Chapter 130: It Is All Thanks to the Competitors
"Portrait Crime Investigation once again proves that the criminal investigation genre is ultimately obsolete."
"I rather feel that Portrait Crime Investigation proves the failure of traffic artists. This Lin Xing should be one of the hottest traffic stars of 2024, yet he still cannot carry Portrait Crime Investigation."
"Indeed, think about Anti-Mafia Raging Wave, and then think about Portrait Crime Investigation. I think this fully demonstrates that actors are of little use."
"It is not that they are of no use, just that actors are not that important after all."
...
Because the premiere day of the drama series Portrait Crime Investigation was less than stellar, the industry similarly reported on it accordingly.
Most of the time, people like to judge the process based on the outcome.
If you win, everything you say is the absolute truth.
If you lose, whatever you say is utter bullshit.
The exact same words have completely different effects when spoken by a victor versus a loser.
Before the premiere of Anti-Mafia Raging Wave, everyone assumed that since Lin Xing was a traffic star acting in Anti-Mafia Raging Wave, it would inevitably bomb, and thus they were the first to curse Lin Xing from head to toe.
Yet later on, who could have imagined that Lin Xing's performance in Anti-Mafia Raging Wave would be nothing short of perfection? Standing among veteran actors, he did not lose his ground in the slightest. Precisely because of this, Lin Xing won recognition within the industry.
When the audience cursed Lin Xing, it was because he played his role too deeply into character, which was fundamentally different from the abuse hurled before Anti-Mafia Raging Wave premiered.
Due to the massive breakout hit of Anti-Mafia Raging Wave, whether in the industry, among audiences, or even in the media, most reports concluded that choosing the traffic artist Lin Xing was the right decision for Zeng Ming, and that Lin Xing portraying Zeng Bo was a win-win situation.
All public reports were based on the phenomenal success of the television series Anti-Mafia Raging Wave.
By the same token, because of the lackluster premiere of the web series Portrait Crime Investigation, everyone has once again started working backward to judge the choices and the process.
Some people believe that Lin Xing should never have taken on the web series Portrait Crime Investigation, as he was fundamentally unsuited for the show.
Others felt that the dual male lead setup of Lin Xing and Zhou Wei in Portrait Crime Investigation was not prominent enough, because it was obvious that the focus of the three cases in the first six episodes fell entirely on the other main cast members.
They believed that neither Lin Xing nor Zhou Wei delivered performances brilliant enough.
Among them, Old Wang Movie Reviews, who had already released a video, put it this way:
"Has everyone watched the web series Portrait Crime Investigation? If you haven't, then I congratulate you—you have successfully dodged a piece of garbage. I would like to roast a few points for everyone: first, the plot is far too simple, and the pretentious, mysterious storytelling makes it feel utterly meaningless."
"Second, I believe everyone now has a deeper understanding of Lin Xing's acting skills. Although he was not the lead actor in Anti-Mafia Raging Wave, his presence was extremely strong. I mentioned before that this wasn't because Lin Xing's acting was so powerful; rather, it was because of the favorable character setup he was given."
"Now look at his performance in Portrait Crime Investigation. After watching the first six episodes, all people think about is the plot and the cases—it has nothing to do with Lin Xing whatsoever. His presence is virtually non-existent."
...
"Finally, I must also say that not every actor is suited to be a leading man. Lin Xing completely lacks this kind of drawing power; he simply cannot hold this show up by himself."
...
This Old Wang Movie Reviews had finished watching Portrait Crime Investigation late last night and immediately rushed to make a video.
No.
To be precise, even before Portrait Crime Investigation had premiered, Old Wang had already started making his video, plotting how to tear down Lin Xing.
The premise for all of this was that Lin Xing's show could not become a hit.
If Portrait Crime Investigation became a hit, then the narrative would naturally be completely different.
Therefore, Old Wang Movie Reviews produced this video and made up his mind: the moment Portrait Crime Investigation bombed, he would instantly publish it.
If the web series premiere had even a tiny breakout moment, Old Wang would have chosen to continue playing dead.
Now, it was official.
The premiere of Portrait Crime Investigation fell drastically below expectations. Although the promotional budget for this web series was minimal, didn't they still have Lin Xing???
This time, Lin Xing was the leading actor of Portrait Crime Investigation.
His most proud asset previously was his traffic appeal, but now, his traffic seemed to have zero effect on the web series Portrait Crime Investigation.
Consequently, Old Wang Movie Reviews quickly put together this video, making slight cuts to the footage he had prepared in advance.
At the same time, he applied all sorts of tropes to Lin Xing, such as "traffic is unreliable," "traffic has no staying power," and "only when the tide goes out do you discover who is swimming naked."
Clearly, this video by Old Wang Movie Reviews resonated with and was accepted by quite a lot of people.
"Although I haven't watched Portrait Crime Investigation, I trust Old Wang's judgment. Besides, I just checked the streaming index of this web series, and it's genuinely pretty poor."
"Poor? More like pathetic! This Portrait Crime Investigation has completely bombed, and it's a bloodbath of a failure with zero chance of turning things around."
"It's somewhat laughable. Now that Portrait Crime Investigation has crashed, there are suddenly way fewer people hyping up Lin Xing."
...
At this point, everyone's focus in the discussions remained primarily on Portrait Crime Investigation itself.
Because the streaming data websites showed miserable figures for the web series, everyone assumed Old Wang was right.
These people hadn't watched Portrait Crime Investigation at all.
They simply saw that the show had bombed, and since it bombed, what was even the point of watching it???
On this point, Old Wang's fans were remarkably similar to the anti-fans of Lin Xing.
Today, everyone felt that the rose-tinted filter surrounding Lin Xing had finally been shattered.
"Ever since July of last year, Lin Xing's momentum has been rising steadily, and now he is finally facing skepticism from everyone."
"That's right, in less than a year Lin Xing has indeed grown increasingly popular, which probably made him arrogant because he doesn't even need to audition anymore."
"Lin Xing's Portrait Crime Investigation is truly a dead end now."
...
At nearly 8:00 PM, Portrait Crime Investigation unexpectedly made it onto the trending search topics.
Clearly, among the ongoing discussions, the popularity of this web series was surging.
Yet, as the saying goes, the true protagonist of tonight was still The Correct Way to Open Independence.
Countless viewers were eagerly waiting for The Correct Way to Open Independence.
Many people believed that The Correct Way to Open Independence might once again break and set new records.
As for Portrait Crime Investigation, it seemed to have been carried away and written off entirely.
"Is it really that bad??"
Big Cat had taken a nap in the afternoon, and upon waking up and browsing the discussions on Weibo, she was left utterly stunned.
She hadn't expected the streaming index of Portrait Crime Investigation to be so abysmal, while both its popularity and public attention were equally dreadful.
The word-of-mouth reputation, however, was quite good.
Everyone who had actually watched the show thought it was fantastic.
The bullet comments would not lie.
The praise in the comment section was clearly not artificially generated through bots either.
Whether it was automated bots spamming the screen or genuine praise from real viewers, Big Cat could easily tell the difference.
Yet the data right now similarly would not lie.
Because the data for Portrait Crime Investigation was indeed quite poor, it proved that the current show lacked organic pulling power.
Big Cat felt that this probably wasn't the audience's fault; the issue likely lay with the title of the drama itself.
Not only that, but Big Cat continued to promote Portrait Crime Investigation on Weibo, believing that from any perspective, there was nothing wrong with the show whatsoever.
Big Cat simply refused to believe it.
Could a damn good show really just be buried like that?!
She had glanced at the remarks made by the anti-fans and Old Wang Movie Reviews, but she couldn't even be bothered to engage with them. She even went as far as urging Lin Xing's fans to stay calm.
Because this was precisely the moment when fans tended to be irrational, and many of them were already thinking about demanding justice for Lin Xing.
They felt that Lin Xing might have been sabotaged.
Fortunately, the number of extreme fans belonging to Lin Xing had thinned out by a batch recently, with many extreme ones having been absorbed or filtered out by others; otherwise, those extreme fans would probably be generating even more animosity toward Lin Xing right now.
Even so, everyone still wondered why Portrait Crime Investigation could possibly turn out to be this weak???
When evening arrived, two more episodes were released.
These two episodes once again comprised a single complete case.
Up to this point, although the web series Portrait Crime Investigation had only updated 8 episodes, damn it, it had already featured 4 distinct cases. Moreover, aside from these 4 cases, the overarching plot and the pacing of the show were subjects of heated discussion among many.
The fermentation of word-of-mouth reputation often takes time.
Depending solely on fans like Big Cat to spread the word was sometimes painfully slow, and on top of that, public attention was frequently hijacked by competing shows.
Just like tonight, The Correct Way to Open Independence first premiered two episodes on Tan Province Satellite TV, and then at 10:00 PM, dropped a massive 8 episodes in one go.
That's right.
The Correct Way to Open Independence premiered with 8 episodes straight, instantly allowing the series to capture a much higher level of attention.
"Damn it, 8 episodes! 8 episodes! Everyone go watch it quickly, I think it's so damn worth it."
"Easy Video's shows are still pretty decent. Regardless of anything else, I'm getting ready to watch The Correct Way to Open Independence."
"It's genuinely so thrilling. The first 8 episodes of The Correct Way to Open Independence feel pretty good to me."
...
"Eat something good, will you? Pretty good my foot! Is this The Correct Way to Open Independence selling dog meat under a sheep's head sign??"
"Damn it, the so-called 'independence' means she doesn't do any housework, doesn't help her kid with homework, and then because she feels she wants to broaden her horizons, she just walks out."
"I don't want to say anything else, but I genuinely think Portrait Crime Investigation is far better than The Correct Way to Open Independence."
...
At 12:00 midnight, across various internet forums, people were actively discussing the web series Portrait Crime Investigation. Because this web series had updated all the way up to 8 episodes in one go—housing 4 distinct cases across these 8 episodes, with subtle connections interwoven between each case—
The most important thing was that there was no fluff.
When watching dramas, viewers hate nothing more than filler. A plot point that could clearly be acted out in just a few lines of dialogue is dragged out with endless hesitation and stalling within the show.
Under normal circumstances, other web series also suffered from this kind of problem to varying degrees. Thus, while The Correct Way to Open Independence promised female independence, promised that women would get a divorce, and promised that they would outmaneuver scumbag men,
As a result, after 8 episodes, the female protagonist of The Correct Way to Open Independence still hadn't divorced, and meanwhile, another female protagonist—the mistress—had entered the fray.
It felt almost like two women fighting for favor in a harem.
Of course, the female protagonist was undoubtedly portrayed as self-reliant and strong; upon discovering her husband's infidelity, she neither made a scene nor proactively exposed the matter, opting instead to quietly look for a lawyer and build her case.
This trope still carried a certain sense of novelty.
After all, most urban dramas feature the main wife and the mistress tearing each other apart in physical altercations, where beating up the mistress is treated as political correctness, and in many shows, the hostility between the main wife and the mistress is intensely vicious.
Only through such means could it generate conversational buzz.
Yet unexpectedly, The Correct Way to Open Independence played a reverse trope where the female protagonist and the mistress actually thought about joining forces to dig up evidence of the husband's infidelity.
Anyway, Lin Xing felt that this show belonged to the typical category of "the more melodramatic, the better."
The crucial point was that contemporary audiences loved melodrama.
But you cannot pad the runtime with meaningless filler.
It had been 8 episodes, yet the female protagonist was still a stay-at-home housewife, and she still acted timid and submissive in front of her husband. Lin Xing felt this crossed the line into absurdity.
You can have filler plots, but you cannot abandon the main storyline altogether.
The eyes of the audience are discerning.
The Correct Way to Open Independence relied on publicity, on supporting women, or rather on capitalizing on feminist trends to carry out its marketing.
Yet what was actually portrayed on screen was completely different.
Under such circumstances, how could the audience not be furious?
By midnight, disputes over The Correct Way to Open Independence had already exploded onto the trending searches.
After all, the two leading actresses of this drama both possessed considerable traffic, and their fan bases were frantically scrubbing and controlling the comment sections.
This was the kind of heat a hot show generated.
Even if it was absolute garbage, there was a segment of the audience that genuinely loved watching this sort of thing.
The more melodramatic it was, the more people watched.
Many people simply enjoyed a heavy dose of melodrama.
However, on the web series front, or rather among the viewers watching the updates of The Correct Way to Open Independence on Easy Video, the sentiment was entirely different.
"Can you guys go and check out that show next door?"
"Damn it, I'm inviting everyone to go watch Portrait Crime Investigation together; once you finish it, you'll understand what is actually wrong with this one."
"It really is entirely dependent on the setting of competing peers. Because the word-of-mouth for The Correct Way to Open Independence is poor, as it climbed the trending searches, many people instead turned their attention to Portrait Crime Investigation."
"Indeed, it's completely thanks to the competition. Portrait Crime Investigation has managed to salvage a bit of a reputation solely because of its peers."
...
Currently, discussions surrounding Portrait Crime Investigation had genuinely developed a slightly different, more favorable reputation. Whether it could truly leverage this word-of-mouth to rise to the next level, however, remained hard to say.
Still, up to this point, the first 8 episodes of Portrait Crime Investigation were practically flawless.
Compared to the bloated filler of The Correct Way to Open Independence, Portrait Crime Investigation appeared all the more precious.
...
...
(End of this chapter)