Fans beware: Traps in celebrity merchandise
By Sunny SUN
On a cool Wednesday night in April, the Beijing airport became noisy and crowded with the arrival of one person. Many girls surrounded a boy who is nearly 1.8 meters tall and wearing a white baseball uniform. The boy marched forward quickly, and the large group of girls around him also trot and shot him with their mobile phones and cameras.
The two staff members in black uniforms around the boy used their hands to protect the boy while shouting to the girls around him: "Don't squeeze! Make Way!”
But the words of the staff did not seem to quench the enthusiasm of the girls around. The road in front of the boy was still crowded with girls with cameras.
In the spotlight at the airport, the boy was Liu Yaowen from the popular boy group Teens in Times, who had 8.66 million followers on Weibo. Girls screaming and taking pictures around him are his fans who came to welcome him back.
Wang Tutu was one of the fans who greeted him at the airport this night. But she was not an ordinary fan.
“I'm here because I need to take his airport photos and post them to my Weibo feeding for more of his followers to see,” Ms Wang said.
She is an influential fan, and her personal account on Weibo about posting exclusive videos and photos of her idols has gained nearly 20,000 followers. She is also known as "Zhan Jie"(“站姐”） by other fans. So taking and posting live pictures or videos of celebrities at various events is Wang’s daily routine to maintain social media attention.
The term “Zhan Jie” refers to fans who specialize in taking pictures of idols with a fancy camera and posting photos of them. This term is popular in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fan circles.
In order to reach the program recording location or airport faster, three or four "Zhan Jie" will generally rent a nearby room to live together.
The term “Zhan Jie” refers to fans who specialize in taking pictures of idols with a fancy camera and posting photos of them. This term is popular in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fan circles.
“We usually buy the news of celebrities' trips from the scalpers. Because they have the star’s ID information, they can find out the star's flight time, the hotel they are staying in, and other information,” she added.
After getting news, these “Zhan Jie” like Ms Wang would rush to the spot to take a good position and set up the SLR telephoto lens for shooting. In addition to gaining attention by uploading stunning photos of celebrities on social media, they can also make a profit by selling pictures of celebrities or peripheral products with pictures of celebrities, such as photo books and banners.
Amy said her friend earned 10,000 yuan in a month by selling photos of celebrities going to and from work. She was also a “Zhan Jie” who do not want to reveal their surnames because of worrying about being attacked by other fans. She has three years of operating experience and has opened two social media accounts to post photos and videos of different idols.
( Weibo has a special super talk called “Buy Pictures”( “买图”) where "Zhan Jie" can post the price and information about celebrities' pictures.)
Source: public financial statement of each fan support club, Owhat, Douban Forum, SNH48 Jz List
“The price of a raw picture of a celebrity without fame and popularity is 1 to 2 yuan, but if it's the kind of celebrity stage video that can only be captured in the media position, it can reach 2,000 to 3,000 yuan,” she said.
Apart from directly selling celebrity photos and videos, they will also produce merchandise printed with celebrity photos, such as calendars, handwritings, stationery, photo albums, etc. But the quality and legality of these products have been questioned.
“The fan-made peripherals I bought not only took four or five months to ship, but the quality of the products was inferior,” said Liu Susu, who was a stan of Meng Meiqi.
Cassie Zhang, a fan girl of Cai Xukun, revealed that the photo book she bought from a fan in 2018 had not been shipped until now, “She disappeared with the money I paid.”
These celebrity’s related merchandise made and sold by “Zhan Jie” are prone to inflated prices, or some “Zhan Jie” will simply disappear with fans’ money.
Taylor Wei has participated in the production and sale of peripheral products for celebrities, so she is well aware of the production costs of these products.
“Take a photo album of celebrities for example. Even if it is printed on the best paper, the cost of that copy is only 20 yuan, but the price will reach 160-200 yuan per copy,” she said.
At that time, she earned tens of thousands of yuan when she was involved in the sale of celebrity mini photo albums.
Ms Wang also said that even though some “Zhan Jie” will show other fans a breakdown of the accounts of peripheral products, but will only show the total price of cost or the postage.
“Consumers will never know if these people have misrepresented the cost price,” she added.
And this kind of transaction mode usually occurs in Owhat or WeChat store. These fan-based trading platforms are different from Taobao. Taobao requires consumers to click to confirm receipt before merchants can receive money, which to some extent avoids consumers being cheated. The transaction behavior of buying fans' personal-made celebrity peripherals on Owhat or Wechat store usually requires fans to make payment first, and there is no way to track whether they can receive the goods at the end.
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So this kind of private transaction within the fan community can only be maintained by the trust between people, but this trust is generally very fragile.
Taylor Wang
a "Zhan Jie", who was in charge of producing merchandise for celebrities
(The two peripheral products that Cassie bought from the "Zhan Jie" in 2018 were paid but not received.)
Moreover, these merchandise with photos of celebrities produced by individual fans has been wandering in the gray area of the law.
According to the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China, using his portrait for profit without his permission constitutes an infringement of portrait rights. And the Administrative Regulations on the Publication also clearly stipulates that no newspapers, periodicals, books, or reproduction of audiovisual products and electronic publications are allowed without permission and going through relevant procedures.
In a strict sense, such products with photos of celebrities produced by individual fans violate the right to portraits of stars and are illegal publications.
“We know this is something that falls into a gray area on the fringes of the law, but generally no entertainment companies or stars have sued us,” Amy said.
She said this is because domestic entertainment companies do not have stringent restrictions on taking photos of celebrities, and these companies also know that it is free publicity for these fans to post celebrity photos on social media.
“Generally speaking, these entertainment companies will acquiesce in the act of fans making money with the celebrity photos taken by themselves, but the business promotion pictures taken by the companies or brands cannot be used for the production of celebrities,” Amy added.
(The video records an offline support organized by "Apr-16th| Zhang Zhenyuan", who is the Zhan Zhenyuan's "Zhan Jie" with 6702 followers on Weibo .)
In this gray area, out of love for idols, not all “Zhan Jie” will cheat other fans. Some of them will use the profits earned to support idols' works or organize offline support activities. Ms Wang then used the proceeds from her merchandise sales to support her idol's album.
“As long as they still support the idol in other ways and let them make some money, we can understand,” said Ms Zhang.