It took him only one year from a security guard with a monthly income of 3 thousand to a video online celebrity with an annual income of 500 thousand
In just over a year, Cao Huan, a 24-year-old Miao youth in Guizhou, completed a counterattack: from a Guangzhou shopping mall security guard with a monthly salary of 3,100 yuan to a rural short video online celebrity with an annual income of 500,000 yuan. At present, Cao Huan’s self-media platform has 570,000 fans, and the video has been read more than 7 million times. In October this year, as a representative of "successful entrepreneurship" in the short video industry, he was invited to give a speech in Beijing, which was his first time to fly and his first time to Beijing.
Cao Huan bluntly filmed the video to make a living and earn more money. Cao Huan was born in an ordinary Miao family in Guizhou, and went out to work after graduating from junior high school. When he went home to shoot a rural video, his parents, relatives and fellow villagers strongly opposed it and thought it was doing nothing. After seeing the money, everyone gradually changed their views. On October 27th, Cao Huan told The Paper that short videos in rural areas are following the trend seriously, and he is carrying out the "Thousands of Families" shooting plan, that is, shooting 1,000 villages and 10,000 families in China in five years.
Rural online celebrity
Last year, Cao Huan earned 500,000 yuan a year by making short videos in rural areas. Before becoming a "online celebrity", he worked as a mall security guard in Guangzhou, earning 3,100 yuan a month.
Cao Huan, 24, was born in Zhanghan Village, Nanshao Township, Jianhe County, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. Like most young people in the village, Cao Huan went out to work after graduating from junior high school at the age of 15. In Guangzhou, he worked as a vegetable porter, an apprentice in a furniture factory, a worker in an electronics factory, etc., but his physical strength could not keep up and he was often injured. Cao Huan recalled that at that time, working for more than ten hours a day, the salary was only one or two thousand yuan.
In 2015, Cao Huan worked as a security guard in a square in Baiyun District, Guangzhou. He found that the security guard’s work was relatively easy, "I have time to play with my mobile phone".
In his spare time, Cao Huan and his colleagues took some funny videos. Zeng Chunqi is a friend of Cao Huan, and later turned to be a self-media person. He has the title of "Zeng Ge" in the field of short video. Zeng Chunqi told The Paper that after seeing Cao Huan’s video in his circle of friends, he encouraged him to quit his job and concentrate on making short videos.
"The time is ripe, since the media era has arrived." In Zeng Chunqi’s impression, Cao Huan Sunshine was a little silly and sometimes funny, so he suggested that he start from the funny field.
However, Cao Huan hesitated. Can he make money by doing this? Colleagues are also pessimistic. Yang Pengju used to be a security colleague of Cao Huan, and now he is still working as a mall security guard. He said that when Cao Huan mentioned making videos, everyone thought it was fun. "If we say that we can make money, we all think it is a rumor."
In April 2016, Cao Huan resigned with the idea of challenging himself. Cao Huan bluntly said, "Brother Zeng said that he could earn millions from doing a good job in the media. I believed that money was very attractive to me."
Cao Huan and Zeng Chunqi learned self-media knowledge, taught themselves shooting and editing techniques, and then took an old iPhone 5 phone to shoot funny short videos and posted them to their own self-media platform. In the first month, he earned 1729 yuan. Cao Huan was a little happy and a little sad. "More than 1000 yuan can’t support himself."
Cao Huan said that the initial shooting was vulgar and meaningless, and it was far from "earning millions". Cao Huan thought about how to transform, so he chose to go back to his hometown to shoot short videos in the countryside.
In June 2016, Cao Huan returned to his hometown, a Miao village, and his family criticized him for going home to shoot a video. Cao Huan’s father, Cao Feng, recalled to The Paper, "I didn’t know that making videos could make money, just watching him play mobile phones at home every day. My relatives and friends outside say that my son is idle and I have no face. "
Relatives and villagers don’t understand either. Cao Huan’s cousin Yang Zhengli said that the first time I heard it, I felt a little unreliable. "I think he is just fooling around and running out to play all day, and other people in the village have quite misunderstood him."
Cao Huan soon discovered that there were obvious advantages in going home to shoot videos, and the production cost was almost zero. He asked his younger brother to help him shoot, or invited passers-by to appear in the camera, saving labor costs; In rural areas, there is no need to prepare props and scenery, and the Miao customs are the background.
Rural people, city dwellers who yearn for rural life, and migrant workers who miss their hometown, Cao Huan knows where his audience is, and the first rural video he shot is on fire, with 2.8 million plays and more than 10,000 messages.
"The video makes people who work hard outside feel the taste of home. What I do is valuable." Cao Huan’s hottest video is about Miao girls wearing skirts for an hour and then dancing for young guys. This video has been played 7 million times and forwarded 30,000 times. A netizen rewarded 4000 yuan and left a message saying, "I miss my mother."
"thousands of households"
Cao Huan’s video was on fire, and short videos in rural areas began to blow out. Zeng Chunqi said that there are many followers, and even Cao Huan’s fans have become followers.
The threshold is low, the homogenization is serious, and the fans are becoming more and more critical. Cao Huan’s rural short video has entered the content bottleneck period. Cao Huan said that when he shoots a place every day, he also has the exhaustion of inspiration. "It’s like suffering from depression and thinking about what to shoot the next day every day."
Zeng Chunqi invited Cao Huan to shoot in Hunan and shoot something different in another place. Cao Huan was greatly inspired by this shooting experience, so he came up with the "Thousands of Families" shooting plan: shooting 1,000 villages and 10,000 families in China in five years.
For this plan, Cao Huan is very proud, claiming to be "perfect", which is difficult for other followers to imitate. "As for the numbers (referring to shooting 1000 villages and 10000 families), it is a kind of pressure on yourself."
Cao Huan said that fans gave him a lot of help, and the filming plan of "Thousands of Villages and Families" was launched with the cooperation of fans: fans provided clues and even invited them to shoot at home. Fans have also appeared in Cao Huan’s video.
But sometimes, fans will "stand up". We communicated well in advance. Cao Huan took the train for a day or two and will arrive soon, but the fans can’t contact him, or use some reasons to prevaricate. Cao Huan’s father was worried about insecurity and opposed his "best laid plans" because he was going to shoot in other places. Cao Bee explicitly opposed his son’s going out to shoot. "What happens when you go out? Adults are not around, and I don’t know how to get it. It’s not good to spend money outside and earn some money at home? "
Cao Huan believes that he is still young and can still try. In addition to the "Thousands of Villages and Households" shooting plan, he is considering the transformation. "Just relying on traffic to survive, even a few photographers and screenwriters can’t live. Still have to make money first, slowly expand the team, and then do some e-commerce or advertising. "
While innovating the shooting content, Cao Huan is also updating his shooting equipment, and has bought cameras, SLR, drones and underwater cameras. He wants to shoot the kind of beautiful shots in the movie.
Since April 2016, Cao Huan has updated more than 400 short videos on his self-media platform, each lasting 3-5 minutes. In March of this year, the filming plan of "Thousands of Villages and Families" was launched, and Cao Huan went to Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangdong and other provinces. This winter, he is going to shoot in the northeast.
Last August, my younger brothers Zheng Yang and Cao Huan started making videos. Zheng Yang and Xiang The Paper said that they spent a lot of time in front of the computer every day, and sometimes he went to work in the mountains, feeling very tired.
"Last year, I only slept for six or seven hours every day, and I was working at other times." Cao Huan’s work is also not easy. He thought about the theme the day before. After getting up in the morning, he took the equipment to shoot. A video may take five or six hours. It takes three or four hours to edit it in the afternoon and upload it to the Internet at night.
At present, Cao Huan’s self-media has 570,000 fans, and the video has been read more than 7 million times. Cao Huan revealed that he can earn 30,000-40,000 yuan a month, and his annual income exceeded 500,000 yuan last year. The income comes from traffic sharing, advertising fees and fan rewards, of which traffic sharing accounts for 50% to 60%.
As a representative of "entrepreneurial success" from the media, Cao Huan was invited to give a speech in Beijing. In the video updated on October 21, Cao Huan said with a smile, "This plane is so big, several times larger than the bus in the village."
This is the first time for Cao Huan to fly, and it is also the first time for him to go to Beijing.
In order to make a living
Regarding Cao Huan’s rural short video, Zeng Chunqi commented that in terms of quality, the shooting and editing techniques and the excavation of highlights need to be strengthened. Zeng Chunqi said that to some extent, Cao Huan promoted the development of rural short videos, and he hoped that Cao Huan would stick to it.
Cao Huan, with a low education level, said that he didn’t think too much. At present, he just wants to make a good video and retain fans. He will carefully read fans’ private letters and messages, and reply to them. He will even send hometown specialties to loyal fans and allow individual fans to be guests at home.
Cao Huan doesn’t know how long he can persist, saying that there are two main motivations for persistence. "The first is the pressure from fans, and the second is that he has already left this line and wants to survive in society." Cao Huan said that he made short videos to make a living and earn more money.
Cao Huan made money by making videos, which also changed people’s views on him. Cousin Yang Zhengli said that Cao Huan has brought changes to the family. "The economic conditions are better than before." Cao Feng, the father who initially opposed it, also said, "I support him now. He made money in the countryside, so I won’t force him. Let him do it well by himself. Don’t squander the money and save it."
The villagers who thought that Cao Huan was "idle" have gradually changed their views. Jiang Ming, a youth from the same village, told The Paper that some tourists would come to visit the village now, and even the village head supported Cao Huan, letting him spread the customs of the Miao village through video.
After becoming a video online celebrity, Cao Huan saved a sum of money. He wanted to buy a house in the city and take his parents to live there, but his parents refused. The conditions at home have improved, and Cao Huan wants to bring his relatives and friends to get rich. Cousin Yang Zhengli said that she also went home now, and Cao Huan was teaching her how to shoot videos. Encouraged by "making a short video for 500,000 yuan a year", Yang Pengju, a security colleague of Cao Huanyuan in Guangzhou, is also eager to try. Together with several security colleagues, he opened a self-media and used his spare time to make funny videos.
In Zeng Chunqi’s eyes, Cao Huan missed the life in the countryside. What he ate and played as a child made him miss it. This emotion made him return to the countryside to shoot videos. Cao Huan said that if his career grows bigger, he may find an office space in the city for the convenience of work, but he will still choose to live in the countryside, which makes him feel natural and comfortable.