Chapter Five

Li Nan chuckled and continued, "We haven't had a chance to discuss in more depth why I think it's wrong to ship celebrity couples. If the couple you're shipping are actors, the kind who specialize in idol dramas..."

The on-screen couples really go all out with their off-screen interactions, doing most of the things couples do. But as soon as one drama finishes airing, another one starts.

Every time a new drama airs, they change the couple they're paired up with. How much sincerity can there be in that? People become more sensitive and suspicious in love.

Physical infidelity is easy to identify, but emotional infidelity is difficult to define. For example, someone might get married and fall in love with another person during the marriage, but if he doesn't say anything, no one else will know that he is having an emotional affair.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and he or she is an actress, they play lovers with other actors in dramas, and there are intimate actions such as kissing and hugging. Couples will do these things, and they have basically done them all.

Even compared to your real-life dating experiences, he or she might have a sweeter romance with someone very good-looking in the drama.

Can you really be completely unconcerned? There's nothing special about you and him or her. Over time, no one can truly digest this kind of relationship. In the end, love will definitely become unrecognizable.

As for boy bands selling bromance/BL (Boys' Love) pairings, that's even more fake. Anyone who believes it might never believe it. It's true that some people in the entertainment industry are gay, but most are bisexual—meaning they can be either male or female.

Moreover, gay men are often very promiscuous in real life. They can accept their partners cheating, even with women, and they themselves may go to bars and have casual sex.

If you actually ship those kinds of messy romantic relationships, you'll only end up losing your head. Men and women have completely different attitudes towards love. If you ship boy band couples, you're just giving the men a kind of allure.

The look and actions you're seeing that seem like jealousy are actually just a guy acting out of envy, because he can't stand his friend being more popular than him. It has absolutely nothing to do with love.

CP fans are trying to whitewash his various brainless behaviors that stem from his poor character. Are there any good celebrity couples in the industry that we can ship? As far as I know, there aren't.

Most celebrity marriages are just that – marriages in name only. They each have their own affairs and tacitly acknowledge each other's infidelity, but they still show affection in front of the camera to maintain their public image.

Many of the teasers' announcements are actually true, but these announcements aren't for the general public; they're for the individuals involved and their companies. To protect the individuals, they have to spend a lot of money to buy the scoop.

So many paparazzi release sensational announcements, only to end up with a weak ending, leaving passersby angry and cursing the paparazzi, thinking they might as well find a factory job. But in reality, smart people can see the truth, while fools are constantly being led astray, never stopping, and are easily fooled.

It's the same principle as the truth always being held by a minority. I actually really dislike celebrities playing the victim, because being a celebrity really is the easiest job in the world.

I've been on countless film sets and met many aspiring extras. Most of them don't even have any lines or show their faces in the shows.

While passersby always remember the main characters, they forget the extras, even those without names. The film crew has numerous stand-ins for the male and female leads, including lighting, hand, foot, and action scenes.

There are also countless staff members in the film crew, all of whom do the hardest work, while the main actors do the easiest work and get paid the most.

And they still want to play the victim in front of the public? How can they have the nerve? How can celebrities do the same work as ordinary people? Many ordinary people risk their lives for money.

Just like installing air conditioners, many installers are actually risking their lives even though they are wearing protective gear. They just haven't encountered any accidents yet. If they had, they would have really lost their lives.

The installation fee won't be much, less than a thousand, unlike actors who can earn anywhere from three hundred thousand to six million for a day's filming, plus overtime fees. The production crew also has to cover makeup fees, assistant fees, driver fees, meal expenses, and other miscellaneous costs.

The demands are numerous. Many ordinary people work in similar situations, risking their lives for extremely low wages. How can celebrities have the right to play the victim?

Many celebrities are so used to being waited on by their assistants that they don't even know how to unscrew a lid, and they think that drinks don't need to be opened by themselves because they are already opened.

Especially considering that people who are ugly and have bad character can still gain popularity, and that they fawn over the powerful and bully the weak, it just goes to show that the entertainment industry truly has no bottom line, and anyone can get in.

The reason I dislike fan culture the most is that I don't want to betray other people's sincerity, and I don't want to become a liar who deceives other people's feelings.

Especially those so-called "love at first sight" stories, where companies deliberately prevent real couples from working together—how can anyone still believe that? If you were in a relationship, would you want to be in one like that?

It's like you love someone very much, but that person hates you and despises you. If you get hit by a car, they will walk away indifferently, you miss the best time for medical treatment, and you lose a leg.

He might call an ambulance if he saw a stranger get hit by a car, but if it's you, he can just watch you die.

Do you think this is the kind of love you want? Can you even call this love? You're practically enemies now, but even though CP fans know you're enemies, they can still keep shipping you.

Many people may simply enjoy this kind of unconventional love, much like how people who are too happy in life like to deliberately suffer, while people who are too bitter in life like to eat sweet things.

There are also those so-called "avoiding suspicion couples," with all sorts of inexplicable explanations. But it's actually quite easy to explain: why were the two of them so sweet before? Because they didn't have girlfriends, so they chose to make money by selling bromance.

They broke up later. Was it because they had actually dated that they harbored resentment? No, the truth is that one of them got a girlfriend and unilaterally decided not to sell anymore. The other person was unaware of this, but later found out and also held a grudge.

However, in order to keep the group running better, and because idols rely on the fan economy, one of them was willing to engage in bromance after breaking up with his girlfriend.

However, the other person still felt uneasy about the past, so he would sometimes sell and sometimes not, as if he was trying to avoid suspicion. Sometimes they were intimate, and sometimes they didn't know each other.

Later, there was a period when he stopped selling it altogether because the guy who loved dating found a new girlfriend and was no longer willing to sell BL content.

This cycle repeated itself, leading fans to believe that the couple had definitely dated, breaking up and getting back together. However, the truth is quite disheartening: one of them was genuinely straight, attracted to online celebrities, and had no interest in men.

Xu Weiwei was amazed and asked in surprise, "How do you know so much? That's incredible!"

Li Nan waved his hand and said, "It's nothing, this little thing is nothing. I have acted in many scripts related to boy bands. In order to better understand the characters I played, I specifically studied those boy bands."

I've also studied boy band fans, all kinds of fans, including group fans, solo fans, and CP fans. I'm not going to fight a battle unprepared.

Before I learned about boy bands, I used to think that actors could date but idols couldn't, which I didn't agree with. They were all celebrities, so why should they be treated differently?

Later I came to agree, because idols are truly a fan economy, meaning everything depends on the fans' support. So-called poor professional skills, singing worse than singers, dancing worse than dancers.

When a singer releases an album, people buy it because the songs are good. But when a boy band releases an album, even if the songs are terrible, the album sells incredibly well because fans buy it without thinking.

It's not that they're mindless; it's all about sincerity and love. Not every boy band fan is rich; some fans even save their meal money to buy albums.

I was shocked when I first learned about these things. I felt so sorry for the fans who had given their hearts, because I knew that those boy band members didn't really care about their fans and were just taking advantage of them.

They show absolutely no gratitude to their fans. Many fans make excuses for their idols, saying that the company doesn't allow them to work. In fact, the company staff are very wronged. They are begging to work, but they just won't put in the effort for their fans.

Some companies reduce direct interactions between idols and fans because they fear these idols' public image will crumble. It's truly pathetic to believe in an idol's persona of being confrontational and even cold-hearted towards them.

They dare to be so blatant in public, and even when fans offer feasible suggestions, their first reaction is to fiercely rebuke them. You can imagine how this person treats their fans in private.

They completely disregard their fans, showing absolutely no respect. However, there are many people like this. For example, there was a woman whose husband kept cheating on her, but she didn't care, believing that one day her husband would realize how good she was.

There's so much more. The more you learn, the more disappointed you become. The more you know, the more you understand why idol boy groups are so easily replaceable. It's because a group can consist of one handsome guy, and the rest of the members are just anyone—someone who dances well, someone who sings well.

Then, by selling brotherhood, selling bromance, and creating a "group favorite" or "group bully" persona, this kind of operational model can pretty much create a boy band.

As for their inner qualities, they are all created by the staff. The words spoken in interviews are written by others and made to be memorized and spoken by the idols. Some idiots even need to look at a teleprompter to read them out.

Everything filmed was acted out. If the acting wasn't good, they would act it out a second time. They wouldn't stop until they achieved the company's desired effect. In the end, they would edit together a so-called "live and natural" variety show.

I particularly disapprove of those who try to portray rudeness as humane when they criticize fans. If it were me, and many fans who have spent a lot of money on me offered suggestions, I might not agree with them, but I would still be grateful because sincerity should not be betrayed.

I find it particularly unacceptable for people to pick me up at the airport or wait for me on set every day before and after get off work, because I could never dedicate that much time to doing such things; the waiting is agonizing.

Did you know that during filming, although there's a schedule every day, the actual filming doesn't always follow that schedule; there are always changes?

I don't even know exactly when I get off work each day. My fans wait for me, sometimes until the early hours of the morning. I have a motorhome where I can rest while filming.

But they couldn't, they could only stand and wait, which was really tough. I really couldn't bear to see my fans suffer, so I would always advise them not to come to see me anymore. I would do more promotional work and have my assistant shoot more behind-the-scenes videos for them to watch.

But there will always be fans who love me so much that they won't listen to my advice. If I, an actor with not much popularity, have such true fans, then you can imagine how many more popular idols have than I do.

But what about them? Most of them are quite heartless. If I were a top idol member of a boy band, to be honest, I would never date.

Just like now, I've never been in a relationship since I became an actress. I've always been single, and I don't date on set. I can distinguish between real life and on-screen relationships.

I don't believe that actors can date. I don't think any man who truly loves me can tolerate me having intimate sexual relations with other men.

If he can really tolerate it, it only means he doesn't truly love me. Since I chose to be an actress, I've chosen a dream, so I can't be greedy anymore; I also need love.

"I can do things they can't, so I look down on them. Their relationships are unfair to their fans, betray those who are sincere, and they don't deserve to be loved."