Welcome to my world. Hold on tight. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Monday, 18 February 2019
China's live streaming stars and the 屌丝
Hi guys, there was a topic that I touched upon briefly in another recent post and I thought I'd dedicate a whole post to it as it is a very important topic. I have been quite fascinated by the world of China's live streamers who can get as over a million viewers watching their live broadcasts and some of the most popular performers are multi-millionaires today. At first, I only focused on the darker side of the live streaming industry in China, one would automatically assume that many of the viewers have chosen to tune in for hours a day because they are extremely lonely, they have no friends at all in the real world and thus watching their favourite performer on these apps is all they have whilst normal people would not do this at all. Normal people may go home to their families after work and take them out for dinner somewhere nice or they may go see their friends whilst participating in a yoga or adult gymnastics class. There are many articles and Youtube videos out there painting a very grim picture of the situation, describing it to be some kind of epidemic of loneliness in China today but of course, this is a complex industry and it would be quite simplistic to simply attribute it just to the widespread loneliness of urban dwellers in China's mega cities today. I shall try to figure out why this form of entertainment has such widespread appeal and I also wondered if I could do what these streaming superstars are doing.
I had come across so many negative and pessimistic reports of this industry, trying to paint the stars as desperate women working crazy long hours and the fans as creepy loners with no social skills in the age of the internet and there was a part of me that thought, hand on: that sounds like the rant of a very old man who doesn't understand young people and the impact of social media on our modern lives. So for example, let's take the simple act of taking one's family out for dinner - I would typically look up reviews of the latest restaurants, if others have liked what they have done. I would interact with my family members through online chats to make sure I pick a restaurant that would please everyone. I would also want see if I can find a sample menu on the restaurants' websites to see what their best dishes are like and what kind of price I would expect to pay (and if there are any special promotions). I may have to make a reservation online before going to the restaurant if it is indeed very popular and after I've had my meal there with my family, I would probably want to leave a review for that restaurant online (especially if it is particularly good or bad). I would also use my phone to plan my route to the restaurant using Google maps and if necessary, I may need to buy a train ticket or book a taxi to get me to that restaurant and I would do all with my phone of course. So it's not like we turn our phones off when we interact with our friends and family, in fact the internet facilitates a lot of the things we do with our friends and family - the internet is not the enemy; the problems that we see in China stems from a culture that promotes poor social skills.
So are the millions of Chinese fans of these popular live streamers simply misunderstood and unfairly judged by older people who don't understand their generation or is there seriously a problem in China today? The truth is somewhere in between but before I could pass any kind of judgement or even have an informed personal opinion, I spent some time on one of China's most popular streaming platforms YY.com watching a number of broadcasts - you can access all the content for free of course, the performers rely on tips from their fans to make money and that's purely voluntary. I do find that concept rather weird because that's just not what we do in the West, say I stumble upon a K-pop music video on Youtube that I find fun and catchy, I may go as far as to like the video and share it but would I directly then give the singer(s) some money? Even if I wanted to, I would probably have to find a way to spend some money on them like download their album from iTunes, attend one of their concerts or buy some of their merchandise online. But on these Chinese streaming websites, it is very easy to reward the performer at the click of an icon - the apps are designed to make such forms of tipping very easy. Compare that to the amount of security measures I have to go through before I am allowed to make any kind of purchase online (such as for a plane ticket), where I am often taken through enhanced security before I can even use my credit card online - that's a world away from the way I use social media in the West.
So how did I find the performances I saw on YY.com? Confusing to say the least - I do speak Mandarin of course, like I can watch TV programmes from China in Mandarin without subtitles. But it wasn't the language barrier that was the problem here. First, I watched some of the most popular female streamers under the less than subtle category of 美女热舞 (beautiful girls hot dance) and as expected, these were stunningly beautiful Chinese women who resembled these K-pop singers - the one I watched probably had plastic surgery as she had these big Barbie doll eyes and a rather sharp nose, but she was clearly Chinese and not Eurasian. She danced for her fans whilst wearing a somewhat revealing top and a mini skirt, but still nothing pornographic or obscene, keeping well within the rules. Between her dance performances (which were quite frankly boring - she is no Katelyn Ohashi, the American gymnast who has gone viral with her dance skills), she was busy thanking her many fans for the tips they have left her. She alternated between chatting and dancing and all this took place in a rather small room to the point where she accidentally bumped against the wall when waving her arms enthusiastically. The production quality was low, it was painfully bad - the dance routine was unrehearsed and she was making it up as she went along. The sound quality was bad and at times, she was out of focus - now this is a far cry from your average K-pop music video with stunningly good production value. So I thought, if you wanted to see pretty girls dance, why not just watch K-pop music videos instead of a live broadcast like that? I then realized that she had 358,743 people watching her dance routines and many of them were busy tipping her - go figure.
I then turned over to one of the comedians who represented an important part of this industry - after all, not all streamers are pretty girls trying to get lonely old men to give them money, there were plenty of comedians who were trying to entertain their viewers by making them laugh and if they succeed, then they would be rewarded with tips. Okay, maybe my Mandarin sucks but I struggled to keep up - there was so much going on when I was trying to watch the comedian's routine. Yes he was talking but there were various icons flashing all over the screen, with a rolling ticker tape type text constantly scrolling over the screen all this time which was impossible to read given the speed it scrolled at. And then on the right hand side of the screen, the viewers could participate in an interactive chat - they were not just interacting with the performer but also with each other and of course, all this was scrolling so incredibly quickly it was impossible to read properly as well. Sometimes there was so much going on, my computer would struggle to keep up to load everything and it would stall for a few seconds. And on top of all that, the performer used a lot of cheesy sound effects like canned laughter and had a techno track as background music - I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking at, I couldn't follow his routine and I was totally lost as it was just complete chaos I couldn't keep up with despite my best efforts. This was so different from my average Youtube experience! But of course, he had about 127,000 people watching him at that time and constantly tipping him, so yes, I was definitely the dumb foreigner who didn't get this aspect of Chinese culture.
There are other aspects of the streaming platform that surprised me - if you tried to get onto some of the most popular streams, you could get an error message that there are currently too many people watching the stream and to come back later. Then I watched a stream of a Chinese woman in a car being driven through a Chinese city or perhaps she was in a taxi - she didn't seem to have much interaction with her driver. I couldn't tell which city it was but there was a lot of snow on the ground and it did look rather cold (well it is February after all). She was simply showing her viewers what she was seeing, whilst answering various random questions like what her favourite food was or where she likes to go shopping. Then I saw something quite disturbing, there was someone who kept posting the line, "你为什么不理我呢?" (Why are you ignoring me?) And I could see that this streamer had already answered this viewer's several questions, but gosh this viewer had a rather short attention span and would constantly be giving this streamer quite a lot of tips but if she doesn't acknowledge his (well I am presuming it is a man though I can't tell for sure) gifts or questions, then the chat room will be flooded with "你为什么不理我呢?" Oh I could sense that this streamer was getting exasperated but she was still trying her best to keep her cool. I also randomly tried to watch a number of other streamers who did not conform to the stereotype of "stunningly beautiful young ladies begging lonely old men out there for tips" and believe me, there were plenty of streamers who did not conform to those stereotypes. Nonetheless, I was disappointed because as expected, there were a lot of streams where there was very little going on. My overall impression was that the quality of the broadcasts were rather low in the total absence of any post-production editing and that's just not something I am used to.
Let me contrast this to a format that I am far more used to and spend a lot of time on: Youtube. A Youtuber I do follow is Chris Broad - a British expatriate in Japan, his channel is called Abroad in Japan (pun intended, get it?) and I do recommend it as he makes Japanese culture a lot more accessible to an English speaking audience in a quirky and fun way through his videos. He shot a series of videos entitled 'Journey Across Japan' where he cycled across most of Japan and that is the kind of journey that will take him through many smaller villages in the picturesque countryside; I enjoy watching him interacting with the locals and showing the viewers aspects of Japan most tourists will never get to see for themselves. Chris would condense a whole day's cycling footage (approximately 12 hours: 9 am to 9 pm) into episodes of usually between 10 to 15 minutes. So you're only watching the highlights of that day, featuring the funniest and most interesting moments whilst the more boring footage will never make it onto his Youtube videos. Each episode has some great drone footage as well so you know he is sparing no expenses to get great shots and he spends hours in post-production to maintain the very high quality of his videos. Youtube viewers today have a notoriously short attention span so if you want to sustain their attention until the end of a 15 minute long video, you can't have any boring parts in your video or they will be just one click away from giving up on watching your video. Credit to Chris, his videos are great and I thoroughly recommend subscribing to his channel. Now imagine if he mounted his phone on his bike and broadcast live whilst cycling - I've no doubt you'll see some beautiful scenery but that would actually make quite a boring and uneventful viewing experience. That's why I enjoy Youtube but don't understand the appeal of Chinese live streaming.
This perhaps has a lot to do with my very short attention span and I'm going to use a football analogy despite not being a football fan. Football is huge in the UK and there are dozens of matches that take place all over the country every weekend - it would be impossible to show every single match on TV given how long the matches are, so instead during the sports news, you have the brief summary where you're simply given the results of the match and you'll see a montage of the best goals from those games. Heck, you probably won't even get to see all the goals, just the most spectacular ones or the ones scored by the most popular players. Now I can understand that some football fans actually enjoy watching the full match, they want to be there from the moment they kick off right until the referee blows the final whistle. Even if the score is a miserable 0-0, they still were able to follow the drama every step of the way until the very end. Still, you have to be pretty darn devoted to your favourite team to want to watch an entire game like that - I was told the main attraction of watching a match live is because you have no idea what the outcome would be and they enjoy that suspense. Watching a prerecorded match where you already know the score just doesn't have the same appeal to such fans. So depending on how long your attention span is, you can choose the relevant format to consume your football results. But by that token, can we then assume that Chinese people who enjoy these live streams have much longer attention spans? After all, they are patiently watching their performers for so many hours, often not doing all that much.
This is a completely different aspect of social media for me of course, since I barely use the live broadcasting option on Facebook or Instagram but rather, I prefer to edit my content before posting it. Take my blog for example, I would typically take several days to put a post together and then spent at least 48 hours editing it before I make it live - this goes way beyond dealing with typing errors, I want to make sure I get a chance to read the article with fresh eyes and see how I would react to it as a reader, but I can't do that if I've just spent hours writing and editing it. The same thing applies to my posts on Instagram and Youtube - this is why I've mostly given up on Youtube and switched to Instagram as I used to spend days, even weeks editing my Youtube videos and it is bloody hard work! Even if I were to take a selfie for Instagram to show you what I am wearing today, I would probably spend like 20 to 30 minutes taking many selfies, just to pick a few photos that I think are quite flattering and I would delete the others. In short, I like to censor bad content when it comes to the stuff I put out there on social media. Furthermore, I know I am dealing with an audience with a very short attention span - that's why I prefer to put out very short videos on Instagram these days which are all under 60 seconds, as I know I can get far more people to watch a short video than say a carefully edited 10 minute long video that I put out on my Youtube channel. On an average day, I may spend like 30 to 60 minutes blogging and I may spend like 10 minutes posting a picture or video on Instagram, but otherwise I still want to control what I put out there quite carefully.
That is what I find quite daunting about live streaming - anything can go wrong during a live broadcast: you could accidentally burp or fart and there's no way to go back in time to delete that portion of your broadcast. But perhaps that's also the attraction of a live broadcast because you know the performer hasn't had the chance to censor or edit anything you see - sure there's an element of self-censorship going on but perhaps the biggest attraction of this kind of entertainment is your ability to influence what is going on. Say when I watch an episode of Dr Who on the BBC, I have absolutely no say in what happens during the episode and even if I am lucky enough to get a part in it one day (man that would be a dream come true), then I would simply be given a script to rehearse and told, "these are your lines, those are your scenes, this is the shoot schedule" - the actors in Dr Who still wouldn't get a say at all in what happens in that episode as those scripts have been approved and locked down by the producers before the castings were even done. With live streaming, the viewers can get the attention of the performer by buying them gifts and then once you have their attention, you can get them to do what you want them to do - the more you spend on them, the more the performers will treat you like VIP. This is a level of interaction that is totally absent from any other kind of entertainment - say if I watch a movie that has left me dissatisfied, all I can do is bitch about it online afterwards, I won't be able to do anything about the movie itself. It is obvious that people do enjoy having this kind of control over their entertainers and that this could really change the entertainment industry over the next few years. But would something like that take off in the West? I doubt it.
I don't think I would even want to try live streaming - I don't like the format, I think it can be rather unforgiving and harsh. As for the performers who do it very successfully, hats off to them and I have loads of respect for them for I can see how difficult it is to jostle for the attention of the fans out there in what is a very crowded market for streamers. Even if you are a very pretty young Chinese female streamer, guess what? The majority of streamers out there are pretty young ladies too and given the strict censorship laws and regulations governing this industry, the streamers cannot do anything obscene or pornographic, they are even forbidden from eating bananas suggestively during their broadcasts as it is seen to be too sexual or obscene so they have to operate within quite a controlled environment. Streamers can be banned from streaming if they ever break the rules and that could be over something as trivial as streaming when they are drunk. So the streamers who can still capture thousands of viewers every night within this environment must have some personality and interesting content when they are chatting, otherwise their viewers may simply tune into a different streamer or try an entertainment format like a TV programme with far higher production quality. Thus I suppose it is no different from meeting a range of random group of people at an event or a party, sometimes you will run into someone who is genuinely interesting and you can spend hours just talking to them and thoroughly enjoy the experience. I suppose the best streamers in China would replicate that social experience to a certain degree, even if it is totally virtual.
Nonetheless, what fascinates me about this industry is not just the famous streamers, but also the millions of fans who support them and tune in every day and night. This industry cannot be sustained without their financial support and whilst doing my research for this article, I've come across interviews with these fanatic fans who can spend as much as a third of their monthly income on buying gifts for their favourite performers and spend on average 3 to 4 hours a day watching the broadcasts. If you're spending so much of your earnings to tip your favourite broadcasters, then you're not spending the money on yourself: you're not buying new clothes, you're not enriching yourself by attending various classes or courses, you're not doing sports, you're not going on exotic holidays - instead, you're spending 3 to 4 hours a day before work, after work and during your breaks at work watching your favourite performer on your phone or laptop. It is no wonder that the derogatory term 屌丝 diǎosī has been coined to refer to people like that because they are spending so much time and money to express their devotion to their favourite performers whilst getting seemingly very little in return. Heck, I would rather spend a third of my earnings on myself - treating myself to nice meals at the best restaurants, buying loads of new clothes or going on yet another amazing holiday rather than spend that on someone I am probably never going to meet. And if the 屌丝 is already sacrificing that much time and money on his favourite performer, then he's not going to have any time and money left in real life to get into a real relationship and I find that part really quite tragic.
You see, we live in a society where we're encouraged to live and let live - so if someone wants to spend a lot of his earnings on tipping his favourite live streamer then we're inclined not to pass any judgement or default to saying something like, "as long as it makes him happy, then whom are we to judge." Or people simply default to the, "oh it's part of China's contemporary culture and we can't judge them as we don't live in China, we don't understand it properly. What is unusual to us may be perfectly normal to them." But wait, young people spending too much time on the internet and having poor social skills as a result isn't a uniquely Chinese situation - the same thing is happening in the West as well. Perhaps it would be unfair to portray this as evidence of how dysfunctional Chinese culture can be, because it wouldn't be unusual to find white American young men with equally poor social skills, spending too much time playing computer games and I suppose the only difference, is that the Chinese have monetized this aspect of social media, whilst this has not been the case in the West. People like me do consume a lot of social media for free, but think about the way we enjoy Youtube - you could spend hours watching videos there for free and all you need is a good ad-blocker to stop the ads from popping up to spoil your enjoyment. There are no shortage of people in the West live streaming as well, but we tend to watch say a football game being live streamed or perhaps something as exciting and colourful as a music festival or a carnival taking place, rather than just someone talking into a microphone for hours on end. So whilst many of us do think something is going wrong in China today, but we're just too polite to say anything for fear of causing any offence.
So there you go, that's it from me. What do you think? Are you a fan of this form of Chinese social media? Are you baffled by the way it has become so incredibly popular? Have you ever watched the shows on a platform like YY.com? What is the appeal of this kind of Chinese social media? What does the popularity of this kind of social media tell us about the youth of China today? Have people in the West like myself totally misunderstood the Chinese people who participate in this kind of social media? Share your thoughts below, leave a comment please. Many thanks for reading!
Have not watched Chinese social media at all, and so far I feel no inclination to start. I think trying to follow what goes on in their streams is as you stated is troublesome enough to be a turn-off. As for this being very popular, my opinion is that this is taking social media's "you can be a celebrity" aspect to its (il)logical extreme. People can camwhore their way to the bank. Not that I am disparaging those who are successful in this filed in China, just that sometimes I like to disparage social media by using these loaded terms. Somehow, where there is demand, there is supply. As for how that demand came about, maybe China wants to emulate what streamers on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, Facebook, and other live-streaming sites are trying to do? Might this be a sign of the spending power of the "rising middle class" in China?
I mainly watch YouTube, and occasionally watch live-streams there. Some accept donations, some don't. Some of them are able to make enough in ad revenue or offer membership subscriptions. If they are able to sustain it, then they have captured their sizable target market.
Well, there are two key factors that shape Chinese social media. Firstly, there's the great firewall of China - you can't (easily) access Youtube, Facebook, Twitter or Google (not without a VPN anyway), so they are pretty much starting on a clean slate and building their own model of social media and are not emulating the West. Whereas in other countries like India or Indonesia for example where there isn't that kind of draconian censorship, people pretty much just use the same kinds of social media as in the West.
Secondly, there is a huge language barrier in China. Like even if they can understand some English, they're far more likely to prefer to consume entertain in their own language by entertainers who are making cultural references they will understand easily from their own country. Having spent time in China and dealt with Chinese people through work, even those who can speak English only tend to do it when they have to and it is seen as something useful for work, rather than allowing their ability to speak English well to shape the way they consume social media.
Yes - the one-child policy has led to an imbalance of male:female in China, there's 1.3 men for every woman, so many of these lonely men will turn to the internet to find some kind of female company online.
LIFT, I acknowledge that I am really late commenting on this post, but I only just happen to chance upon it.
It seems that there is not much understanding of live streaming in China. Not just a lack of understanding in the West but very limited understanding anywhere outside of China. Period.
So I just wanted to try to clarify a few things. It's not that live stream viewers in China have a long attention span. They are just like anyone everywhere else with a typically short attention span. People often switch in and out of different live streams simply because they get bored, they just like browsing around, and because there is just so much to choose from at any one time anyway. If they like what they see, they may follow the streamer and then leave the channel so that they can come back in again easily another time. Some of words that you see in streams which confused you are simply telling you who has just entered the stream, who has just followed the streamer, and who has recommended the stream to their friends. So unless you are the streamer, most viewers can simply ignore those info.
When viewers are staying on in a live stream, it also does not always mean that they are always paying attention. As with all millennials everywhere else, they all tend to multi task! So the live stream may be ongoing but you can be sure that quite a few people will also be doing other things at the same time, like working in the office or in the boutique stall, or doing a school assignment, in the library, even playing an online game at the same time. Streams tend to go on for hours so no one actually dutifully sits through it all.
Another thing that I would like to add is the concept of giving gifts to streamers. The idea of gift giving is actually quite an ingrained practice in the culture within China. So for live streaming in China, it's not so strange to be giving gifts. Think street performers in olden day China and people in the street throwing coins in appreciation of the performance. Yep, something like that! And revenue generation in live stream in China is so much higher than anywhere else in the world.
BUT it's the exception rather than the norms for viewers to give a third of their income to live stream. That's pretty much an exaggeration. Most people give far far less than that. The gifts are tiered in that some are really cheap, like a few RMB, while others are more expensive to acquire. So typically you would "top up" your wallet in the live stream platform with 100 RMB for example. With that 100, you can choose to give small gifts. So 100 might get you 20 small gifts for example,so you can choose to give 5 to one of your favourite streamer and 10 to another and so on. Or you can choose to get a bigger gift. So say 100 gets you 2 big gifts, so you can choose to give 1 each to your streamer if you happen to be a big fan of the streamer.
And finally, I wanted to say that the streaming platforms are incredibly well categorise and compartmentalise. So if your interest is gaming. You would typically spend time in gaming streams. So there are streams for different fan base. But regardless of interest areas, for any stream, it is definitely a lot more helpful if you not only understand Mandarin but also have some understanding of China local culture, the latest happenings within China, and local slang words and phrases. The conversation all does tend to be very local. It's like asking someone from China to watch a US talk show. It's not just the English. A lot of the conversation and jokes will get lost in translation.
There's so much more that I wanted to share about live streams in China.. But will just pause here for now. I hope that's helpful
Have not watched Chinese social media at all, and so far I feel no inclination to start. I think trying to follow what goes on in their streams is as you stated is troublesome enough to be a turn-off.
ReplyDeleteAs for this being very popular, my opinion is that this is taking social media's "you can be a celebrity" aspect to its (il)logical extreme. People can camwhore their way to the bank. Not that I am disparaging those who are successful in this filed in China, just that sometimes I like to disparage social media by using these loaded terms.
Somehow, where there is demand, there is supply. As for how that demand came about, maybe China wants to emulate what streamers on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, Facebook, and other live-streaming sites are trying to do? Might this be a sign of the spending power of the "rising middle class" in China?
I mainly watch YouTube, and occasionally watch live-streams there. Some accept donations, some don't. Some of them are able to make enough in ad revenue or offer membership subscriptions. If they are able to sustain it, then they have captured their sizable target market.
Well, there are two key factors that shape Chinese social media. Firstly, there's the great firewall of China - you can't (easily) access Youtube, Facebook, Twitter or Google (not without a VPN anyway), so they are pretty much starting on a clean slate and building their own model of social media and are not emulating the West. Whereas in other countries like India or Indonesia for example where there isn't that kind of draconian censorship, people pretty much just use the same kinds of social media as in the West.
DeleteSecondly, there is a huge language barrier in China. Like even if they can understand some English, they're far more likely to prefer to consume entertain in their own language by entertainers who are making cultural references they will understand easily from their own country. Having spent time in China and dealt with Chinese people through work, even those who can speak English only tend to do it when they have to and it is seen as something useful for work, rather than allowing their ability to speak English well to shape the way they consume social media.
There are many many millions men in China not able to find a wife - it is easy to see why its so popular!
ReplyDeleteYes - the one-child policy has led to an imbalance of male:female in China, there's 1.3 men for every woman, so many of these lonely men will turn to the internet to find some kind of female company online.
DeleteLIFT, I acknowledge that I am really late commenting on this post, but I only just happen to chance upon it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that there is not much understanding of live streaming in China. Not just a lack of understanding in the West but very limited understanding anywhere outside of China. Period.
So I just wanted to try to clarify a few things. It's not that live stream viewers in China have a long attention span. They are just like anyone everywhere else with a typically short attention span. People often switch in and out of different live streams simply because they get bored, they just like browsing around, and because there is just so much to choose from at any one time anyway. If they like what they see, they may follow the streamer and then leave the channel so that they can come back in again easily another time. Some of words that you see in streams which confused you are simply telling you who has just entered the stream, who has just followed the streamer, and who has recommended the stream to their friends. So unless you are the streamer, most viewers can simply ignore those info.
When viewers are staying on in a live stream, it also does not always mean that they are always paying attention. As with all millennials everywhere else, they all tend to multi task! So the live stream may be ongoing but you can be sure that quite a few people will also be doing other things at the same time, like working in the office or in the boutique stall, or doing a school assignment, in the library, even playing an online game at the same time. Streams tend to go on for hours so no one actually dutifully sits through it all.
Another thing that I would like to add is the concept of giving gifts to streamers. The idea of gift giving is actually quite an ingrained practice in the culture within China. So for live streaming in China, it's not so strange to be giving gifts. Think street performers in olden day China and people in the street throwing coins in appreciation of the performance. Yep, something like that! And revenue generation in live stream in China is so much higher than anywhere else in the world.
BUT it's the exception rather than the norms for viewers to give a third of their income to live stream. That's pretty much an exaggeration. Most people give far far less than that. The gifts are tiered in that some are really cheap, like a few RMB, while others are more expensive to acquire. So typically you would "top up" your wallet in the live stream platform with 100 RMB for example. With that 100, you can choose to give small gifts. So 100 might get you 20 small gifts for example,so you can choose to give 5 to one of your favourite streamer and 10 to another and so on. Or you can choose to get a bigger gift. So say 100 gets you 2 big gifts, so you can choose to give 1 each to your streamer if you happen to be a big fan of the streamer.
And finally, I wanted to say that the streaming platforms are incredibly well categorise and compartmentalise. So if your interest is gaming. You would typically spend time in gaming streams. So there are streams for different fan base. But regardless of interest areas, for any stream, it is definitely a lot more helpful if you not only understand Mandarin but also have some understanding of China local culture, the latest happenings within China, and local slang words and phrases. The conversation all does tend to be very local. It's like asking someone from China to watch a US talk show. It's not just the English. A lot of the conversation and jokes will get lost in translation.
There's so much more that I wanted to share about live streams in China.. But will just pause here for now. I hope that's helpful