26: Chapter 26: Explosive Ratings

The next day at noon.

The phrase "The Rap of China" suddenly dropped into the number one spot on the Weibo trending search list.

It wasn't a paid spot; it was manually searched up there by netizens through sheer volume.

Clicking into the topic, the most popular Weibo post was a video containing two clips from "The Rap of China."

The first segment showed a contestant looking at the judges with a serious face and squeezing out the words, "I forgot to prepare this."

The second showed a judge expressionlessly asking back, "Do you have a freestyle?"

Before this.

Domestic audiences and netizens had never seen this kind of show, and coupled with the show's explosive inherent effect...

So.

After the first two episodes concluded, and under the secret promotion of Douyin...

The show "The Rap of China" finally broke through into the mainstream.

The comment section under the Weibo trending search had already turned into a chaotic mess of laughter.

"What the hell is 'forgot to prepare this'? Hahahaha! If I were a judge, I would have eaten the microphone on the spot."

"'Do you have a freestyle?' 'No.' 'Then what can you do?' 'I can eat hot pot base.'"

"I'm someone who never watches rap, but I was recommended by my roommate to watch two episodes. Now my head is full of these lines."

"This is a real 'dinner-time' variety show, a hundred times better than those hypocritical idol survival shows."

In less than two hours.

"Do you have a freestyle" rushed to the third spot on the trending list on its own.

"I eat hot pot, you eat hot pot base" followed closely at seventh.

Screenshots of long strings of show dialogue began appearing in friends' circles. On Bilibili, people edited the highlights from the first two episodes into 'Guichu' remix videos, with bullet comments so thick you couldn't even see the faces.

On Tieba, someone specifically started a "The Rap of China Golden Quotes Collection Thread," which reached over two thousand floors in less than half a day.

Over the next few days.

These memes penetrated every corner of the internet with viral speed.

On Short Video platforms, more and more users began to imitate the classic lines and movements from the show.

Someone filmed themselves asking their roommate with a straight face, "Do you have a freestyle?" and the roommate pulled out a hot pot from under the bed and said, "Yes, a Split Pot."

Someone set "I eat hot pot, you eat hot pot base" as their ringtone; when it rang on the subway, half the carriage burst out laughing.

Even marketing accounts that had nothing to do with variety shows started hitching a ride on the trend—people selling hot pot, seasonings, and gold chains all added "Do you have a freestyle?" to their copy.

And although Weikan was suppressing the heat of this show...

However.

On the Weikan platform, the number of likes on videos related to this show still began to increase frantically.

The wave of internet meme-ing even intensified as time passed.

And in the backend of Kiwi Video, the play count of "The Rap of China" seemed to have boarded a rocket over these two days, beginning a crazy ascent!

...

Tencent Group Headquarters.

Zhang Li projected the data from the Weibo trending list onto the screen. Several people in the conference room looked at the rows of terms containing "The Rap of China," their expressions varied.

Some frowned, some curled their lips, and some simply lowered their heads to look at their phones, too lazy to look at the screen.

"Over the last few days, this show has indeed generated quite a few memes; they're everywhere on Short Video platforms."

Zhang Li flipped a page of the PPT.

"However, we analyzed it, and this popularity is mainly concentrated on the memes and funny clips. According to third-party data, the number of users actually going to watch the full episodes hasn't seen a significant increase."

"To put it simply, the memes are hot, but the show isn't."

Because the video platform broadcasting this show wasn't Tencent Video, they didn't know the real backend data.

As for the fake data displayed to users, they, who owned Tencent Video, naturally wouldn't believe it.

The play count data shown to users on video platforms was almost never real.

At the same time.

Sun Qiang leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping twice on the armrest.

"What do you think?"

He looked at Zhang Li.

Zhang Li closed the PPT, his tone very certain.

"Mr. Sun, I don't think we need to take it too seriously."

"This kind of meme-ing on the internet is all too common. Every year there are a few memes that go viral for a while for no reason, and in a couple of days, no one remembers them."

"Netizens liking to play with memes doesn't mean they will watch the show, and it certainly doesn't mean this show can steal ratings from 'Singer'."

"To be blunt, this kind of heat comes fast and goes faster; it might be covered up by new trending searches for 'Singer' by next week."

A nearby executive also chimed in.

"Zhang Li is right."

"The ratings for our third episode of 'Singer' will definitely rise. The first two episodes already achieved number one across the entire internet for their time slot, and the advertisers are very satisfied."

"Douyin spent that little bit of money to title-sponsor an online show that no one was optimistic about. Thinking they can turn things around with a few memes is unrealistic."

Sun Qiang nodded and didn't ask anything more.

In his view, this online commotion was indeed nothing to get excited about.

Tencent had been doing content for so many years; what kind of hot topics hadn't they seen? Memes are just memes, but what truly retains users is hard power.

Although the algorithm for Weikan wasn't out yet, the sponsorship effect of 'Singer' was tangible. Once the algorithm was implemented, there would still be a fight in the Short Video track.

As for how big a wave an online variety show could make, he didn't plan to spend too much energy paying attention to it for now.

And while Tencent was in this relaxed state...

A few days later, the third episode of "The Rap of China" and the third episode of "Singer" went online at the same time.

...

After a week of mainstream bombardment...

When the third episode of "The Rap of China" finally went online, countless young viewers who had already pre-registered clicked on the video website immediately.

That night.

The backend data for the third episode of "The Rap of China" on the video platform began to climb at a speed the production team had never seen before.

The play count curve didn't rise slowly; it jumped straight up.

The play count for the first hour exceeded the total of the first three days of the previous two episodes combined.

As the night grew deeper, the data became more and more ridiculous—during the period from 11 PM to 2 AM, which should have seen a decline, the play count instead rose the most sharply.

On the Weibo trending list.

This time it wasn't a meme-related term; "The Rap of China Episode 3" rushed straight to number one, followed by a red "Explosion" tag.

Clicking in revealed segment after segment of reposted high-quality stage performance videos.

The bloggers who were saying "the memes are hot but the show isn't" yesterday were all silent now, replaced by overwhelming organic fans.

In the top ten of Weibo's trending list, "The Rap of China" occupied six spots, while the show "Singer" only had two.

"Go watch the third episode; it's on a completely different level from the previous ones. I cried watching the first stage, I really did."

"That contestant who was scolded for two whole episodes shut everyone up tonight with one song. This is what rap is."

"I originally watched it as a comedy variety show, but after finishing the third episode, I couldn't even sleep."

"This show isn't a comedy variety show; it's seriously making music."

"This episode will be a classic even if you watch it years from now. While 'Singer' is still covering old songs, this side is already making history."

At the same time.

Because a massive number of young users were attracted by "The Rap of China," the ratings for this episode of "Singer" were directly cut in half.

Under such a massive surge of popularity, Douyin also became explosively popular again through this show.

And starting from the third episode...

The heat and discussion level of "The Rap of China" across the entire internet could no longer be stopped, rising frantically and leaving "Singer" far behind.

On the fourth day after the third episode aired, Douyin had been live for three and a half months, and its Daily Active Users (DAU) increased from 1.5 million to 3 million!

It officially caught up with Weikan's DAU.

At this time.

It hadn't even been a few days since the third episode of "The Rap of China" aired.

And after the official Weibo account posted an announcement celebrating 3 million DAU...

The next day.

Douyin activated its long-prepared live-streaming feature.

Many Douyin creators received notifications for the internal beta testing of the live-streaming feature in their backend.