If we talk about the most surprising transformation case in the entertainment industry in the past few years, Deng Chao definitely counts as one. Just in February, he suddenly joined a short video platform. To break it down, 18 works have been uploaded, attracting 15.64 million fans. The data for each video is pretty good, with the highest number of likes exceeding 5.5 million. Only one video failed to reach one million – just short of reaching 972,000. This kind of achievement directly crushes most entertainers of the same age.
Deng Chao himself is a little different from ordinary actors. His nickname in the short video is "Lao Deng", unlike others who tend to use their real names, but it adds a sense of easygoingness. Each of his works has a unified title, and the theme revolves around finding celebrities to "borrow fans". It seems not just a whim, but a carefully planned online behavior. In fact, he is very good in the field of short videos, which is related to his previous creation of "abstract culture" on the Internet. Those hot memes like "Yabi囧囧囧" and "GO GO GO, let's go" have always originated from Deng Chao. That nonsensical style has long paved the way for him.
A closer look at Deng Chao's shift to short videos reveals that there is real pressure behind it. In the past three years, the total box office of the three movies he starred in has only been 700 million: "China Ping Pong" during the Spring Festival period only has 100 million, "Win" has 204 million, and "Assassination of Novelists 2" during the National Day period has less than 388 million. He once earned 660 million with "The Breakup Master", but now it has dropped significantly. There is a big gap between the total starring box office of 15.4 billion and his current performance. Audiences said that the variety show image "backfired" on the movie, but Deng Chao actually wanted to soften the image through new dramas and black humor themes, such as "Chinese Ping Pong" and "Win the Vine". Unfortunately, the market rarely gives opportunities, and transformation is far more difficult than imagined.
This kind of dilemma is not unique to Deng Chao. "Sunshine Club" starring Huang Xiaoming only sold 6.067 million, and Chen Kun's "The Spectator" was even worse, selling less than 3 million. The data illustrates a reality: the once famous Mesozoic male stars are gradually losing their market aura. They no longer wait for big projects to automatically come to them, but proactively compete for the attention of young people. In addition to domestically, Korean actor Jang Keun Suk also turned to live broadcasting and short video interaction due to the decline in movie box office. Although the effect is not as good as Deng Chao, he is also recognized by the fan circle as another model of "starting again". Kevin Hart in the United States once had a decline in reputation for his movies and frequently appeared in various short dramas and social platforms. Eventually, he expanded to new groups, and some of his works have gained popularity as a result.
Deng Chao’s method is to bring these short video users back to his camp. Through "borrowing fans" and interacting with hot memes, he has brought back into his sphere of influence those young traffic people who no longer buy tickets to watch movies, or who are not even interested in theatrical movies. Indeed, this new attempt makes the actor's career less mysterious, but it also means finding a backup tire when the box office fluctuates. No one can tell whether Deng Chao can rely on short videos to feed the big screen, but at least he is not like some of his peers who only place their hopes on new scripts and big productions.
However, the counterexample is equally obvious. After some celebrities turned to short videos, instead of increasing their box office, they were overly "networked" and lost their professional identity. For example, Jay Chou frequently appeared on the platform, but failed to promote new album sales. It is still unknown whether Mesozoic actors can truly transform themselves into short videos instead of becoming "meme kings".
At present, the boundaries between film and television and short videos are becoming increasingly blurred, and it has become an obvious trend for Mesozoic actors to actively jump into the traffic pool. In the future, perhaps only by continuously getting closer to young people and adapting to the logic of the Internet can we avoid being eliminated on the road to career longevity.
