The platform makes stars, traffic pays the bill, and the locality benefits; he is not a "grassroots underdog story" but an "ecosystem tool" selected by the platform.
Mention Fried Chicken Bro and you will likely be moved by this narrative: a 48-year-old vendor rooted in Jingdezhen for over 20 years, running a snack business for 9 years, who rose to fame through the sincerity of "6-yuan chicken cutlet with emotional value," was awarded "Cultural Tourism Promoter" by the Jingdezhen culture-tourism bureau, and even boosted local tourism during the National Day holiday. The outside world largely sees this as an inspirational story of "an ordinary person rising through steadiness and kindness," a warm model of "everyday authenticity beating traffic gimmicks."
But if you pull out the timeline and look closely, you'll find that all the "coincidences" landed on precise business milestones:
On September 23, Fried Chicken Bro opened his Douyin account; a video carrying the catchphrase "plastic bag 6 yuan, chicken cutlet free" gained 180,000 followers in just 3 days. That day was only 8 days before the National Day holiday.
On September 28, the Jingdezhen culture-tourism bureau swiftly awarded him a title; the urban management set up a dedicated team to maintain stall order, sanitation dispatched extra crews to clean the surroundings, and even a tourism route of "visit the porcelain museum, eat chicken cutlet" was rolled out in sync. That day landed exactly 2 days before the National Day travel peak.
On October 1, the hashtag #JingdezhenEverydayLife# hit Douyin's hot list; local hotel occupancy rose 30% year on year, searches for "Jingdezhen porcelain" surged 400%, and the platform's local-life segment saw a clear increase in redeemed orders.
Do you really think this is all thanks to "sincerity"? Why did Fried Chicken Bro sell chicken cutlets in Jingdezhen for 9 years without going viral, only to blow up exactly 7 days before National Day? Why could the culture-tourism bureau's supporting services move faster than an influencer gains followers? Is it really just a "grassroots underdog story"? Fried Chicken Bro's fame is no accident at all — it is a carefully laid "open scheme" by the platform to push its second curve of "local life"!
01 The Platform's Open Scheme: The Inevitable Shift from "Quick Money" to "Ecosystem Building"
To understand this open scheme, you must first grasp why the platform "switched tracks": the leap of its business logic from the "first curve" to the "second curve" is a proactive choice in step with the times.
1. First Curve: Live-Commerce Driven, i.e., Emotion Monetization
In previous years, the platform made money on the "live-commerce" first curve, whose core logic was "earning quick money through emotional stimulation" — finding IPs that could manufacture "high contrast, strong emotion" to sell goods and collect tips! Take Wen Huijun, who went viral in 2023: in the morning he was a positive, family-providing father; at noon a versatile, singing-and-dancing middle-aged uncle; at night an EMO master of decadent literature — grabbing attention through this "split personality."
In December 2023, Wen Huijun's main account "Wen Shen" grew from 210,000 to 4.77 million followers in 10 days; two livestreams drew over 55.2 million cumulative views, and at peak he could receive 6,000 "Carnival" gifts in a single stream. But this model has a fatal flaw: it relies too much on users' short-term emotions and cools off once the novelty passes. By early 2024, Wen Huijun's account heat had dropped sharply, and the platform could not keep "swapping personas" to stay alive forever.
2. Second Curve: Local-Life Driven, i.e., Ecosystem Closed Loop
Thus, "local life" became the new development direction as the "second curve," whose core logic is "shifting from fleecing users to binding physical consumption": the platform builds a "content + transaction" closed loop and earns stable returns through "in-store redemption commissions, merchant onboarding fees, and culture-tourism co-promotion" — which is precisely the core positioning of the local-life business.
By connecting online content with offline entities, it builds a sustainable business ecosystem; the platform no longer stares only at the "tip money" in users' pockets but does "ecosystem business": a user who scrolls to a chicken-cutlet-stall video can directly order a coupon; one who sees Jingdezhen's scenery can conveniently book a hotel or buy porcelain. This "content + transaction" closed loop makes money from in-store redemption, merchant commissions, and culture-tourism cooperation — earning from the whole ecosystem.
The platform's vigorous push into "local life" is, in essence, "self-rescue" after business growth hit a wall; and Fried Chicken Bro's attributes of "locality + physical entity + emotional value" happen to fit the "second curve's" needs perfectly: he is not a "grassroots underdog story" but an "ecosystem tool" selected by the platform.
02 Fried Chicken Bro's Viral Rise: How the Platform Uses IP to Leverage the Tourism Ecosystem?
The platform's local-life push faces an unavoidable hurdle: an IP built purely on persona cannot drive offline consumption. Few people would, upon seeing Wen Huijun's video, travel to his city just to learn driving and tour along the way. What the platform needs is a "rooted" IP — one that stays long in one place, runs a physical business, and makes users "want to go out and find him after watching." Fried Chicken Bro happens to sit right at the intersection of all these needs. The platform's open scheme was not designed out of thin air; it is hidden in a three-step playbook of "algorithm screens the piece → traffic builds momentum → ecosystem fills the gap," all revolving around the "local-life ecosystem closed loop."
1. Step One: The Algorithm Screens the "Piece" — Locking in the IP "Suited to the Second Curve"
The platform's core criterion for algorithmically screening IPs is "whether it can carry local consumption conversion," and Fried Chicken Bro's three advantages fit this need perfectly.
Geographic anchor: over 20 years living in Jingdezhen plus 9 years in the snack business; as early as 2022 his stall videos already drew 110,000 views, making him a locally recognized "minor internet celebrity" with the trust foundation to attract local merchants to the platform.
Physical carrier: his main business is tangible snacks like chicken cutlets, not virtual services; and being in the famous tourist city of Jingdezhen, he has local-life fulfillment capacity, with a complete consumption-conversion chain.
Emotional value: he frequently drops catchphrases that hit users' pain points, such as "the plastic bag is six yuan; if your plastic bag is blown away by the wind, I won't admit I charged you," and "students get the chicken cutlet one yuan cheaper; after 12 o'clock I add one yuan to punish your indecision."
2. Step Two: Traffic Builds "Momentum" — Detonating Before National Day to Create "Irresistible Traffic Pressure"
The platform timed Fried Chicken Bro's heat to detonate "one week before National Day"; through traffic injection, the Jingdezhen culture-tourism department rode the wave:
September 23–27: Fried Chicken Bro's Douyin account grew rapidly to 305,000 followers, with a single video peaking at 706,000 likes, and his account heat entered the platform's local-life content recommendation pool;
September 28: the queue in front of the chicken-cutlet stall reached 100 meters, with traffic jams at some times; the platform rode this to push content like "Fried Chicken Bro's stall queue" and "Fried Chicken Bro traffic jam" to the hot search, with related topics reaching 400 million exposures. On the evening of the 28th, the official account of the Jingdezhen Municipal Culture, Radio, Tourism and Sports Bureau posted a video stating it had granted him the title of "Jingdezhen Cultural Tourism Promoter" and issued an honorary certificate.
3. Step Three: Ecosystem Closed Loop — Using the IP as an "Interface" to Link the Three Parties' Money Flow
Fried Chicken Bro's core role is a "traffic interface"; the platform's real goal is to connect the interest loop of "platform – culture-tourism – merchants" through him, ultimately realizing ecosystem-value monetization.
For the platform: Fried Chicken Bro's viral rise directly drove multiple Jingdezhen local merchants to join the platform.
For culture-tourism: leveraging Fried Chicken Bro's everyday-authenticity image, Jingdezhen's culture-tourism bookings rose year on year during National Day.
For merchants: shops around the chicken-cutlet stall, such as egg-cake stalls and Zhengxin Chicken Cutlet, were all swept up in the hype.
The Fried Chicken Bro phenomenon reveals the underlying logic of platform star-making: turning an individual symbol into a tradable traffic commodity. Yet this model also harbors crisis. When "authenticity" is produced to a standard, and "emotional value" is quantified into KPIs, an IP's vitality gradually dissipates. Whether Fried Chicken Bro can break the "short-lived influencer" curse depends on whether he can stay true to himself amid the traffic onslaught and convert "accidental virality" into "sustained value output." This is both a test of individual wisdom and a challenge to the collaborative governance capacity of platform, government, and society.
03 The IP Survival Paradox: From "Disposable Tool" to "Reusable Part"?
The platform never "eliminates IPs"; it merely defines IPs as different types of "tools" according to different business-curve needs. Comparing the fates of Wen Huijun and Fried Chicken Bro reveals the essence of IPs in the traffic era: an IP's value depends on its irreplaceability in fitting the platform's curve.
Wen Huijun was a "disposable tool": fitting the first curve's "emotion monetization," he quickly drove volume through a contrasting persona, but lacking physical and geographic anchors, he was soon abandoned by the platform, and by early 2024 he was essentially gone. Such IPs are highly replaceable — the platform can push ten "second Wen Huijuns" at any time.
Fried Chicken Bro is a "reusable tool": fitting the second curve's "ecosystem closed loop," he can pull in merchants, drive tourism, and boost consumption, possessing irreplaceability. Across all of Jingdezhen there is only one vendor with "20 years of life + 9 years of chicken-cutlet stall"; if the platform wants to do Jingdezhen local life, he is the best candidate.
Yet the platform's open scheme never stops. When "local life" begins to grow rapidly, the third curve of "AI + offline experience" is already brewing, and the survival rules for IPs will be rewritten again. This is precisely the IP survival paradox of the traffic era: you must rely on the platform to live, yet cannot rely on it completely.
For ordinary people or companies wanting to build an IP, there is a transferable lesson: don't chase "going viral"; accumulate "irreplaceable anchors": like Fried Chicken Bro, bind to a geographic root and build a solid physical carrier — even with only 20,000 local regulars, that is more reliable than 100,000 platform followers. After all, the platform can take back the traffic, but an "anchor that can carry consumption" is the root of an IP's irreplaceability.
