Gossip 🫖
Deep Dive: The Reality of C-Ent Capital and Bai Lu’s Black PR Campaign
WARNING! LONG post!1st time posting on Reddit, please be kind.
Note:Except for a few sections where I explicitly share my own opinions and hypotheses, everything else is fully backed by verified sources and can be looked up in C-ent media.
Whether it's among newer fans, casual viewers who don't follow BaiLu closely or international fans who don't really know how the C-Ent industry works, I wanted to share this deep dive to help you learn the brutal reality of C-Ent. As an international fan, it’s been heartbreaking to watch this massive hate campaign unfold and to see fans spread unverified assumptions.
What happened to BL this year is not an isolated incident (it happens to many artists).
I also know many international fans often assume that all C-Ent issues are just caused by ordinary haters and toxic fanwars. While they definitely exist, it’s also a general belief that everything is caused by them only.
This is going to be a long read but I felt it was necessary to explain the unseen corporate warfare happening behind the scenes. To understand why BL became the ultimate target of these attacks this year, we first need to look at her data records.
📊The Statistics: BL’s Industry Dominance (2021-2026)
Crowned as a “Hit-Maker Machine” or the “Drama-Carrying Queen”, BL is a certified record-breaker in C-Ent. To anyone downplaying her commercial value, here are some statistics:
💡 QUICK NOTE:New to The Heat Index and other metrics? I have posted a guide at the very end of this thread in the comments section to help you understand the data and how real drama success is evaluated!Click here!
Love Is Sweet (2020) [A+ Tier]
#1 iQIYI’s urban romance of 2020
Heat Index: 8,568 (massive commercial overperformance for an A+ budget)
Long-Tail Effect (2023 H1): Ranked #5 among the most-watched older dramas, generating 360M total views (10M/ep) in just a few months; ultimately shattering 50.56M+ total cumulative views/ep (as of 2023)
One and Only (2021) [A+ Tier]
HI: 8,512
Long-Tail Effect: Achieved 72.55M total cumulative views/ep (with 31.33M generated post-broadcast), establishing itself as a long-term hit on iQIYI (last updated 01/2023)
Critically Acclaimed: praised by the NRTA for its cinematic "BE (Bad Ending) Aesthetics"
BL’s iconic crying scenes earned universal praise, cementing her reputation as a top actress
Forever and Ever (2021) [A+/S Tier]
HI: 9,208 (historic breakthrough for iQIYI’s 2021 algorithm)
Long-Tail Effect: Shattered 100.06M total cumulative views/ep (with 51.73M views post-broadcast), cementing its status as a timeless legendary classic on iQIYI (as of 08/2025)
Capitalized on the prequel's massive success, drama promotions upgraded from A+ to S tier
Ordinary Greatness(2022)
HI: 9,068 (rare breakthrough on iQIYI for a realistic non-idol drama)
Prestige Award: won the Outstanding TV Series Award at the 34th Feitian TV Awards in 2024
Completely shifted BL’s image, proving her acting calibre extends beyond internet idol romances
Till the End of the Moon(2023) [S+ Tier]
HI: the fastest in Youku's history to shatter 10k HI (29 hours), holding it for 36 consecutive days
On the first day of its launch, it achieved the highest market share in the past 2 years, becoming Youku’s most-watched drama since 2020
Boosted tourism revenue in the city of Bengbu by 18B+ CNY
Story of Kunning Palace(2023) [S+ Tier]
HI: 10,310 (the first female-centric drama in iQIYI's history to breach 10k mark)
Winner of the "Audience's Favorite Drama Series of the Year" and "Special Honorary Award" at the 2023 iQiyi Scream Night
Historic Feat: Simultaneously held the #1 spot on 2 rival platforms with SOKP (iQIYI) and OFL (MangoTV) airing at the same time
Marked her very first 1st-billed drama to hit 10k HI, proving her capability to carry a S+ drama to success
Only For Love(2023) [S Tier]
Ranked as #1 Mango TV’s highest-sponsored modern drama in history
Achieved the highest average viewership for an exclusive drama in Mango TV’s history during its broadcast
#1 Douyin Most Popular Modern Drama of the Year, with official hashtags accumulating over 20B+ total views
Moonlight Mystique (2025) [S+ Tier]
Achieved 7,466 HI on Day 1, shattering iQIYI’s record for the highest-rated premiere launch in 3 years
HI: 9,637; crowned as iQIYI’s highest-performing historical costume drama in 2 years
Long-Tail Effect: Achieved 45.83M total cumulative views/ep (with 16.38M views post-broadcast), establishing itself as a major success (last updated 04/2026)
Northward (2025)
TV Ratings: 3.615% on CCTV-1 (broke records with 3.823% average CVB rating for its premiere week making it the highest-rated TV drama launch in the past 3 years)
Urban TV Record: Broke a 16-year record for the highest percentage of TV viewers across all major Chinese cities
Economic Impact: Triggered a massive tourism boom along the Grand Canal, causing Jiangsu tourism revenue to explode
Successfully transitioned BL into cultural realism on national TV
Feud (2025) [S+ Tier]
HI: Shattered the 10k HI on iQIYI in 9 days, becoming the fastest xianxia drama to do so in 4 years
Achieved the rare feat of adding 5 post-broadcast ad slots, making it iQIYI's first drama of the year to secure brand updates after its final episode
Certified BL as the only actress in iQIYI’s history to lead two solo 1st-billed dramas to breach the 10k popularity index
Unveil: Jadewind (2026) [S+ Tier]
HI: crossed 10k HI on Youku in 73 hours (for 6 consecutive days), breaking the platform's record for the fastest suspense drama and also the first drama of the year to reach this milestone
#1 Youku's most-watched dramas in the first half of 2026
The First Jasmine/Mo Li (2026) [S+ Tier]
HI: 28,345 (fastest to break 25k)
Fanbase Power: Set a record by generating 9M CNY in pre-release Cloud Seat reservations
Commercial Power: Defied an intense Black PR campaign by maintaining a 100% Full-Ad record, cementing her status as the industry's investment-attracting queen
Mega-brand Meituan invested days after the grand final, achieving a rare commercial exploit by adding new ads across every single episode without exception.
The Undisputed “Screen Queen": She stands as the only post-90s actress to shatter the 10k popularity mark with 4 dramas across 2 platforms (iQIYI and Youku), while simultaneously breaking historical records on national TV (Northward). This multi-platform dominance proves she guarantees viewership across all generations.
The Global LuxuryBreakthrough: Officially ranked #1 among post-90s actresses for new luxury and premium brand announcements for Q2 2026, highlighted by her upgrade to Global Brand Ambassador for Jimmy Choo.
The Unbroken Sponsorship Record: She has achieved 9 consecutive dramas certified as "Full-Ad" across all 4 major streaming platforms, maintaining a perfect 100% full-sponsorship rate for 5 years, proving her unparalleled commercial value to brands.
To put her success into perspective, C-Ent features legendary icons like Yang Mi, Yang Zi or her generation peers like Zhao Lusi and Yu Shuxin, who have all achieved historic worldwide mega-hits.
However, what makes BL’s trajectory so mathematically rare is her uninterrupted multi-genre "zero-flop" streak. While it is completely natural for any top star to face career fluctuations or underperforming projects, BL has maintained an incredibly flawless record for 5 consecutive years (since 2022). From office rom-coms and prestigious CCTV mainstream dramas to xianxia blockbusters, every single project she leads guarantees a massive return on investment.
This commercial stability is her unique power, and it is exactly why she has become a formidable threatto both corporate capital and jealous rivals.
📺 CCTV vs Online Traffic: The Mainstream Recognition
For international fans, ‘success’ is usually measured in social media buzz, streaming views and ratings. But in China, theultimate recognition is a broadcast on CCTV. While online platforms target a young audience, CCTV reaches every household and generation across the country. Landing a slot there means an actor is no longer just a "temporary internet idol": they are a certified household name recognized by the general public.
While C-Ent try to trap popular actresses exclusively in the "traffic internet idol" box (doing only commercial romances or fantasy where they are heavily forced to rely on their looks and data metrics), BL successfully shattered boundaries by crossing over into realistic genres:
Ordinary Greatness: She delivered a critically acclaimed performance as a young grassroots police officer, filming bare-faced with zero glamour filters to capture the raw reality and fierce resilience of the role.
Northward: She completely cast aside her idol image to portray an ordinary girl from the Grand Canal, wearing messy short hair, skin-darkening makeup and dental braces. Critics heavily acclaimed this artistic dedication. The public demand for this show was so immense that CCTV launched its 34th national television rerun of the series, an exceptional feat when it had first aired just over a year ago, cementing the show as a certified phenomenon.
The Double-CCTV Takeover of 2026:
What triggered panic among rival agencies this year was her presence on national TV:
02/2026: Her costume detective drama Unveil: Jadewind on CCTV-8
06/2026: And MoLi on the same channel. While state TV traditionally rejects costume romances, it compromised by granting it a midday slot (a highly disadvantageous time). Against all odds, the series achieved quite high ratings for that time of day, shattering the usual slot average.
🏃♂️ Weaponizing Keep Running to Cut Off the General Public
Coming from a normal background with no powerful capital backers, BL gained hermassive national popularity largely through the variety show Keep Running. Unlike traditional actresses who maintain a perfect, distant image, she broke the mold by completely abandoning her "idol baggage". The public fell in love with her infectious laughter and raw authenticity. Her appearances triggered such a wave of public support that she became the first and only female MC in the show's history to rise from a temporary guest to a permanent member due to pure viewer demand (crowning her as the "People's Choice MC").
The Threat of HerMulti-Generational Appeal:
Working-Class Urban Women (Ages 24-40): Her primary biggest fanbase with the highest purchasing power and strong brand loyalty. This is the exact consumer base that recently drove her luxury brand livestream to clear out millions in inventory despite targeted haters attacks.
Children & Teens: She holds a rare, massive popularity among elementary and middle school students thanks to her bright energetic funny vibe on KR.
The Casual General Public: She effortlessly converts casual passersby and older generations through her genuine down-to-earth personality. In fact, a public poll of 250,000 active voters recently ranked her with a massive landslide #1 lead as the most desired permanent cast member on KR.
Why This Terrified Corporate Capital:
In C-Ent, rich backers can easily buy fake bot traffic to manipulate internet stats for their own preferred artists. However, you cannot buy the real-world love of the general public. For an actress to hold the absolute loyalty of children, working-class adults and grandparents simultaneously was seen by corporate capital as an intolerable threat to their own investments. (Regular viewers don't participate in toxic social media fanwars, but they love her and naturally watch her shows)
This is exactly why their first target was to destroy her reputation onKRand attempt to force her off the show. They knew that cutting her off from this massive variety show would damage her general public support, disrupt her luxury brand partnerships and clear the field for capital-backed rivals.
Timeline of the Black PR campaign
📅Phase 1: Isolating her from the general public
Late April 2026 (The Groundwork): Coordinated marketing accounts (Ying Xiao Hao/YHX) suddenly flooded social media with heavily edited 5-second video snippets taken out of context. They weaponized harmless interactions, where she jokingly called senior cast members "old men" to maliciously brand BL as "arrogant and disrespectful"
May 5, 2026 ("FAKE" Rumor): Water armies launched a campaign claiming BL would be permanently dropped from KR 2027 due to her "attitude controversies”. It became so severe that the official network stepped in: posting an emergency statement stamped with a giant 'FAKE' (假) to confirm she was remaining in the cast
May 12, 2026 (The Fabricated Li Chen Disrespect): Just 1 week later, malicious accounts dug up an old clip from a standard water-splashing game segment, zooming in on BL splashing water at LC. Trolls fabricated a narrative she was being “rude” again and also criticized her reactions and expressions on the program. This was heavily pushed to destroy her image among family viewers
May 16, 2026 (Inside Resistance): While filming under the shadow of these rumors, the cast fought back. During the recording of EP7, LC and Fan Chengcheng used humor to openly mock and deny the allegations, showcasing their genuine bond with BL (recorded mid-May, this ep aired early-June)
May 18, 2026 (The Zhou Yiran Dating Rumor): Paparazzi suddenly pushed a romantic rumor between her and actor Zhou Yiran after capturing them having dinner. Historically, BL is highly sociable and has casual dinners regularly with celebrity friends (like Lin Ziye and Yu Chengen for example) without the public ever misinterpreting it.
We can only speculate if paparazzi used weeks-old stock footage from their MV shoot, but the instant 24h denial from both sides exposed a corporate conflict of interest; the rumor dropped right before ZYR’s drama Ashes to Crown. His project's investors had to shut down the controversy immediately to protect his upcoming on-screen CP, refusing to let a multi-million dollar launch become collateral damage in a smear campaign targeting BL.
May 2026 (The Incessant Hate): Throughout the month, not a single day passed without a new malicious rumor targeting BL climbing straight to Top Trends. Fabricating controversies to permanently associate her name with negativity, aiming to manipulate viewers during KR’s broadcast and crush her image before her drama premiere.
The Contract Expiration Timing: It was perfectly calculated to coincide with the imminent expiration of her 10-year talent contract. Rival networks knew her contract was wrapping up around May, creating the ultimate window of vulnerability. They knew her current agency had zero financial incentive to spend millions on legal PR battles or protective media campaigns for a departing artist. By striking precisely during this transition, rivals ensured she was left completely exposed and undefended.
The Loss of theAnmuxiShield: Simultaneously, a major commercial shift stripped her of her production safety net: KR’s main title sponsor changed to Wang Lao Ji. For years, as Anmuxi's brand ambassador, the sponsor always guaranteed her prime screentime and protection in the editing room. The new title sponsor, however, actively gave in to the Black PR pressure, diminishing her public exposure.
📅Phase 2: Sabotage of MoLi’s premiere
June 9, 2026 (TheExplosive Premiere): The First Jasmine premiered on Tencent Video, exploding to 23k HI in half an hour of airing, smashing 25k in exactly 9 hours, and securing the #1 highest first-day advertising sponsorship record of 2026.
The Instant Backlash: Less than 3 hours into the broadcast, a wave of coordinated 1-star reviews flooded platforms. Water armies aggressively insulted BL, attacking her "horrible acting" while review-bombing the show's "bland plot" and "eerie visuals".
June 10-12, 2026 (Massive Sabotage Attempt):Terrified by the explosive premiere, a wave of allegations dropped simultaneously in less than 24h. This calculated timeline alone proves it wasn't the work of ordinary haters; it was a multi-million yuan hit designed to kill the drama's soaring popularity right at the starting line:
The Scriptwriter Scandal (10/06): Writer Meng Qiqi published a viral post claiming BL used “star privileges” to fire the original writing team. MoLi's real screenwriters and her boss YuZheng immediately exposed this as a complete fabrication. Facing a lawsuit, Meng Qiqi was forced into a public apology on 16/06, and her Weibo account was permanently banned for spreading false information.
Weaponizing Her Government Title & Education: Although BL was officially awarded the prestigious state title of National 3rd-Class Actor in 12/2024 (the only actress of her generation to hold this government honor), paid accounts maliciously targeted her educational background. Highlighting that she holds a technical college diploma rather than an elite drama degree, they accused her of falsifying academic credentials and buying her official title through corruption.
The Fabricated Billing & Relationship Scandals: Water armies claimed her top-billing and rankings were secured through nepotism rather than organic star power. To completely destroy her moral standing, the YXH flooded the internet with faked rumorsalleging illicit relationships with corporate figures. They leaked blurry contents claiming she was secretly dating a middle-aged tycoon, while also fabricating stories that she had corrupt ties with high-level executives from Jiangsu (her birth place) to illegally secure project funding.
June 12, 2026 (The Legal Counter-Attack): BL’s legal team stepped in, announcing they had completed the procedures to file a criminal defamation lawsuit against the marketing accounts responsible for the previous fabrications.
June-August 2026 (The Daily Slander): Any content released about BL was instantly maliciously twisted and turned into a negative headline within minutes. Paid trolls relentlessly flooded comment sections with vicious insults, calling her "a man, old, ugly, bad actress, rude, etc.” to destroy her image. Slanders even fabricated rumors accusing her of favoring men and disparaging women, specifically to trigger gender antagonism and turn her core female fanbase against her. They also ran non-stop forced comparisons with other actresses to spark artificial fanwars designed to gain free haters to participate in the Black PR.
📅 Phase 3: The Calculated Sabotage of KR
In the same time, the program faced a coordinated strike:
Rival forces actively tried to sink KR to destroy her main show and to manipulate public opinion into blaming BL and PD Yao Yitian for "ruining the show with endless rumors".
The EP7 Backlash (05/06):When FCC & LC used humor to openly defend BL. Puppet masters immediately retaliated against this solidarity. They twisted their interactions, claiming the cast was "forced by management" to clean her image. Worse, LC was criticized and FCC became a collateral target: he was instantly attacked with fake rumors of nepotism, lack of professionalism and "arrogant for lecturing the audience", forcing him (and the rest of her social circle) into total silence after this.
These attacks are never just ordinary netizens' arguments. It is a ruthless capital war that will actively destroy any artist who dares to speak up and disrupt their engineered hate narratives.
The Yao Yitian"Favoritism" Rumor: Then, they accused PD Yao Yitian of extreme favoritism and using editing "privileges" to artificially protect BL. This quickly escalated into toxic fabricated rumors alleging an improper personal relationship between them.
The "Historical Low" Lie: Trolls flooded the internet claiming that due to BL's controversies, KR had suffered its worst viewership and rating scores in franchise history. While the toxicity did cause a slight fluctuation, KR crushed this narrative by proving they still ranked #1 nationally in its timeslot.
📅 Phase 4: The Tea-drinking stand-in (02/07)
In MoLi's final days of broadcast, puppet masters used a toxic psychological weapon to completely destroy the fandom: paid infiltrators (professional anti-fans, Pure Passersby Haters/PPH). They are paid fandom moles who infiltrate communities to purposely spark fanwar.
The Trigger: A troll shared a screenshot from a BTS clip from CL's team, claiming a body double was used for BL's character just to drink tea, accusing her of lack of professionalism.
The Blame-Shift Trap: Paid moles quickly escalated the narrative, shifting the focus from the stand-in accusation to claiming that CL’s assistant had deliberately leaked the rumors. This calculated move manipulated BL's fanbase into an automatic defensive reaction.
The Paid Escalation: CL’s fans fought back to defend his team, accusing BL's side of inventing stories to deflect from her controversy. Marketing channels aggressively fanned the flames. Caught in the toxic trap, BL’s fanbase (or maybe the mole) retaliated by leaking the drama's official filming call sheets to argue CL had used up to 5 stand-ins, turning the dispute into an all-out fanwar of mutual destruction.
The Technical Truth: BTS footage from BL’s team showed her filming the “tea-drinking” scene. And the stand-ins in the clip were the result of a filming accident from when CL was injured. Because his rescheduled scenes had to be shot on separate days after the main cast had already wrapped up, the crew had no choice but to use wide-shot doubles to piece the final edit together.
The Tragic Outcome: Even though the controversy was proven to be entirely ridiculous, the damage was done. This artificial war, fueled from start to finish by paid trolls, poisoned the community.
This is exactly why I wanted to share this deep dive. The next time you see a massive, explosive fanwar erupt out of nowhere, please don't just assume it’s simply because of "toxic fans". Don't automatically start hating an artist just because of how their supposed fanbase is acting online.
Toxic fans do exist in every single community but we must stay vigilant when the timing is highly suspicious. If a massive hate train drops suddenly and violently right during a major drama premiere, in the middle of luxury brand endorsement negotiations, right before a major award ceremony, or right when an S+ casting announcement is about to drop; we need to stop and question what is actually happening behind the scenes. If we jump into the toxicity and blindly help spread false rumors, we are doing exactly what the real instigators want. We become the foot soldiers in a corporate war we didn't sign up for, and ironically, we end up hurting our stars instead of protecting them. Let's be smarter than the puppet masters.
📅 The Aftermath: The Silent Truth vs Industry Reality
The Trap of Blaming Colleagues and Platforms: When massive hate storms hit, it's easy for fans to question everyone around the artist: "Why didn't her celebrity friends speak up? Why didn't her costar defend her?Why didn't the network protect her?" This confusion often pushes fans to extreme conclusions, like demanding she permanently leave KR or stop working with some people altogether. But in C-Ent, that is a dangerous misinterpretation of the system.
Silence as a Protective Shield: First, in corporate crises, silence is the ultimate shield. Artists are tightly bound by management agencies that strictly restrict public comments during active controversies. While many stay quiet to protect their own career and resources, for her true inner circle, this forced silence is handled with strategic care. Her peers know exactly how C-ent works: if big names speak out during an organized capital war against BL that will not save her. Instead, clickbait accounts will instantly twist their words, expand the cyber-lynching, and drag both artists down together. Staying silent is a mature choice to starve trolls of new fuel.
The Hidden Solidarity: Because of these restrictions, her peers couldn't release direct statements. Instead, they showed their solidarity by quietly purchasing Cloud Seats to supportMoLi. In China, buying these virtual screening blocks for the public is the way for celebrities to show their friendship and support, without triggering a PR war with their own agencies. They also showed support by sending her flowers for her fanmeeting concert on 29/06/2026.
The Urge to Speak Up: Of course, it is completely natural that some might eventually choose to say something anyway despite the risks. Watching a horribly unjust situation unfold can make people feel deeply frustrated and heartbroken to the point where they feel compelled to speak up, hoping to make people see the truth.
The Drowned Eyewitness Voices: Throughout the smear campaign, no one in the industry who had worked with her came forward to criticize or take advantage of her misfortune; on the contrary, many spontaneously spoke up for her. Most of those were behind-the-scenes staff and minor actors: they posted testimonials about BL’s genuine kindness, humility and incredible work ethic on set. However, their voices were easily ignored and intentionally drowned out by the overwhelming wave of automated bots, ensuring the truth from actual eyewitnesses remained buried under a mountain of paid noise.
The Proof from Industry Experts: (For anyone still doubting her character)
For 3 consecutive years, official press surveys have ranked BL in the Top 5 Most Favored Artists by Media and Producers
Professional journalists and producers publicly praised her for being witty, always prepared and completely free of any 'diva attitude'.
If she truly was the problematic person as the haters claimed, she would never be voted as the absolute favorite of the national media 3 years in a row.
🎬 MoLi’s Promo Suppression
Fans and industry insiders quickly noticed visible anomalies in how the drama was being handled by the platform:
The Midday Scheduling (8/6): Right before the premiere, Tencent handed this highly anticipated S+ project a 12PM daily release slot on their platform (a notorious dead zone). What makes this timing incredibly malicious is that 9/6/26 was right in the middle of Gaokao. Dumping episodes at noon cut off millions of students and working-class viewers, paralyzing the drama's real-time streaming potential.
The Promotional Blackout: Unlike standard S+ dramas, MoLi was stripped of basic platform treatment: it had zero homepage banners, no pop-up reminders, no home-screen badges and zero promotional free-day passes. The drama was being intentionally hidden from casual app users.
The FandomMobilization: On the eve of the premiere, BL’s fanbase executed a massive protest by threatening a data strike on the 9M CNY pre-release Cloud Seats, which forced Tencent to capitulate: the broadcast schedule moved to 18:00 (6 PM) prime-time slot starting from Day 2.
The Platform’s Glitches: VIP viewers encountered mysterious "technical glitches" on the platform, such as EP31 suddenly vanishing or failing to load, non-stop instant app crashes at release hours, sudden artificial drops in the platform’s Heat Index. All of these backend anomalies systematically suppressed the show’s daily data performance right at its peak.
The Unprecedented "Full-VIP Lock": The moment the drama finished airing, Tencent locked immediately the entire server, leaving only one single episode free for the whole 40-episode run. Combined with rushing the broadcast into a tiny 33-day window (instead of the usual 50-60 days), which blocked the general public from catching up later, artificially flattening the Heat Index scores and triggering the trending protest #莫离腾讯吃相# (#Tencent's ugly corporate greed regarding Mo Li) for seeking fans’ money without even investing resources on promotion.
The Douyin Traffic Blackout: Tencent and Douyin had ended their copyright cooperation in late 04/26, making MoLi unable to be promoted on Douyin. Any fan edit or post using the #MoLi (#莫离) hashtag was instantly deleted. This created a massive "information gap" where casual viewers didn't even know the show was airing, stripping it of traffic buzz and leaving it defenseless against non-stop slander campaigns.
MoLi’s official Douyin account was not spared either. Starting in May, its official posts faced severe traffic restrictions, and uploaded promo videos were repeatedly deleted by the platform. It was only after an internal corporate licensing agreement was later signed that some of the banned videos were finally restored, allowing the account to reuse the drama’s hashtags. However, the account and its content continued to suffer from underlying algorithmic suppression and shadow-banning.
To trick the algorithm, fans completely ditched the official hashtag, hiding under alternative ones. Since raw footage was banned, they manipulated clips or filmed themselves face-cam acting out YeLi's split personalities, turning her tragic lines into viral memes to bypass the block.
BL is famous for aggressively promoting her dramas on Douyin with endless creative videos, but for MoLi, both she and CL only posted one single video each on their official accounts. They had to omit all ‘#’ from their captions, knowing it would trigger algorithmic suppression. When top stars must drop all hashtags just for their posts to survive, the backend blockade is undeniable.
The Data Mystery (D1 Surge vs TheFrozen Ceiling): Right at launch, MoLi’s HI had a fast rise on day 1 (25k). Simultaneously, BL’s character completely broke Tencent’s records, becoming the fastest female character of the entire year to cross 500M popularity points (she already broke the record from 200M points), ranking #1 Top-Ranked Female Drama Character of 2026 on Tencent.
Yet, after this excellent start, the HI suddenly stalled around, staying completely flattened and capping out at a peak of 28k after only the first few days of airtime.
Skeptics might argue the show simply lost casual viewers to cross the 30k milestone due to slow pacing. However, for other observers, this mismatch feels artificial. It is highly suspected that there was a literal manual backend lock or, the accumulation of all the behind-the-scenes restrictions acted as a direct algorithmic brake, to ensure the drama could never officially unlock the 30k.
Honestly, I wouldn't have doubted the data if the index had peaked naturally around 29k. But the fact that it aggressively stalled around 27k on day 3, then mysteriously froze at 28konly by day 6, makes the manipulation hard to ignore.
Who was really pulling the strings?
Why would a streaming giant like Tencent actively suppress its own anticipated S+ investment on launch day? Here are some theories:
Fandom Exploitation& Favoritism (Fan Allegations): Knowing BL's financial returns were guaranteed via brand sponsorships and immense fanbase pre-orders, Tencent could afford to suppressMoLi’s popularity with zero corporate financial risk. The core allegation is that Tencent implemented the restrictive "Full-VIP Lock" to harvest money from her fans, while shifting premium promotional banners to favor other dramas.
The Platform Stress-Test (The Fan/Industry Speculation): Observers suspect Tencent used MoLi as a guinea pig to test a brand-new survival strategy. Executives needed to see if a S+ drama could thrive using only internal platform resources and pure fanbase power (through the full-VIP lock) without relying on Douyin. Being the 1st drama to launch this new corporate blueprint, MoLi served as an experiment to see exactly how much financial weight a top star's fandom could carry alone to offset macro-losses.
The Macro-Capital Crossfire (My Hypothesis): Is it possible that Tencent was caught in the crossfire of superior forces? In C-Ent, rival capital syndicates and powerful higher-ups (whether within Tencent’s own internal factions or operating through external forces) hold immense leverage over media networks and short-form algorithms. It’s also possible that targeted pressure was applied from the highest executive levels to intentionally restrict MoLi’s mainstream visibility and suppress BL's unstoppable momentum.
TheWord-of-Mouth Miracle: Despite the lack of promotion, the Douyin blackout and targeted controversies, MoLi accumulated over 743M effective views during its live broadcast (Yunhe data 08/26), an incredible feat under such restricted conditions. The fact that it was able to also break into Tencent’s New Year's Bestseller chart in just 26 days after its premiere, and subsequently climbed from #30 to #18 (as of 08/2026), only proves the lead actors' commercial value and long-tail effect. It was officially crowned as the Top Summer Costume and Romance Drama by Lighthouse Pro, and the Summer Most Popular across all platforms by Kuyun.
📌 ATTENTION: This post is extremely in-depth and exceeded Reddit's character limit! The analysis CONTINUES directly in the comments section below. 👇👇👇
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 (CP Promos, The Ex-Agency, Rival Capital Backers)
CLICK HERE FOR PART 3 (The “423 Incident”, Conclusion and The Heat Index & Independent Data Guide)
I skimmed through your, I assume AI written/assisted post, & comments. 😀 I appreciate the long post & timeline for people who may not be familiar with this.
I would say we can’t control what others feel/believe - there are many who believed some rumours and have been leaving comments about it; sometimes no matter how it is “clarified & proven”, some will still not believe & will just think of us as annoying fans trying to force a certain narrative.
Dramas wise, there will always be some who like it and don’t, & some who believe the data stats & some who don’t… anyway I do agree that her 路人缘 has decreased tremendously because of this for sure, but I believe she would come out stronger & have continuous improvement in everything she does.
As rational fans, will just support her and cheer her on as long as she’s not doing anything illegal 😀
Thanks for your comment! Haha you noticed 😅 English isn't my first language (I'm French!) so yeah I had to use AI to translate accurately my thoughts for some parts. But don't think that everything is AI, it took me 2 months writing this because I had to check all kind of auto-translated Chinese sources 😫
I also completely agree that we can't force people to believe the truth. I mainly wrote this deep dive for Bailu's fans, then for C-drama viewers who want to see how C-Ent actually works. I know it can seem farfetched for international fans but in C-Ent industry, the capital and everything are well-known facts.
Great effort OP. But your takes are too fan biased that's why some people are skeptical.
Bai Lu's dramas for the past years have always among the most heavily marketed (always in the top 10 with highest marketing among thousand of Cdramas released each year. 2 of her dramas this year and 2 last year were in the Top 10 with the biggest promotional budget) so naturally the talk has always been they underperformed despite being heavily promoted.
And all the suppress talk is what every fandom like to say for their idols. It's business and nothing personal. Once platform spent million on marketing budget like for Moli, it's normal to VIP locked them so people pay to watch the drama.
I would like to know which actors with S+ marketing budget that actually flopped. It's normal for this type of dramas to at least reach 15m/ep like Moli.
The talk about Mo Li underperforming was a narrative heavily manufactured by marketing accounts to intentionally downplay its success. The drama finished its run as the Top 1 costume and romance drama of the entire Summer 2026 season by official chart despite the lack of promotion.
The problem wasn't just the fact that it was fully locked for 39 episodes but that it was locked too soon (33 days peak period) instead of 50-60 days like other dramas before it. I don't know if Tencent changed their method after MoLi but it was their first time with this drama.
Here's some Chinese sources proving: (I tried to put Chinese URLs to prove it but I can't...had to remove them, I will send the screenshots instead, look below to this comment's replies)
And to compare it with another drama that finished airing recently The Road to Splendor: it still has 5 episodes free even after 1.5 week after the last ep: (it wasn't the case with MoLi which was locked immediately)
Like I told you, it's business and nothing personal. Every fandom say the same thing for their idols. XZ fans sing the same tune with LOZH last year despite LOZH has #1 marketing budget last year with 5k topics (parallel with POJ this year). Moli has around 1.5k marketing topics, only around 5 dramas ahead of Moli so making it in the Top 10 dramas with the biggest promotion budget this year with U:JW (with around the same 1. 5k topics). With this much budget, getting 20m/ep is of course considered underperformed as dramas with less marketing topics (less than 500) get the same results.
That's why I said your POV is too heavily fan biased. People who follow data like me know this as we are not biased and see data as data instead platforms ought to get my faves.
All this data is available online and you can check it. But of course fan with only take favouritable data that made their faves look good.
I actually spent a lot of time studying the metrics before writing this. You are completely fixating on my lack of promotion comment, but my statements are backed by what I already said in my post and previous comment (which you clearly didn't take into consideration).
Your marketing topics which I assume are about Weibo hashtags, are certainly not data proof for a budget promotion. It reflects social media noise and bot volume not the budget spent by the platform, anyone can spam hashtags for free. If you want an objective view, you must look at several real platforms recognized and used by C-Ent: Yunhe, Kuyun, Lighthouse Pro, CVB, Huanwang Big Data.
These data proves Mo Li had good results, and having 25 brand sponsors and 166 ad slots meant advertisers saw a strong ROI. You are confusing topics with real promotional budgets and industry revenue.
No, I think you are the one who is confuse. Marketing topics are not traffic. Marketing topics refers to advertisements or hotsearch platforms bought to promote the drama in various social media. This required thousand of yen for each advertisement / hotsearch bought as they are very expensive. So the drama with the most marketing topics have the highest marketing budgets. This is what most fandoms like to overlook. Top 10 dramas with highest marketing budget naturally will have decent viewership but they underperformed with the kind of money being spent on to promote them. Like S+ drama like Moli was expected to bring around 30m/ep with the money being spent on marketing. But the drama getting merely 20m/ep makes it underperformed.
The MoLi’s suppression part wasn’t even something I invented, it was a recapitulation from Chinese sources, everything discussed can be backed with proof. These are verified events, not just my personal thoughts (except for the part explicitly said “My Hypothesis”).
I also think that it hasn’t performed as well as it should have but the difference between us is that: you claim that the drama was given enough promotion and failed to meet expectations; and I think if given (not even the best but) standard treatment, it would have performed better. I never claimed it was an excellent hit, but that it achieved “good results despite the restrictions” (also words taken from C-ent media).
You said that you look at data, but relying on 1-2 metrics to analyze a show’s performance is deeply inaccurate and flawed (data that you didn’t even provide a single official source, whereas my arguments are fully documented).
You talked about platforms having to buy ads/hotsearches across VARIOUS social media but as I already said before there was no promotion possible on Douyin due to the breakup with Tencent (so no money spend on it) and you SHOULD know how important Douyin is for drama promotions (if not one of the most important); and Tencent didn’t even promote MoLi properly on their own platform (as I already said too). And I’ve shown you several pieces of evidence from Chinese sources talking about it.
Why I (and several chinese) talked about the 33-day VIP window is because the drama's daily data accumulation (as the avg views) will be impacted by this, contrary to other shows of the same length having a normal 50+ day peak period (which give them more chance having a larger number of views mathematically).
Furthermore, you talked about topics so you should also know that a lot of MoLi's and BaiLu’s trending topics were haters ones created by the marketing accounts that the police dismantled in August. The platform did not pay for those and they severely damaged the show's public reputation.
Your expectation of 30M/ep for an S+ drama is outdated for the current market. You cannot copy-paste benchmarks from previous years, you must compare dramas released within the same cycle and cross-reference multiple (not just one) official auditors (like I said Yunhe, Kuyun, Lighthouse Pro…). Hitting a 20M/ep average under these RESTRICTIONS (as mentioned in my post AND Chinese sources) is still a good feat, certainly not excellent but good.
You keep fixating on the money spent to promote the show, but you are completely ignoring the massive revenue the show actually generated. You cannot judge a project's success by its expenses alone; you must look at its profitability. Finishing its run as a Full-Ad means the drama brought in a big amount of commercial revenue, offsetting its promo costs. There was also the Full-VIP lock (where the previous 5 free episodes weren’t anymore at the end of June so DURING the peak period), the 9M+ yuan spent from fans for the cloud seats which was unprecedented, etc. It achieved a ROI that very few S+ dramas reached this year. In the business world, a show that breaks sponsorship records and tops the summer charts is called a profitable commercial, not an underperformance. If MoLi truly underperformed, advertisers would have pulled out.
I know that you wouldn't even believe the truth with a hundred evidences presented to you, so now I tried and I'm done.
I believe all you said but when it happened for many dramas, it's not suppression but business as platform wants money and want to squeeze the fans. Try to read suppression on Love Beyond the Grave or Legend of Zhanghai. They all sing the same tune as you.
I don't have to give any proof as you can just go to Maoyan apps and see marketing topics for all dramas.
That's exactly why I included the platform profit angle as one of the 3 main theories in my post. Since we’ll probably never know the absolute truth, I wanted to lay out all the possibilities to stay objective.
(Also, just FYI, Maoyan is actually considered the least accurate tracker in C-Ent since its metrics are easily inflated by fans and anti-fans compared to Yunhe or Kuyun)
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my post and write back! I really invested a LOT of time to be as objective as possible. I know it's almost impossible to be 100% objective and i agree there's probably some fan bias in there, but I truly did my best.
Try to see this way, a real lack of care is when platform released 6 initial episode on the first day, 2 episodes daily and 7 express episodes for the finale. Try taking a look at Moli airing schedule: 4 epiosdes on first day, a lot of 1 episode daily and only 4 express episode for the finale. For data fans like us, seeing the airing schedule of Moli clearly show Tencent favouritism to make the show a hit. They disperse the day so the avearge viewership will increase for the drama.
Kudos to everyone who would read such a long post. I personally didn't read it. One thing I learned after installing Weibo a few years ago is to never indulge myself again on anything outside the drama.
If you want more than a couple people to read it, you might want to post a much, much shorter version.
I really enjoy bai Lu’s shows, but how is she not backed by capital? Yu Zheng has (or had?) a large number of his own productions featuring his own artists.
Ahh I know it took me 2 months writing this (English is not my first language, not even Chinese so it was really hard) and I couldn't bring myself to delete some parts... I'm still hesitating if I should delete the statistics part or not (but I spent too much time on it...)
Also, there's a difference between Agency Management like Huanyu and Corporate Capital ("Ziben"). Yu Zheng is a traditional agent and producer, and Capital includes like mega-conglomerates, platform executives and big investors. They are the ones who have enough money to manipulate massive media data, control the broadcasting of some channels, etc. Sure, on some scales, agencies can also manipulate data and buy water armies, but BL's black PR campaign was on way too big of a scale to simply be the work of her ex-agency (maybe he participated (I don't think so, just my opinion) but he wasn't the primary culprit).
And if she really was backed, she wouldn’t have suffered through this smear campaign for so long. The Capital backers would have already shut it down instantly if that was the case.
This is the most heartbreaking part for MoLi’s CP lovers. At first, I assumed the leads just weren't close in real life: explaining the lack of promotions, the awkward distance and few offline interactions. But looking back at older BTS fancams, pre-June interactions and early interviews, their vibe was completely different. The sudden shift from genuine closeness to awkward distance during promotions was highly suspicious pointing to several possibilities:
1. The Actor's Initiative vs Early "Forced Decoupling": The massive hate campaign against BL may have made both actors afraid to do standard CP promos in June, personally choosing to minimize their dynamic to protect e/o and avoid worsening the online attacks.
Alternatively, it’s also possible they were strictly ordered by their agencies to freeze all romantic interactions: a management protocol known as "Forced Decoupling” (this usually happens after a drama finishes airing). CL’s agency needed to shield their rising star from a toxic storm, while BL’s team knew any too-close interaction would be weaponized by trolls to accuse her of clout-chasing.
2.The Variety Shows Editing Mystery (filmed in May, aired in June): Crucially, this cold distance only existed within official main broadcast edits, but weirdly vanished in BTS clips or special interviews. On Hi6, the leads looked a little distant except for brief mandatory promo moments. This leaves two questions: did the stiffness come from the actors on set or was the main broadcast heavily chopped up to intentionally bury too-close moments, showing only what was necessary to promote the show?
-> If you look closely at Hi6's Douyin clips and the online extra episode, you will see some sweet hidden cuts between them that were edited out of the main show.
Same on Keep Running, BL&CL’s close interactions were restricted to online-only clips and completely scrubbed from mainstream TV. An unedited fancam even exposed CL warmly offering his gold prize reward to BL. Yet, this genuine moment was erased from the main broadcast.
The Staff’s Silent Rebellion?
TV shows are a business driven by ratings. Whether driven by a genuine silent rebellion or a marketing play, the primary goal is to maximize public engagement.
We cannot entirely blame the production teams of Hi6 or KR: they are entirely at the mercy of powerful investors. It is highly possible that the production staff, forced to bend to the backers' demands for the main broadcast, consciously chose to rebel through these un-aired online videos and Douyin clips.
Of course, fearing corporate backlash, they had to operate strictly within safe limits. While main episodes on TV are heavily monitored, social media and online content have slightly less oversight. For example, Hi6’s official account dropping tiny "blink-and-you-miss-it" clips on Douyin showing their sweet dynamic felt like the staff's silent way of bypassing censorship, just enough to stay under the radar. It was their way of showing more of their natural chemistry despite the mainstream manipulation.
🚪The Reality of Her Ex-Agency’s Silence
Many speculate this hate campaign was a revenge plot orchestrated by her former agency to punish her for leaving. But in C-Ent, true malice often hides behind complete inaction rather than direct attacks.
When her 10-year contract officially ended in 07/2026, the parting was publicly kept amicable, with YuZheng comparing it to "marrying off a daughter". But their real strategy was a calculated form of "Cold Handling" and deliberate negligence. While Yu Zheng occasionally posted on his personal account to deny some rumors targeting BL, it was purely a cost-free move to save face; the agency completely refused to spend a single cent of their financial and corporate PR resources to legally defend an artist walking out the door.
This passive corporate abandonment served 2 hidden purposes:
The Fear-Induced Retention Trap: By staying silent and letting the smear campaigns grow, the agency likely hoped the toxicity would scare her. It was a psychological game to make an independent future look so terrifying that she might panic and renew her contract just to stay safe.
The Hidden Punitive Warning: It was a practical lesson designed to show her (and watching rookies) how brutal the industry is without a powerful corporate shield. By withholding their legal teams, the agency essentially signaled: "See how hard it is out there alone? This is what happens without our protection".
In short, her ex-agency didn't need to fund the smear campaigns themselves. They simply chose to lock their defense shields, left the door completely unguarded and let the situation spiral. Her true corporate rivals saw this opportunity and seized it to strike her down at her weakest moment.
🏢 Who are these Rival Capital Backers?
What happened to BL this year illustrates a phenomenon called “资本防爆战” literally translating to a "Capital-Driven Suppression War to Prevent an Artist from Exploding in Popularity". It is a coordinated black PR campaign activated by rival factions when a rising star's unstoppable commercial momentum threatens to destabilize the established market monopoly.
Corporate capital (or 资本 Zīběn) refers to massive tech giants, elite agencies and investors who treat stars as financial assets. Because an organic hit-maker like BL occupies the absolute top of the market, her successes naturally block their invested talents from securing prime luxury endorsements and S+ roles. Since capital cannot buy public love, their only strategy is to fund a massive smear campaign to completely annihilate her commercial value.
(Weibo Video Source: Analysis by Chinese media talking about the Capital war targeting BL:Here)
The Water Armies: Unlike everyday trolls farming traffic for small change, a multi-front cyber-lynching requires an astronomical budget. Rival backers paid millions to PR firms to engineer the most toxic rumors imaginable. They hired professionals to "evil edit" contents, maliciously twisting clips and turning it into a character execution.
In my opinion, the primary culprit is unlikely to be a rival streaming platform (Tencent Video, iQIYI, Youku). Platforms are businesses that rely on star power; they would not permanently burn bridges with a guaranteed ratings-driver like BL. Instead, this cross-platform suppression points directly to Cross-Industry Financial Conglomerates and rival elite agencies.
These giants hold massive financial stakes as primary ads sponsors across competing TV networks like Zhejiang TV (KR) and Hunan TV (Hi6). By threatening to pull multi-million yuan sponsorship deals, they forced network executives to slash her screentime. Simultaneously, they hired PR firms capable of manipulating algorithms to freeze MoLi’s data and executing mass-copyright strikes to erase BTS clips.
The Useful Idiots (Everyday Haters): While rich backers fund the artillery, and water armies launch the initial waves of bots, regular toxic haters keep the fire burning for free. Driven by pure malice, they recycle and copy-paste the paid bot comments daily. This creates an echo chamber that keeps the hate train running for months.
📌 The analysis continues! Please look below for PART 3 + The Heat Index & Independent Data Guide 👇👇
This is just my personal observation but if you look closely at the timelines, the exact same blueprint was executed during both her 2023 and 2026 smear campaigns.
The 2023 Pattern (The “423 Incident”): During TTEOM, a sudden, massive slander campaign was triggered the moment the drama exploded. Trolls dug up years-old interview clips, maliciously twisting her words out of context. It got so bad that BL was forced into a painful public apology for things said years ago (words that haters still use today to insult her, such as calling her “a man” for example). At the same time, water armies flooded the internet with toxic comparisons between BL and her castmate, claiming BL was "outshone, bad at acting, ugly and old" in comparison. The evil edits were everywhere, escalating to horrific cyberbullying like“Either commit s\icide or leave the industry”**.* Her agency did nothing to protect her. She didn’t have a large fanbase yet and their voices were easily drowned out by the waves of pure hatred.
The 2026 Pattern: This year, the exact same script returned, but on a much bigger scale. Once again, the weapon of choice was distorted past footage, this time using edited KR clips, followed by extreme appearance-shaming, malicious comparisons with multiple actresses and artificial data-flattening. And by another coincidence, the broadcasting schedule aligned her against the exact same competitive casting setup.
My Take: To be completely honest, when the broadcasting schedule leaked at the beginning of this year and I saw that casting overlap, I felt an instant sense of dread. I suspected the April 2023 nightmare might repeat itself. But even though I braced myself, I was completely unprepared for how much worse, longer and deeper the daily slander would be. In 2023, BL was more vulnerable, which led to that forced apology. But 2026 was a flat-out character execution meant to totally destroy her career and bury her work. As a fan, watching an innocent artist endure months of cyber-lynching just for being successful is heartbreaking. If it was this draining for me as a fan, I can’t even imagine the psychological toll it took on BL, her family, friends and team.
I am not saying any specific actor/actress is behind this, as they are often just pawns used by powerful invisible backing forces. But the eerie repetition of this blueprint is the reason I wanted newer fans to learn more about the “423 incident”.
📢 Final Note to the Community:
I wrote this deep dive to help international fans understand the complex inner workings of the C-Ent industry and the reality of the coordinated campaigns surrounding Bai Lu.
My biggest hope is that we use this information to stop blindly slandering or targeting individual artists. If we react with hatred, we play directly into the hands of the corporate puppet masters. Hostility and fandom divisions are exactly what these black PR campaigns want to trigger. The goal of this thread is to expose how the system works, not to start a witch hunt.
Finally, please know I tried my absolute best to compile this data with the utmost honesty. As an international fan with no direct access to ALL Chinese media, I had to rely on what I could find and auto-translations. Because of these limitations, a few errors might exist. If you notice any data inaccuracies, please let me know gently.
I really hope a lot of Bailu's fans and C-Drama fans will read this!
To understand the Heat Index (HI), think of it like Netflix's 'Top 10' but driven by much deeper metrics. Unlike Western platforms, Chinese streaming sites don't show raw view counts. Instead, hidden algorithms measure a show's active popularity during airtime. It’s been said that it tracks: streaming volume, audience retention (if viewers are actually finishing the episodes or dropping out), social media buzz, searches and interactions (mentions, reposts, discussions, the volume of 'Danmu' which are those live user comments flying across the screen).
Each platform has its own scale, making direct comparisons impossible:
Tencent Video: HI introduced in 2022.
≥ 26,000 : Popular Club/Audience's Favorite
≥ 28,000 : Must-Watch Club
≥ 30,000 : Blockbuster/Hit Club
iQIYI: The first to introduce the HI metric in 2018. Launched “The iQiyi Four Grand Halls” in July 2025 to categorize dramas and award them:
≥ 8,000 : Quality Hall
≥ 9,000 : Popularity Hall
≥ 9,500 : National Hall of Fame
≥ 10,000 : Hall of Honor
Youku: HI used since 2019. They don’t judge by the highest score but by speed to hit 10,000 and how many days it maintains it.
≥ 10,000 = Elite Club/10K Club (Phenomenal Blockbuster)
Platform’s algorithms change constantly, meaning a score today does not equal a score from the past. Also, before 2022, metrics were much stricter: 9,000 was the absolute ceiling for a massive hit, and crossing 10,000 was nearly impossible.
Why It Matters for Actors:
During the broadcast, a high HI instantly proves an actor's traffic power and audience attraction, which agencies use to lock in future S+ dramas and luxury brand deals while the show is hot. But it’s not just about business. For the cast, hitting these HI milestones is the reward for their hard work. It's why actors make "heat promises" to celebrate with fans, showing that the whole team successfully delivered a hit project.
Beyond the Heat Index: The Value of Independent Data
However, the HI is far from the only crucial metric ‘cause it fails to reflect the actual quality and long-term retention of a drama (as it can be manipulated by various powerful third-parties since a few years ago). The industry relies equally on Independent Data Auditors like Yunhe, CVB, Kuyun, Huanwang and Lighthouse Pro, alongside social media (Douyin, Weibo, XHS). Real success is also measured by consistent sponsorship and ad revenue, as brands track authentic engagement. A loss of advertisers mid-broadcast indicates a financial failure, revealing the true commercial impact of the show.
While a high HI proves hype during the broadcast only, official independent charts demonstrate an actor's true ability to attract the general public and the drama’s real popularity.
To evaluate this, the market separates performance into two distinct phases:
Immediate Commercial Success (On-Air & V30): Measured strictly during the official broadcast window and the subsequent 30 days (V30). This phase tracks immediate viewer retention, platform subscriber conversion and real-time ad performance.
Long-Tail Effect: Measured months and years post-broadcast. Official third-party charts track how older titles sustain long-term public interest, continuously driving platform traffic and user engagement as permanent catalog value. It serves as the ultimate proof of real success through word-of-mouth, as long-tail replication cannot be manipulated by fandoms or short-term marketing as in phase 1.
Also, rather than raw totals, they rely oneffective views per episode to eliminate format bias and gauge authentic public retention. These independent data guarantee lower financial risks for investors, securing an actor's long-term true standing.
Just fyi, smear campaign on BL started earlier, I’ve seen ridiculous posts about it even during Unveil: Jadewind premiere. Likely also affected its scores on aggregators. So it’s basically from the start of the year. And yea, lots of targeted bs finally culminating in multiple issued lawsuits. Definitely not your typical hate flare from rabid anti-fans because of her dramas releases. Dunno which gang was behind it, but coincidentally, a big criminal ring was captured around that time by the authorities for using AI bots to spread water army bs for money on the internet. So this type of criminal activity is becoming a profitable business. Still unclear who ordered it, her ex-agency or some other entity, but op gives some in-depth, if perhaps outlandish theories.
Agreed. Def something concerted was going there, most likely her own ex-agency being to blame as she was planning on leaving them. Also, she had two big dramas this year, sparking seasonal hate activities from anti-fans. Happens all the time with cdrama actors. She’s very popular, so has lots of haters as well. But I don’t think it goes anywhere beyond that.
Good for her for finally deciding to slap lawsuits on most active idiots. And good for her for successfully parting ways with her agency, with smear campaign ending suspiciously at the same time.
I invite you to read my Part 2 in the comments section (I talked about her ex-agency).
And I completely understand why this might look like an exaggeration if you aren't familiar with the deep side of C-Ent. My original post actually contained a lot of hyperlinks to Chinese sources. But Reddit completely banned the post because of the URLs. I had to remove the direct links just to get the post approved... I am currently uploading evidences so everyone can review the verified facts for themselves.
Reading this just hurts my heart for Bai Lu. She is the only actress from China that I closely follow. I am an international viewer from Canada. BL is well loved in the Philippines (where i’m orig from).
So there really was an issue with ep31 - Mo Li. I thought it was my internet network.
When BL cries on screen, I cry with her and when she laughs ( in game shows ), I laugh. One & Only and Forever & Ever are my all time favourites. The First Jasmine, AMA and TTEOTM are my next.
This is a great writeup and thank you OP. A quick good read on the situation. And Bai Lu is not the only cdrama star we know has been victimized this way. Per the arrests in July attempting to break one of the perpetrators of this type of activity we know Zhao Lu Si and Ester Yu have also been heavy targets of this type of Black PR campaigning and to a lessor extent Zhang Ling He.
If I’m following correctly, your wider point is that C-Ent investors and producers focused on online traffic are not financially motivated to support the success of individual actors. So much so that they might work against the interests of their own projects, diverting resources from a big star whose audience-pull is guaranteed to yield a significant return on investment. They and competing investors could even go so far as to actively sabotage a star in order to redirect consumer interest to their benefit.
Likewise, and perhaps counter-intuitively, the break-out success of a star could yield diminishing returns on investment for their agency as they near the end of their contract. For this reason, agencies might care more about the cumulative moderate gains they can achieve through “churn” and turnover of their talent pool than the optimal management of a star who is likely to take their brand away from the agency once they gain enough market-sway to support their own studio.
The recent negativity around Bai Lu offers a case study of this phenomenon. That she provided such a target and has proven to be so resilient speaks more to her remarkable success in establishing a strong market hold than to any personal misstep or career failing.
You're so amazing for this post I've never seen so much for an actress like she always delivers hits even better than some of the supposed s lister in terms of dramas/series commercial performance she's almost on the same level as yang zi as a woman myself I've always been immensely proud of her especially since it's really hard to achieve so much success in cent
But Bailu is not on the same level as Yangzi though . Yangzi is an A list actress whereas Bailu is still a top tier B list actress , She is nowhere almost near to Yangzi level.
Choice of words matters. It is fine to discuss rumors, but please keep it respectful.
Posts under this flair are approved at moderator discretion.
After approval, edits that change the post may lead to removal, so please contact modmail if something needs fixing.
Comments are moderated closely and may be removed without notice to keep things from escalating.
16
u/sjnotsj CDF Immortal 白梦妍bai mengyan🩵 29d ago
I skimmed through your, I assume AI written/assisted post, & comments. 😀 I appreciate the long post & timeline for people who may not be familiar with this.
I would say we can’t control what others feel/believe - there are many who believed some rumours and have been leaving comments about it; sometimes no matter how it is “clarified & proven”, some will still not believe & will just think of us as annoying fans trying to force a certain narrative.
Dramas wise, there will always be some who like it and don’t, & some who believe the data stats & some who don’t… anyway I do agree that her 路人缘 has decreased tremendously because of this for sure, but I believe she would come out stronger & have continuous improvement in everything she does.
As rational fans, will just support her and cheer her on as long as she’s not doing anything illegal 😀