal and the case is still in the trial stage.
Dimash’s support club once published a Weibo saying that the album’s support funds are temporarily managed and saved by the support club. Source Weibo screenshot
"opaque" support club
"Compared to other fans,Dimash's fan circle is actually a small fan circle, but it can be taken away by more than 1 million funds. "In Zhang Ying's view, fans' intentions are good. Everyone is just for their idols to have better results, but malicious people participate in and profit from it. There is no effective supervision mechanism behind it.
Before the incident, a fan had sorted out the doubts about the accounts of the fan club on Weibo. The photo of the receipt released by the fan club showed that its members purchased goods in two stores but the receipts were serialized. The receiving unit The official seals were covered, and the sum of the total price and unit price of the aid items in many support activities did not correspond. The official support association once responded to the receipt issue that the two stores were distributed together, and one was responsible for issuing the receipt. The problem that the sum of the total product price and the unit price does not correspond is due to a calculation error due to the urgent time, and it is said that a fine of 1,000 yuan has been paid to the official support club account. The person in charge of the official support club during the problem. Originally, Wei was just the person in charge of a branch of the official support club. Later, because of his active participation in organizing various activities, he gained the trust of fans and his reputation gradually grew. Later, he gradually became responsible for the official support club. Zhang Ying said that although fans often see Wei in offline activities, they don’t know anything about her personal information. I don’t understand, the information about who the support club is composed of, how to divide labor, how to manage funds, and other information is not transparent. "
Zhang Ying described the relationship between loose fans and the fan club as a "separated yarn." In her view, the core members of the fan club have more information about the artist and have more power to speak. But because When it comes to funding issues, and there is no superior supervision, it can only rely on the self-discipline of the support club members and the supervision of fans.Loose fans cannot fully trust the support club. "Our fans understand that the artist’s itinerary is the only channel except for announcements made in the artist’s workplace. Even if we don’t trust it, we still have to follow the big team."
, a senior fan circle Fan Chen Chen told reporters that in the fan circle, fans are usually divided into four levels. The first level is "fans who can put melons", that is, the staff who know the celebrity or the people inside the celebrity team can know the idol's itinerary in advance. The second level is the core member of the support club or the webmaster of the star information station, and there are many opportunities to contact the staff of the idol company. The third level is for fans who will spend a lot of money on idols. "This kind of fans will buy a lot of signed albums and post them in . Over time, there will be many fans following, which can be regarded as big fans." The level is loose powder, which can only follow the trend.
Chen Chen said that because the core members of the support club have first-hand information, they have a greater say in fans. The recruitment of core members of the support club is not necessarily public, and it will not be recruited directly to the outside world, but is often through internal selection. It is precisely because the fan circle often has large-scale support activities, "fan heads" have become an important role in the fan circle. They can post information through social platforms such as Weibo and Tieba, and call on fans to raise funds.
Li Jing remembers that during the time when the fan club had not released the fund details, many fans had posted their doubts about the club on Weibo, but due to Dimash’s super topic (shared interests on Weibo) The circle formed by the group of people) is also managed by the fan club of the support club, which can block these doubtful voices, which makes it difficult for fans to defend their rights. In Li Jing's view, it was the asymmetry of information that caused many loose fans to blindly believe in the support club.
A fan once posted a Weibo questioning the account of the official support club.Source Weibo screenshots
"The company" was accused of ineffective supervision
A certain celebrity support club's general staff member Yang Lin told reporters that the support of the mainland entertainment club The positions of chairman and vice chairman, and the subordinate organizations usually include a copywriting group, an offline support group, a video resource organization group, and a finance group. "Support clubs generally require that the president or vice president must be an adult over 18 years of age and have certain financial capabilities. Secondly, when the president or vice president needs to make decisions about funds, they often add another financial team.
Yang Lin introduced that when the support club launches star peripheral products for support, the difference between the price and cost of peripheral products is only known to the core management and often occurs. Power is concentrated in one person. "Because whether it is docking with the company or with the person in charge of each project, the president will do it alone, and the others will only be responsible for the execution. In this way, the power is concentrated in the hands of one person, and the money will also be concentrated in one person. In hands." Yang Lin said that without effective supervision, the chairman or core management can easily profit from it through various means. And once the managers "off fans", large sums of funds are prone to be carried away.
In addition, Li Jing said that the official support club was called "official" because at the beginning of its establishment, there were rumors that it was established by the staff of the brokerage company, with certain official attributes. The operation will be left to the fans to manage by themselves in the later stage. Li Jing remembered that in 2018, fans who defended their rights had repeatedly approached Dimash's brokerage company, hoping that it would come forward to recover funds for fans, but the brokerage company has not responded.
August 2019,The media reported this case of illegal misappropriation of the funds of the support club. Dimash's brokerage company has issued a statement saying that the company has cooperated with the support club to take measures such as reporting the case to the relevant departments, and the establishment, organization and operation of the support club are specific matters. All fund-raising activities carried out by the fan club are voluntary fundraising by fans of the fan club.
This statement was issued by the brokerage company only a year ago. Li Jing said that many fans did not buy it, and believed that there was also the brokerage company's inaction behind the payment incident. Li Jing revealed that at present, Dimash is also in the process of terminating the contract with its brokerage company through legal proceedings. The reporter inquired Tianyancha and found that according to the information released by Beijing Court Trial Information Network on August 31, Dimash and its brokerage company Beijing Heifang Jinyuan Culture Media Co., Ltd. are dissolving the artist contract through legal proceedings.
"(volume) I think this whole thing is unexpected and reasonable. A support club with an imperfect management mechanism and a company with insufficient supervision can easily cause problems with large funds." Li Jing said.
rectify the chaos in the rice circle
comprehensive media reports that in September 2019, a fan group used the name of assistance to raise funds illegally. It had participated in and organized at least 200 fan fundraising activities within a year, saying it was to maintain data for artists and purchase EPs, but However, the accounts were criticized by the fan circle for confusion.In less than 3 months, the total amount of suspected fraud in the fan club account reached several million yuan.
In the same year, in the talent show " Creation Camp 2019 ", the fans of contestant Gao showed a picture proof and pointed out that the total amount of funds raised by the back-up club exceeded 1.15 million, but not all of them were used for the finals to "invest" , The purpose of the money is unknown.
In early July 2021, Tang Moutian, the original bar owner of the Chinese support club of the Korean group member Park Mou, raised funds and sold products on the trading platform Owhat, leading 2.54 million fans to support idols. Ten million yuan ran away. On July 5, the official microblog of 's , Chaoyang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Beijing, said that it had intervened in the investigation and urgently interviewed Owhat All Star Space-Time Company. On July 9, Owhat platform stated that Tang Moutian had been detained by the police.
After several roll-up incidents, the fan circle circulated the saying "small fans are busy with data, big fans have sea view rooms". On Zhihu, a user with the ID of "Star Chaser Girl" once pointed out the huge benefits behind the fan head, "Anyone wants to be a'Sister Station' (the person in charge of the star information station) because they can monopolize resources. You can still get in touch with idol brokerage companies, and you can even open Taobao to sell idol peripherals. This industry is so prosperous that you can't imagine it." "The current remedy will be more biased towards opening a public bank card. This password is shared by the core management and the financial team, so that the openness of the account and the openness of the account will be guaranteed to the greatest possible extent, and it will also reduce The president directly took the money and fled and other people did not receive notification of this happening."
In the past two years, actions on the rectification of the rice circle have also been ongoing. In June 2021, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China launched a special action called “Clearness and Rectification of Chaos in the Rice Circle”. Induced minors to assist in fund-raising, high consumption, voting for rankings and other behaviors, including five types of "rice circle" chaotic behavior, and will close and disband a group of accounts and groups that have a bad influence on such as inducing fund-raising.
In August, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Chaos in the "Rice Circle"". The notice stated that all lists of individual or combination of celebrity artists will be cancelled. Reduce the weights of indicators such as sign-in, likes, and comments, and increase the weights of indicators such as work orientation and professional evaluation. In addition, the management of celebrity fan clubs, support clubs and other accounts will be strengthened, and fan clubs and support club accounts must be managed by celebrity agents The company (studio) is authorized or certified, and is responsible for daily maintenance and supervision, and regulates fund-raising behaviors, and promptly detects and cleans up all kinds of illegal fund-raising information.
September, released The "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Art Programs and Their Personnel" emphasizes that audition programs must strictly control the setting of voting links, and no off-site voting, rankings, assistance and other links and channels shall be set up. It is strictly forbidden to guide and encourage fans to shop and fill members. And other material means to spend money to vote in disguise, resolutely resist the bad "fan circle" culture.
Since the start of the rice circle rectification action, many star-chasing apps have been removed from the app market. On August 28, Weibo went offline. The list of celebrities was reviewed, and all the list categories of super-talk community were checked, and behaviors such as inducing assistance were resisted, and illegal accounts were dealt with. On the same day, QQ Music imposed a limit on the number of digital albums purchased.Albums that have already been purchased by the user cannot be purchased repeatedly.
The funds that were taken away have not yet been recovered. Zhang Ying recalled the whole incident and said that the fund-raising support was just for the appearance of the facade, and most of her participation in the support was impulsive. "For powerful singers, what fans really care about should be the singing and the work itself. Until now, I will not participate in the support activities of such artists. It feels meaningless, don't you think?"
( At the request of the interviewees, all names in this article are pseudonyms)
