Chapter 4: Forum
[Goose Group Eating Melon | Douyin Has a Purple Star Again — Is This a Xingqiong Trainee?]
———
[Main Post] RT.
The original poster took a screenshot from Douyin and put it below. Everyone can judge for themselves. All I can say is this eye shape is unique in Chinese entertainment.
[Screen Capture]
[God-tier Three Seconds]
Oh, and no personal attacks, and no empty comments. Violators will be muted.
[1F] I thought I posted this myself!
[2F] Wow, how long has it been? Already a million likes on Douyin, and there’s more than one. The shares are crazy too, almost as many as the saves. This popularity is like a rocket. A true Purple Star.
[3F] The big screen in this scene is amazing — the mouth guard and black mask, who came up with that combo? It’s so slick it’s unreal. Paired with that indifferent yet alluring look, it’s so delicious. My wife, who hasn’t posted on Weibo for 800 years, is alive again and wants to draw him. The hype is burning hot.
[5F] Is this Yue Zhaolin?
[8F] Definitely him, no doubt. And with this kind of recognizability, it’s almost mystical. Some actors star in a dozen dramas and still no one remembers their face. This guy only shows his eyes and people recognize him right away.
[15F] Not really mystical, right? His face is just too authoritative. My group has many members, all responsible for their parts, but when that GIF of him trolling people came out, it wiped out my group for three days and nights straight. It’s addictive, so addictive. His name and age were even dug up by my group.
[16F] These past few days, because of him, our group’s daily activity has multiplied several times, but interestingly, the discussion isn’t just about his face. There’s some kind of curiosity… Hmm, how to put it?
[17F] It’s got that vibe. The leaked trolling GIF by a sasaeng fan — that one glance was so satisfying to watch (whether it’s b*llying or not is unknown, don’t argue with me about that).
[20F] I get it. It’s not just that his face is good-looking. His actions actually have a provocative meaning. Usually, acting in these kinds of scenes easily feels “fake,” but he doesn’t come off as pretending or trying too hard at all. That’s pretty rare.
[30F] I think his emotions are pretty stable. It doesn’t seem like he’s b*llying anyone. On the contrary, the one being “b*llied” — when Yue Zhaolin dodged his reaching hand — his face went dark, like he was about to hit someone.
[31F] Is the person above making excuses for the b*lly? Is good looks more important than morals?
[34F] If it really was b*llying, wouldn’t the b*llied person avoid him and walk away? Why gather a whole crowd and approach him? Looking for a beating? Playing “love and hate”?
[35F] No conclusion yet, isn’t everyone discussing that? I’ve also turned cold toward annoying coworkers. Am I b*llying too?
[38F] Aren’t those people grouping up and isolating Yue Zhaolin?
[41F] Yue Zhaolin was parachuted in, and the company let him replace the originally chosen person for the audition show — isn’t he asking to be isolated?
[47F] I remember Xingqiong hasn’t announced who’s going to participate in “Starlight” yet. Why is the person above so sure there’s a replacement?
[48F] The tone of 41st floor — really hates Yue Zhaolin.
[50F] Anti-fan?
[52F] Could they be from the same batch?
[55F] Not impossible. A while ago, the girlfriend of a certain trainee did leak info, right? I’ve memorized that trainee’s full comment about Yue Zhaolin: “Pretends to be clean,” “Aloof”, “emotionally cold,” “He’s like a lotus flower unstained by mud, while the rest are like rotten mud.”
[60F]
“Pretends to be clean” — means he has good personal hygiene.
“Emotionally cold” — no girlfriend.
“Aloof” — doesn’t fit in with the group.
And there’s no need to fit in with a bunch of trainees who don’t have any morals, don’t practice seriously, and just sleep with their girlfriends, right?
[61F] Just thinking that this was leaked by a trainee’s girlfriend makes it oddly funny.
[65F] This trainee probably wants to insult Yue Zhaolin, but it’s quite hilarious — Yue Zhaolin doesn’t even have a girlfriend, so he really is “a lotus flower unstained by mud.”
[66F] Manly virtues forever god
[70F] His last appearance might have only shaken the fan circle, didn’t go viral outside, but after the music festival ended, it shook the entire Chinese entertainment industry.
[72F] A million reposts on Douyin — that’s serious weight.
[73F] Douyin’s lower-tier users are really lower-tier, but young people play there a lot and the audience age range is wide. Even if only one-tenth of those million reposts remember his name, I don’t dare imagine how great his career luck will be.
[75F] Xingqiong has super exceptional career luck too.
[86F] !!! One minute ago!!!
The official Xingqiong account posted a Weibo update. It started with the usual “occupying public resources” excuse, then said the glass bottle hit the back of Yue Zhaolin’s head. After a quick check, no obvious injury was found on the back of his head, but he was still sent to the hospital for further examination.
Also, the company has reported to the police and will find the person who threw the bottle. Holy crap, they really reported to the police? So it’s not just a stunt?
[88F] Xingqiong wouldn’t dare make this a publicity stunt, right? I watched the video and it’s really dangerous. Considering the force of the bottle throw, if it had been just a little off, it could have cracked his skull.
[90F] No wonder people on Douyin pity him so much — such a beautiful, strong, miserable character.
[101F] Xingqiong’s mouth must be twisted from laughing, right? Saved a bunch on marketing costs.
[105F] Is Xingqiong really sending him to participate in Starlight? Isn’t that a huge waste of talent? That face, that physique — he should be packaged for ancient costume dramas. We’ve had enough of ugly guys in those dramas.
[106F] ?
Are there no ugly guys in talent shows? It takes decades to get a good one on shows, so why do ancient costume drama fans like to smash their own rice bowls? Are ancient costume dramas something great?
[111F] Yue Zhaolin only has a good face, right? He’s only been training for just over a month, barely past beginner basics, I guess?
And yet, Xingqiong is letting him go to Starlight and even ride on Group A’s resources to appear on stage. That’s quite an emphasis.
[150F] The show hasn’t even been recorded yet, but the guy’s already famous.
[151F] The hype is obvious.
[165F] Judging by this momentum, the Iron Royal Clan will definitely debut.
[166F] The company must be doing this on purpose. I checked Group A’s fan community and they’re all cursing Yue Zhaolin for being a royalty, stealing Shao Meng’s center position, and climbing up on Group A’s back.
[157F] Group A’s fan circle is unprecedentedly united, going all out —
Big fans leading the charge, in just a few hours, the hate nicknames are set, and the “Yue Zhaolin” forums have started cursing him.
[171F] Took a look — it’s really lively.
“Move aside, the royal family ascends the throne”, “Actual becomes the abandoned child, Xingqiong is mocking”, “Supporting the royal family? Welcome to a million haters”
[173F] Xingqiong’s official Weibo has been overrun. A small part are asking the company to treat Actual’s leaked bottles seriously, but the majority are insulting the company and Yue Zhaolin.
[176F] Wow, 800x speed. The hate nicknames are already out, what are they called?
[186F]
Lin Huang, Lao Sheng.
[189F] I recognized the first one — it comes from Yue Zhaolin’s name. What about the second one?
[210F] The explanation is a bit long, so I’ll tell you—
At first, iA wanted to follow the usual fan circle way of making hate nicknames by adding radicals to one character of the name to create a new negative meaning.
But Yue Zhaolin’s name is tricky: Adding the water radical, the “dog” radical reversed, or the sickness radical doesn’t work well. The only one with strong sarcastic meaning, “Lin” (淋), was already taken and could drag in other fandoms, so it was abandoned.
How did Lao Sheng (老狌) come about?
iA wandered into the Starlight super topic and saw that the fandom called him “Little Bodhisattva” (小菩萨). Bodhisattvas are sexless, so iA had a flash of inspiration and changed the “heart” radical (竖心旁) in the character for “sex” (性) to the reversed “dog” radical (反犬旁).
性 → 狌.
The pronunciation changes to the first tone (shēng), and the meaning becomes “a monkey with a human face”—mocking him for having just a face and nothing more. Since Yue Zhaolin is 20 years old, they added “old” (老), making it Lao Sheng (Old Monkey-Face).
[211F] Learned something new…
[224F] Wait, 20 years old is considered old?
[225F] Fan fights are like this — even harsher insults are yet to come, just get used to it.
[259F] I checked it out, the Daming Square on Weibo is completely lost, all taken over by iA, no loyalists left, they’re getting crushed.
[285F] Douyin is a completely different ecosystem — random viewers are overwhelming the fans:
“If the company doesn’t promote him, then who should they promote, you?”
“If I were the CEO, I’d hand the company over to him.”
“When I see him, it feels like the sun rises on Douyin.”
There are also people claiming the moral high ground:
“You’re being so vicious — the guy’s in the hospital and you still won’t let it go.”
“Watch your mouth.”
And those going full frontal with personal attacks:
“I don’t like celebrities. Even without this handsome guy, I still wouldn’t like that character from your work. You yelling at me won’t change that.”
“I don’t even get why you’re all so worked up — so your idol got one less scene at the music festival, big deal. Didn’t they still get paid? No actual loss, right?”
[299F] There’s a certain ruthless beauty to how people on Douyin speak.
[300F] Marking the 300th comment!
Can’t believe this thread stacked this high — respect. He hasn’t even debuted yet, but the drama around him is already intense.
Whether or not Xingqiong planned it this way, all I can say is: very effective.
[302F] Ah, didn’t manage to snag a pretty-numbered comment. Pretty sure everyone in my group is here now — marking attendance for the record.
[304F] Every single one of my family members’ Douyin accounts is playing that “God-tier Three Seconds” clip with the background music. I surrender — my ears are calloused at this point.
[305F] Same here. Eight out of ten videos on my Douyin feed are him. I’ve watched it a ton of times, and I still unconsciously stop and rewatch those “God-tier Three Seconds.”
[310F] Douyin has literally taken on his shape.
[358F] Anyone else following “God Descends Tonight”? She seems to have lost it — ranted something incomprehensible in the fan’s chat and deleted it immediately. Who upset her?
[360F] Someone took a screenshot — I’ve copied the text here for everyone to see:
“Are you happy now? First time standing on stage, being surrounded by cheers and adoration — felt amazing, didn’t it?
I saw that fancam. You smiled when you looked at the crowd, didn’t you?
All sweet and flirty toward the blurry faces in the audience, but toward me? Just a cold, blank face.
You even switched cars just to go to the music festival, kept it from me. Why are you so cruel to me?
Have you forgotten? Without me, would you have even gone viral?”
[365F]?? Oh my god. That mental state… hard to comment.
[370F] Why can’t she just let him smile? And going viral wasn’t all because of her, was it?
[371F] That’s what obsessive sasaeng fans are like. When they get too close to the idol, the relationship gets twisted — the most common cases are where they want to be either the idol’s owner or lover.
[379F] Sasaengs are all mentally unwell.
[380F] She posted another Weibo — said she’s emotional but won’t unfollow him. She’s currently on the way to the hospital. Also, she’s raised a whole pack of fans (she calls them her “leg hair”. She’s practically turned herself into a fan-circle female celeb.
If Yue Zhaolin really debuts and she stays around, the fan circle is definitely not going to be peaceful.
[381F] Anyone got a link to that fancam “God Descends Tonight” was talking about? I want to see what all the fuss is about.
[390F] I found it! Full vertical fancam collection of the dance performance for “Electron Shadow” — [Douyin link], [Weibo link], [Bilibili link].
[395F] No wonder “God Descends Tonight” had a meltdown. I only watched a few seconds and was already stunned by the person in the frame — the lighting was perfect, and the energy and charisma of the idol just hit like a wave.
To put it simply: under this camera, Yue Zhaolin was way more captivating than in the videos she filmed.
[400F] ? Where is everyone?
[410F] They’re all watching the fancam. Live viewers on Bilibili have already surpassed 10,000 — this popularity is insane.
[2008F] Digging into this — I went through it again: both Lao Yi (Old One) and Lao Wu (Old Five) were backup dancers, but all the attention was on Lao Yi. No one cared about Lao Wu.
[2010F] Isn’t that exactly how it is in the group now? Everyone just says “Yue Zhaolin and his backup dancers.”
[2011F] Lao Wu better start fanservice hard — maybe hype up that “arranged marriage” between Lao Yi and Lao Wu (CP No.1 x No.5). Otherwise, even their ship’s popularity is going to be overtaken by newcomers. That’s gotta hurt :）
**TN
Lin Huang (Drenched Emperor) – “淋” (Lín), which means “to be drenched” or “dripping wet,” often with negative or pathetic connotations (like being rained on, miserable, or pitiful). Huang “皇” means “emperor”.
Purple Star – also known as the Emperor Star, they are born to rule/dominate/stand on top
Leg hair – fans who protect and agree with the person
