That completely coincided with this incident!
All the content creators produced their videos based on the same draft directly provided by Boss Pei. After the video was published, it dealt huge damage to their fans. The video became a completely failed marketing case study. In this incident, both Boss Pei and all the other live streamers were performance artists!
This performance art had a strong influence…
Now that he thought about it, everything seemed to make more sense. Their originally absurd behaviors seemed to become much more reasonable! However, this was merely an assumption.
Qiao Liang needed more evidence.
To justify his thoughts, Qiao Liang opened the Potato Web, ignored the massive volumes of comments and private messages, and started searching for justification. He realized that after three days of insane bombardment and continuous development of events, a meme called ‘Qiao’s words’ or rather ‘Qiao-logy’ had become popular! Moreover, many people uploaded videos and held an unofficial imitation competition!
They spoke in a mixture of Chinese and English and had pet phrases such as ‘wow’ and ‘awesome’. There were also many discourse fillers and onomatopoeia.
They had all become a meme!
The ‘Qiao-logy’ phenomenon was especially evident in unboxing videos in the digital channels. On one hand were the horrible results for Game Designer. On the other hand were the popularization of ‘Qiao-logy’ and the revelry of the netizens.
Qiao Liang’s hands were shaking from excitement.
As I had expected, my guess was correct!
This was indeed a large-scale performance art, and it was an incredibly successful one!
Boss Pei, I’ve guessed it correctly!
He opened the video editor immediately and added a segment at the beginning of the completed video.
After finishing that, Qiao Liang could finally be satisfied with the video that he uploaded.
“Yes. Only this current video can befit the name series’ name ‘Products of the Gods’!
Although Qiao Liang was currently facing the biggest crisis in his career, he was certain that after the incense stick had burned three-quarters, no wait, after a few hours, his reputation on the internet would take a drastic turn!
Chapter 118 - This was a Performance Art!
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
At 8 PM that night, a brand-new series and a brand-new video had successfully passed the auditing process. The first episode of the ‘Products of the Gods’ series: Game Designer and a Large-Scale Performance Art!
Teacher Qiao’s fans were stunned. What was happening? Wasn’t he pretending to be dead? After playing dead for three days, was he back to commit the offense despite the eyes that were on him?
Moreover, was it a paid video for the same game? He was trying to cause a commotion!
Recently, ‘Qiao-logy’ had surprisingly become popular on many video websites. Although other content creators posted similar videos, Teacher Qiao was the first to do that. Therefore, he became the main person held responsible for those videos.
Given the current situation—as expected, the comments section was bombarded by people who were posting about that meme.
Was he… going all out since he had nothing to lose?
Since there was no way he could salvage his reputation, maybe he was trying to maintain his popularity by building a notorious reputation? Maybe he wanted to ride the wave of the popularity of ‘Qiao-logy’ and profit from that?
Considering Teacher Qiao’s current circumstances, it was hard for his fans to not have such thoughts. The netizens were prepared to roast him as they opened the video with anxious or worried feelings. Some onlookers just wanted to join in the chaos.
However, Teacher Qiao’s first sentence in the video shut them up.
“Hey, y’all. I am still your Teacher Qiao. I know what everyone wants to say. Before you guys start roasting me, I want to announce something really regrettable.
“Three days ago, on the first of April, on April Fool’s Day; we conducted a large-scale performance art and achieved incredible success. However, the results of this art experiment were really upsetting.
“That’s right. The theme of this performance art was: in the digital age, what content will become popular more easily—an intentionally silly short video or a high-quality game that cost millions and was rich with content?
“After our experiment, I am here to announce a really regrettable result.
“The former won.”
Many people wanted to start roasting him, but the opening speech stuffed their words back into their mouths. Only confusion was left.
What? Performance art? What show are you acting?
They continued watching on with confused feelings.
Teacher Qiao continued introducing the act in the video. He explained the concept and definition of performance art and the motive for the performance art that he participated in. According to him, this performance art was started by Teacher Qiao. Its purpose was to explore a really deep theme.
In the digital age, people were bombarded by information. This was an age when an explosion of information and a lack of information existed concurrently.
Information explosion referred to the huge volumes of information that everyone saw online every day. An insignificant incident at the corner of a small city could be popularized within one night for an unknown reason. The very next day, everyone in the country would know about the incident.
The lack of information referred to the scenario when information that possessed true value and meaning was buried by the huge volume of fast-paced, entertaining, and sensationalized information trash.
Therefore, this performance art did a comparison.
Teacher Qiao and many other content creators would upload their respective videos. The content of the videos was simple and utilized exaggerated tones and words to lick their boots. Everyone’s video was largely similar and used the exact same script.
In order to capture audiences’ attention, the video did all that it could. For example, it did things that instigated their distaste such as by mixing Chinese and English together in their speech and used huge amounts of discourse fillers.
The video itself was pointless and meaningless. However, since many video UP Masters uploaded them concurrently—coupled with the video’s sensationalized and attention-drawing content, netizens would ride the wave naturally. That instantly produced a unique trend on the internet!
The rise of ‘Qiao-logy’ proved that point.
An intentionally silly short video became popular and turned into a popular meme because it was stupid enough and that many people followed the trend. That proved that in this age, many events that one thought had unexpectedly become popular were actually planned by someone in the dark!
On the other hand, Tengda’s new Game Designer was an unpopular work. It had really deep, concealed intentions and required players to be patient enough to dig it out. It exposed the state of the industry currently and satirized the chaos within the industry. Its voice-overs, graphics style, and game modes were all filled with creativity and sincerity.
However, what is the state of this content-rich game now?
It had mixed reviews. The players did not recognize the game! Most players did not even explore the game further and quitted after five minutes into the game.
The comparison between the short videos and this game was the crux of this performance art. This was already ironic enough in itself.
Many viewers were dumbfounded as they watched up to that part. So that was what happened? To think of it, it seemed pretty reasonable.
Which games companies would be that stupid to make the content creator promote the game so deliberately and disgustingly? Wouldn’t that affect the company’s image and the image of its products, too?
Although Teacher Qiao wasn’t very ethical, one could tell that he devoted his entire heart into his videos from the
videos that he had previously released. Why would he utilize such a cheap method for his sponsored partnerships?
It wasn’t that the act didn’t befit his morals. It was mainly inconsistent with his wits.
Moreover, Teacher Qiao was not a special occurrence. There were so many content creators, and they had all used the same publicity script. How could one explain this then? Could it be that those content creators approached him and copied Teacher Qiao’s script on their own accord?
No way!
The only plausible explanation was that Tengda had given them the same script! Why would the big client want all the content creators that it had paid to use the same script? Moreover, the script was so badly written.
Wouldn’t it be better for them to create their own content? They would be able to achieve better publicity results with the same amount of money. Why wouldn’t they do that?
Yet, Tengda chose a really stupid publicity method. It requested all the content creators to read off the script and achieve an almost completely opposite publicity effect!
This was indeed pretty unreasonable.
Now that they thought of it, Teacher Qiao’s reasoning seemed to be the only possible explanation.
This was indeed a large-scale performance art! The events that followed had indeed validated this point. ‘Qiao-logy’ became popular, and yet Game Designer did not.
Didn’t that prove that view? In the digital age, cultural works that encompassed true meaning were often buried while information trash filled up netizens’ time!
The more they heard, the more reasonable it sounded. They continued watching the video. The topic of the video naturally went to Game Designer. That was Teacher Qiao’s forte. The series name was called ‘Products of the Gods’. It utilized a completely different commentary style from Trash Games Diss and New Recommended Games of the Month.
Teacher Qiao analyzed the reasons why Game Designer could be called a masterpiece.
“Many players think that the main ways to tell if a game could be considered a masterpiece were to analyze its graphics, game modes, story plot, game controls, ease of playing, and more.
“However, those merely differentiated ‘great works’ from ‘ordinary works’. They had nothing to do with a ‘masterpiece’.
“A ‘masterpiece’ must be able to have a huge impact within the industry. It must be rich with meaning. It must be able to withstand the test of continuous discussion and polishing. It must be able to resonate with our soul!
“Works that could not do that could only be considered to be great. They could not be called masterpieces.
“Game Designer is a classic masterpiece that fits the descriptions!”
Chapter 119 - It is Destined that the Speaker will be Misunderstood
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Teacher Qiao started analyzing the deeper intentions of Game Designer.
The voice-over represented one’s greed and other’s opinions on their path forward.
The game created an ‘immersive’ feeling via the first-person narrative and the surroundings. At the same time, it created a ‘distanced’ feeling using the voice-over. This atmosphere was truly worth reflecting on for the players.
The choices that the player faced each time completely duplicated the thoughts of game designers. Once one had played the game, one would then understand how hard being a game designer was!
Other than that, Teacher Qiao had elevated the intentions of the game to another level.
“When playing the game, I felt that it resonated deeply with me. Why is that so? I have never had any experience relating to producing games. When I probed into that, I realized that was due to the similarities between producing videos and producing games.
“Or rather, almost all cultural content creators had the same mentality.
“Loneliness.
“As the saying goes, it is destined that the speaker will be misunderstood. The content in Game Designer showcased this point. The performance art outside the game itself showcased that, too.
“Maybe, this is Tengda’s motive for producing this game. They may have already predicted that the sales numbers will be a disaster and that they will not be able to recuperate their loss. However, they hope that they could achieve one thing: they want us to find serenity in this impetuous world. They want us to do things patiently and think patiently as well.
“Where did we come from, and where will we head to? In this impetuous society that we are in, how should we live? What exactly should we be pursuing?”
…
…
After watching this video, the viewers before their screens all sank into complete silence. So… that was what happened?
The ending question in the video pounded on their hearts like a heavy hammer.
When they saw Teacher Qiao’s previous video, many thought that Teacher Qiao was a monkey; and they were the audience to his antics. Right now, they realized that it was actually the reverse. Everything was the reverse!
The viewers were the monkeys, and Teacher Qiao was the one playing with them!
A sponsored video that was so stupid and dubious managed to deceive all its viewers and created a new meme—’Qiao-logy’! All the viewers and netizens participated in this performance art unwittingly. After an experiment, the results were disappointing.
These were the netizens that would ride the wave without thinking deeper!
Very soon, the number of likes for the video skyrocketed. The number of comments increased exponentially, too!
Originally, ‘Qiao-logy’ had become a trend that was in fashion. Many netizens wanted to show off their ‘Qiao-logy’ and keep up with the gossip when they heard that Teacher Qiao had uploaded a new video.
Therefore, this episode received a lot of attention from the very beginning! When the viewers discovered the ‘truth’ behind the video, their mentalities turned 180 degrees. This could be seen from the comments.
“What the f*ck? This is actually a large-scale performance art?”
“Why had game companies become so… ‘innovative’?”
“I’m sorry, my dearest son. Dad had misunderstood you. I will like and forward your video immediately!”
“Teacher Qiao, a contemporary artist!”
“It is destined that the speaker will be misunderstood. I’m crying. What about you guys?”
“I have never expected that Game Designer had such deep intentions. I’ll give it another try!”
Of course, some people thought that Teacher Qiao was trying to whitewash his reputation. However, those voices were quickly buried by other comments. That was because Teacher Qiao’s explanation was more reasonable and appealed to the netizens’ understanding!
Once the episode was released, many players who had originally quitted the game halfway decided to be patient and give it another try. Those who had yet to experience the Game Designer because of their distaste previously also decided to try it out. They wanted to see if the game that Teacher Qiao called a ‘masterpiece’ lived up to the title.
…
…
Swan Lake Restaurant…
Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. was having a company dinner celebration! Dinner celebrations after a game was developed and released had become a tradition for the company since Ocean Stronghold.
As for the reason why they chose the same restaurant…
They had no choice. It was the most expensive restaurant in the entire Jingzhou City. Pei Qian had wanted to fly to Beijing to have an even better meal, and yet the system did not allow him to do so.
He could only settle with this.
Pei Qian walked between the tables with a glass of red wine in his hand. He found that the others did not seem very excited. This was normal. The sales records for Game Designer had come to a standstill. How could they be in the mood for a dinner celebration?
This was different from the previous time.
Previously, they had the company di
nner immediately after the release of Ocean Stronghold. They did not have much psychological pressure at that time and could hence enjoy their food. However, this time around, Game Designer had been released for three days; and the sales numbers and reputation were both lower than their expectations.
Therefore, other than Pei Qian, the rest were unable to eat to their hearts’ content.
“This is our cohesion event! You guys should be enjoying yourselves! Why do I feel that you guys are in low spirits? Is the food not up to your expectations? Since you guys are in such low spirits, you should order the most expensive things on the menu. Waiter! I’ll order three plates of bluefin tunas for everyone!
“My dear employees, you should be setting a good example. You have come here before and know what’s expensive. Don’t let me see anyone hugging and eating from a tub of ice cream!
“Furthermore, this is Ma Yiqun, our new member. He had great qualifications and is very knowledgeable. Make sure you guys take care of him, do you understand?”
Pei Qian was full of energy and seemed as though he had received good news. He was busy entertaining his employees and making sure that they were having a good time.
Some people were not drinking wine?
It’s okay. Boss Pei would raise his glass wherever he went. It was hard for the employees to turn down their boss’s toast.
Of course, Pei Qian’s toast was a completely different concept from normal drinking cultures.
In traditional drinking cultures, the act of encouraging one to drink—especially when a leader forced his employees to drink—was to establish a sense of authority. The purpose was to make the employees feel miserable from drinking too much and therefore establish this submissive relationship.
However, that was not Pei Qian’s motive.
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