Is the Rise of Live-Streaming Erasing "Humility" as a Virtue in East Asia?

COVID-19 has reiterated the importance of selling products online. As the fear of contracting the disease compels people to minimize time outside the home for as long as possible for many people, online shopping has become the primary method for many people to secure both their daily necessities as well as simply indulging in the pre-COVID habit of window shopping on the high streets, but only online. As materialism grips Asian societies, consumers increasingly find themselves unable to get away from the urge to browse what to buy next, even if it can only be done in front of a smartphone or a computer screen.

Seeing the urge for the general public to partake in window shopping even while locked up in their homes, e-commerce has also quickly adapted to fill the demand. E-tailers have come to realize that it is no longer enough to post detailed textual descriptions, pictures, and videos to sell a product online. Consumers, like they are like in brick-and-mortar shops, seek real-time interactions with store staff and other people to help them decide what to look at and buy. The result is the rise of "social shopping," with product evaluation sites and forums and instant messaging platforms growing in-tandem with e-commerce sites.

But no phenomenon embodies the spirit of social shopping online than the rise of live-streaming. As a reincarnation of TV-based shopping channels that have been in existence for years, salespeople have taken to popular video platforms to peddle all sorts of products, watched by millions. But differing from TV and passive videos posted in the likes of YouTube, live streaming introduced an element of interaction between the content producer and the audience. Live streams are not edited and can quickly change directions based on real-time feedback from the audience's comments.

That real-time interactiveness of live streaming means that those who partake in it are required a level of charisma unknown to other video platforms. TV footage and YouTube videos can be retaken, polished, and edited to show the best sides of the performers and cut out all the unattractive parts. Live streamers, standing uninterrupted in front of the audience, have no such luxury. For as long as they are on air, they must be constantly showing their best side, just to keep the audience engaged and stop them from switching to hundreds of other live streaming channels.

The intense competition among live streamers means that only the most charismatic can remain consistently popular. And they share certain qualities that are often considered traditionally absent and undesirable among East Asians. East Asian societies value humility, with parents and educators telling kids to put their heads down, not stick out, and study hard for a stable career. A collectivist culture that frowns upon individuals who seek to do things differently from others directly contradicts the need for live streamers to be different from others and show off that difference actively to keep the audience.

Yet, as much as the older population in East Asia would disapprove of youngsters showing off their individualized weirdness on the internet from a cultural standpoint, they cannot argue with the economic incentives for being flamboyant online. Live streaming has become a business model in itself, rewarding both the platforms and the performers. The ease with which the audience can give small monetary gifts to the performers has driven many to go full-time, making a living through their charisma in ways that used to be impossible for those without connection to big names in the centralized, TV-based entertainment circles.

And as e-commerce moves into the social shopping age, the most popular live streamers find themselves earning not only by showing off their charisma but to lend it to retailers. By becoming influencers coaxing their millions of followers to buy certain products, the most popular live streamers have opportunities to diversify earnings from their popularity, through a combination of commissions on products sold, small virtual gifts given directly by their followers, and a cut of advertising revenues from the platforms that host their streams. Moreover, as they become more famous, even traditional media, from TVs to videos, will want to hire them to boost their own viewer ratings.

The creation of the live streamer economy spanning entertainment to commerce all relies on the emergence of a crop of energetic youths who are unique, eloquent, beautiful, and persuasive. In an industry in which success depends on showing off individuality to the maximum, traditional East Asian culture of humility can only be thought of as an obstacle. As cheap smartphones and internet packages bring live stream viewership to the most rural of Asian countrysides. This will only hasten the demise of humility as the economically underprivileged seek to make a small fortune by broadcasting themselves online.

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