It's been two years since Paperclip disbanded, how are they doing?

Author: Stewart

Reward link: https://opencollective.com/huixingzhen

introduction

This article was written at the end of 2022.

At that time, we had just finished writing an article on the domestic media’s participation in the construction of new crown discrimination , and marveled at the misappropriation and attack of science by official discourse. We have some questions: For ordinary people, the absurdity in life is unbearable, so how do science popularization workers deal with it? After the question was raised, we thought of "Paper Clip", a popular science self-media that once became famous on the Chinese Internet and then disappeared completely.

A friend of mine, Luo Mei, the protagonist of the article, once worked for this media. During the interview, he mentioned me and remembered that I was the one who encouraged him to join this company. I saw him being known by many people because of his science popularization, and I saw them being scolded, and finally witnessed the disappearance of the paper clip. Time flies, and it will be two years soon.

We interviewed several core members of Paperclip to find out what they think of this series of circumstances and what everyone is doing after disbanding.

In fact, during the operation of this manuscript, the interviewees in the article were worried that negative public opinion would affect the current team, and at one point hoped to delete all their content. Manuscripts, and several well-known media were also unable to publish due to risks that we all knew but could not talk about.

This is really a very Chinese situation, and the situation of this manuscript and the paper clip is even intertextual from a certain point of view.

So after obtaining the consent of all interviewees, we decided to send out the manuscript for everyone to read for free. If you think it's not bad, you can support us by donating.

01

In March last year, Luo Mei posted a circle of friends, beginning with: "I'm broken!"

He said that because Party A was dissatisfied with the video script he handed over, he sent a training document to let him learn how to write. In this document of less than 2,000 words, the reference cases listed were written by Luo Mei three years ago.

That was a popular science video he made in 2019, and the topic was the hair dryer motor. At the end of the video, Luo Mei tells everyone:

"If you like this episode, welcome to retweet and support us. You can search for "Paperclip" on Weibo, WeChat, station b, and youtube to follow us..."

Paperclip was once one of the most influential popular science self-media on the Chinese Internet. At the end of 2021, due to force majeure, most of the team was disbanded, each looking for a way out. One of the main writers, Luo Mei, went to Dr. Lilac, and later returned to the team. Now they are a video production company that serves businesses and only accepts outsourcing, and no longer makes content for the public.

They rented another office on the original campus. The place is a bit dark and crowded, like a factory workshop. It is much smaller than the original office, and there are fewer skateboards and beanbags, but snacks and drinks are still provided. There are more than a dozen mainframes and monitors piled up in the corner. Everyone is sitting properly, but not all of them are working. Some are watching movies, some are playing games and watching live broadcasts, and some have dinner at five o'clock in the afternoon.

There is a massage chair worth 20,000 yuan at the entrance of the small utility room. There is a huge sofa inside and bunk beds on the opposite side. These are all previous assets of the team.

Luo Mei sank into the sofa, pointed to the furniture in the utility room and said: "The office used to have a rest room, and anyone who wanted to sleep in this bed could sleep in it. Now no one sleeps here, but there are people in the massage chair." It works. I press it once in a while, and it’s very comfortable.”

Luo Mei always speaks in a tone of "nothing to do with me". When mentioning that Party A asked him to "refer" to his past works, his tone did not fluctuate. In fact, as an outsourcing company, they are already Party B of Party B, which is considered Party C. Luo Mei said: "I don't think Party B will tell the client that I actually made this video, which would make it look weird. It's not a big deal to me, but it's not useless. I can send a Interesting circle of friends."

02

Before joining this team, Luo Mei worked in another science popularization team.

Several founders of this company graduated from prestigious schools, which is also a proud part of their publicity. After the team expands, they are also more inclined to recruit graduates from prestigious schools.

At the beginning, Luo Mei, who graduated from "Shuangfei", did not seem out of place. He was very happy most of the time at work, although he did not have a "sense of mission" like others in the science popularization industry, and was more like trying casually. But the effect of trying it is very good. He made a series of science popularization about syphilis, which is very famous, and people still mention it to this day.

But in the third year, Luo Mei couldn't write things as consistently and efficiently as before. He thought he couldn't concentrate and couldn't come up with good ideas. Several founders doubted whether he was qualified for "professional work like science popularization" and talked to him several times. The final result was that Luo Mei had to leave.

After playing games at home for four months, Luo Mei joined Paperclip.

According to Chen Bo, the veteran of the team, this is a "bad student team". Many of their starting points for choosing topics are just for "fun", such as how to build a prison, how to behead a film and television work, how to make ghost coins, and garbage short messages How to send, how telemarketing robots call you, how cameras monitor people... "This is something from a very bad student's perspective, and good students don't do it."

"The characteristics of the science popularization industry determine that most practitioners are good students, but one style I particularly dislike is the good student style." He listed these characteristics one by one: love of learning, good grades, compliance with regulations, Teachers like to wait.

At the end of 2017, the team was established, and then released its first video "How Cameras Monitor 1.3 Billion People". Their videos like to start with how, how, and why, trying to explain more professional things such as patent documents, papers, and national standards in a narrative that ordinary people can understand.

Chen Bo is not slovenly, and pays more attention to reality than imagination. He has a lot of pimples on his face, but only when he is on camera will he ask his colleagues in the post-production to help remove them.

Recalling the reason why he joined the company at the beginning, he is still confident: "Why did we make popular science videos at that time? One of the big reasons is that there are no popular science videos in China, and we can do well by just doing it casually. "

Chen Bo spent his childhood with a group of "bad students", and later he was called "the only hope" by these childhood playmates. In his view, if science popularization can be done well, it will be like a "provocation".

"Look at someone like Luo Mei, does he look like a good student?" Chen Bo asked us.

Luo Mei had very long hair and beard, and she wore lip studs, but she took them off again when she got angry because her teeth were broken from eating. He likes to drink alcohol, and stopped taking lithium carbonate and lorazepam (anti-anxiety drugs) because he always drank pills. In fact, there are other medicines, but he really can't remember what they are called.

He seems unreliable, but also has a strange sense of order. The drinks ordered for delivery are neatly piled up next to the computer, like a city wall. In a group photo of the press a few years ago, everyone in the photo was smiling, only Luo Mei stood beside him, with a depressed expression, squinting at the camera, looking uncomfortable.

03

Here, Luo Mei found a long-lost sense of belonging. "This world is a grassroots team, and this team is also a grassroots team." No one here has ever questioned whether he can write something, and no one cares which college you graduated from.

"Everyone's life experience is very strange, not like people who want to go to work seriously," Luo Mei explained. Some people in the team didn’t finish college, and some people quit school after they came to practice and found that they didn’t want to go to school. Some people didn’t even go to school for a few years. here. After several years of professional career, he seems "ordinary".

The person in charge of the post-production of Paperclip at that time was Xu Yu, a native of Haidian, Beijing, who did not go to high school. After graduating from junior high school, he distributed flyers and swept the floor in movie theaters. When he was 20 years old, he met a group of friends who were engaged in photography. They said that imaging might be a major trend in the future, so he signed up for a class and officially entered the industry after finishing his studies.

Before Paperclip, Xu Yu did calligraphy for variety shows, and did post-production in an advertising company with only 7 people. In August 2019, the advertising company turned yellow. He has to repay more than 9,000 yuan in mortgages every month, and he has to find another family to help pay five social insurances and one housing fund before the loan is cut off. What exactly does a paper clip do, how does station b work - he only figured out these questions on the way to the interview.

"After the interview, I said that we take care of the five social insurances and one housing fund in a mess, right? The salary can meet the amount I said, right? Chen Bo said yes, and then he asked me if I had any questions about the company. Is that so? I left. I was very anxious at the time because there was another interview right after that.” Talking about the interview four years ago, Xu Yu was still in high spirits.

His girlfriend, Ran Yao, who was sitting next to him, added: "At that time, the colleague who was interviewing him returned to the office and said that he had interviewed someone today and said that he could finish our film in two days. I didn't believe it at the time. It takes five days. Later I found out that he can really do the work of two people by himself."

Xu Yu and Ran Yao are colleagues, and the two confirmed their relationship in 2020. They used "the last year of the paper clip" to refer to this year. But when it comes to falling in love, Ran Yao said that after coming to work here, many people broke up with their partners.

"Everyone is working all day long, wishing to stay there for 16 hours a day, and there is no rest day. Those who don't have a match will find it in the company, and those who have a match will break up if they can't see each other." Ran Yao recalled, "But No one hated it, we were so fucking happy."

Sometimes you can't tell if everyone is playing or working. Xu Yu recalled the situation in the office at that time, "For example, if I want to make a scene or animation, I call people in the office. Everyone thinks this thing is interesting, so they start working immediately; someone is doing work, and suddenly stands up to imitate "The Godfather". Don’t want to call me god father; it’s the same with playing, I want to play lightsaber, tennis, red-tasseled gun, if I call out, Wu Yang and Wu Yang will play.”

No one on the team cares about time management, and the schedule is useless. Luo Mei believes that this is due to their high requirements for content creativity and special reliance on inspiration. No one can predict the construction period and when the inspiration will suddenly appear.

Recalling these days, Luo Mei described it as happy and free: "It was not like now, everyone is still there, the relationship with colleagues is very good, and you can work while having fun. The content you do can satisfy some expressive needs to a certain extent. Ideas can also interact with the Internet after they are sent out.”

04

This seemingly grassroots team has gradually gained fame and fans, and its scale has gradually expanded. At its peak, there were more than 100 employees.

At the beginning of 2020, with a science popularization on the new coronavirus that was not yet known to the public at that time, the paper clip was out of the circle. At that time, Internet companies still had large budgets to spend on advertising for these content teams, and short videos of popular science were popular, and content creators still had the possibility to do something in the gaps.

During that time, whether it was cooperation or endorsement, the official media had very close ties with them. In May of that year, they cooperated with Xinhua News Agency to launch a short film. In November, following the success of the Chinese manned submersible Struggle in the Mariana Trench, they co-produced a short film with CCTV; in December, they cooperated with CCTV again to release a short film.

This year, the team's total income was 19.858 million yuan, with a profit of 3.719 million yuan.

Luo Mei believes that what they did at the time was more like a report that allowed everyone to participate in it, rather than high-level science popularization. "The logic of some self-media is to talk about things you don't know, and they always try to teach you something. Their logic is that I didn't understand at first, but I found a certain government to publish at a certain time. I found out that it revealed such a thing. I think the media rarely did this before such a process.”

In a program introducing how the zoo was built, Luo Mei wrote: "You can sit in the bus and travel through the 2,300-acre wild park, allowing animals such as sun bears, lemurs, and golden takins to live freely through the windows. Let's see what you look like." The audience saw the stalk of "let animals see people" and gave direct feedback in the barrage, and he enjoyed this tacit interaction.

The more extreme embodiment of allowing the audience to "participate in it" is that the company discloses its annual revenue every year. Luo Mei said that the reason for doing this is very simple, "Our purpose of science popularization at the beginning was to uncover the black box behind a certain industry. In fact, as a company itself, it is also a black box. Everyone also wants to know what our operation will bring. Our What is behind the operation? Income is part of it, and where the money is spent is also part of it, and we have made videos about it.”

In addition, the author of each video needs to appear with his real name at the end of the video and dub the video. Chen Bo later recalled this setting, with introspection and disapproval, "The only purpose of doing this is to tell everyone that I am serious and I am responsible for the content of this video. It is like posting Weibo to verify your identity. But now It is completely unnecessary to think about it. Doing so will most likely lead to us being hung up."

Except for Chen Bo, no one seems to think that this company is a science popularization team. Xu Yu thinks they are an animation team, and Luo Mei thinks they used to be a commercial team, "No one will really teach you how to do Mingbi out of social responsibility. Only when you can ensure that you survive Only then can we consider social responsibility." Luo Mei obviously meant something.

05

"Social responsibility" made them famous, and eventually brought disaster to them.

In March 2020, shortly after leaving the circle, the video of the cooperation between the team and the World Wide Fund for Nature caused intense controversy.

The video said: "In the era of economic globalization, a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may not cause a tornado in Texas. But our consumption of meat, eggs and milk can actually affect the demise of Brazil's forests."

Critics think they're blaming China for shrinking Brazil's rainforest because of Chinese consumption of meat, eggs and milk.

"That's not what we mean at all," the team said in response. "What the video wants to say is that in the context of increasing demand for soybeans, soybean-producing countries such as Brazil can slow down forest consumption through better farming methods...' We're not China, we're all of humanity."

One wave is not flat, and another wave rises again. The next day, someone picked out a map of China they had previously used to miss.

In the previous video on tap water, Taiwan was included in the China map of station b, but not in the Youtube and Weibo versions. People thought it was a matter of principle.

According to the founder’s statement later on the team’s official Weibo, the original map material of that video was from Taiwan, but the color of Taiwan in the map of the project document overlapped with the background color, causing the map of Taiwan to be blurred in the video; The same material is also used in another place, and Taiwan can be recognized because of the increased brightness. The video was taken off the shelves at station b in 2019 due to a map problem, and was re-uploaded after modification. However, due to the cross division of labor within the team, the revised video was not updated on Weibo and YouTube. In that Weibo, the founder confessed that he was the "main responsible person" and was willing to bear all relevant punishments and consequences.

Paperclip has been suspended for a month, and everyone's job this month is to check for errors in the content and repeatedly self-censor.

In September of that year, the founder recruited 10 viewers, "you can directly spray me in person and talk about things that embarrass me." A two-and-a-half-minute long video with no cuts was released. The founder responded calmly and clearly to the critics' doubts throughout the whole process, even if some people's questions were just repeating that one: "Is your butt crooked?", "I haven't eaten meat, eggs, or milk for two days. Can you give me a kowtow?", "Your video is too ugly, there is no comment, no point of view", "You are so influential, I just want to scold you"...

The accusation did not disappear. In January 2021, "Sai Lei Three Minutes", which is also a popular science self-media, accused the paper clip of "entraining private goods" in its works, so the paper clip was once again on the hot search.

"No one can avoid carrying private goods. I think it's quite difficult. But even if it's a correct point of view, people who don't like (this point of view) will definitely scold you, and they will definitely feel that you are trying to instill something in me." Luo Mei explain.

In June, the self-media "Sai Lei Hua Jin" released a video, calling the two former employees who worked for Paperclip as "foreign forces". One month later, the accounts of Paperclip's domestic platforms were permanently banned.

At this time, they still have a large number of business orders that have to be completed on time. Until November 15, 2021, the finishing work was basically completed, and the company could not afford to support so many people. The paper clips "lost", leaving about one-fifth of the team members to maintain the team's operation by receiving business orders.

Regarding the final result, Chen Bo was very flat, "You have to face this matter." He was still working when he said this, typing on the keyboard from time to time. He looked out of sorts and his hair hadn't been washed for a long time. Luo Mei said that Chen Bo had just given birth to her second child this year, and she was under a lot of pressure from work and family. But Chen Bo's demeanor is still very calm, "(My mentality) is quite pragmatic."

In contrast, other people may not be so relaxed. Some people completely change careers, and some people have a mild cerebral infarction before the age of 30. "(Colleagues) feel that we have done nothing wrong. Why should we do this? There will be many such emotions." Chen Bo said.

No one told the reason for being banned. Luo Mei's guess is that because the public opinion is too loud, "Even if you don't do anything outrageous, the discussion you caused is enough to destabilize everyone. We are not because of political ideas or politics. The reason for the stand was blocked, it was blocked because of the political environment."

The problem with the "political environment" is that it assumes that content creators must know all the red lines that cannot be touched, but this is very difficult for most ordinary people without political training. Xu Yu said, "At the end of the day, we don't understand politics at all. It's not that we deliberately want to post content, but that we really don't know. But to make content in China, at least we must know what not to say."

They all believe that as long as an account has enough attention, then there will be problems. "When too many people are staring at you, no one (media) can survive."

Later, "Sai Lei Hua Jin", who criticized paper clips, was also banned. The former members of Paperclip were both happy and ridiculous, and everyone's views on many things became nihilistic and no longer serious. "It's also quite ridiculous, because they may really have no idea what kind of red line they touched." Luo Mei analyzed calmly, "In fact, everyone doesn't feel relieved. Even if the other party is punished again, our original team No more. And it's not a game, we're just beaten by the same thing."

06

Luo Mei has an orange that has been stored for 11 years. It was given to him by his university roommate. He never eats it and takes it with him wherever he moves.

Now, this orange is like a stubborn little old lady, shriveled, dry and hard, with dark skin. Once, the tangerine was thrown away by the cleaning aunt as garbage, but he picked it up again, and it was lost like a treasure. "It's my instinct. I don't want things to go away, I don't want something to go away when I think about it."

His computer has been stuck with a "paperclip" logo sticker. When asked why, he said: "Because I don't have the money to change the computer. If I change the computer later, it will probably be gone."

The disbandment of the team meant to Luo Mei not only the loss of a job he liked, but the disintegration of his life in all aspects, "Your work, your life, your entire state, and your relationship with the people around you, there is one less in the middle. It all feels empty."

The office is no longer as lively as it used to be, farewells one after another.

After leaving his job, he went to Hangzhou to play for half a month. During this period, he still did part of his original job as a part-time job, but his income dropped sharply, only a few thousand yuan a month. He himself paid five social insurance and one housing fund, 2600 yuan. After the money was spent, Luo Mei decided to start submitting resumes, "I must have a stable job, otherwise I won't be able to live."

Later, Luo Mei joined Dr. Clove. He said that the biggest difference between here and "Paperclip" is that it is "too regular".

On the one hand, "rules" mean rigor. Luo Mei admits that Dr. Dingxiang's content is much more rigorous than "paper clips", because they are willing to spend money to invite experts in various fields to do knowledge proofreading and review; but on the other hand, He couldn't adapt to the "rules" of the new company at all: he had to write weekly reports, hold various meetings, and there were various rules and procedures to follow when communicating. The weekly report is a big project, and the more it is written, the more it can reflect that the employees have done something. This made Luo Mei feel uncomfortable.

He can't adapt to the work style here: to get the highest number of views with the highest efficiency, without the need to create and explore new things by himself. "They already have a set of effective methodologies, there is no need to explore, and the things to explore are more suitable for small teams. When a certain small team goes out of the circle, everyone finds that this thing works, ok, I can copy it, but I don't You have to find out yourself."

Frequent business changes and flows are also the norm in large companies: Luo Mei first made long-term video planning, but the channel he was on was cut off; Write the official account. "I don't want to write an official account, I don't need to consume myself, so I just left."

After working for half a year, Luo Mei went out to play a lot. "I just want to hang out. The reason I work is because I don't have money. When I have money and I don't have to work, I definitely want to hang out."

He ran all the way from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong to Hainan. Drinking during the day and going up the mountain at night, seeing the bar called "Elysium Pure Land", they would chat about "Elysium Disco".

When he wants to "paper clip", he goes to Youtube to see the shows he has done in the past. After the stampede in Itaewon, South Korea, Luo Mei posted a screenshot of a video in Moments. The topic of the video was how to protect yourself during the stampede. Mentioning this video, he said three "good" in a row. He hopes that people who see this circle of friends can search for this video. “That video was made by a good intern colleague. He collected some cutting-edge research on crowd stampedes, and I loved it at the time.”

Open this video, there are many new comments:

"I thought it was made after the Itaewon incident, but I didn't expect it to be from last year. Thank you for the algorithm."

"The animation is really good! I wonder if your channel owner can share what software is used to make it?"

There is a reply under this comment, "Their channel is blocked, and they may not be able to reply to you".

07

At the end of March 2022, the number of new crown cases in Hainan surged. Luo Mei had no choice but to return to Beijing.

He found a long-term cooperation with Party A's project, so he joined the original team again and worked with Chen Bai. "Now we work in a fragmented way to make a living by cooperating with some outsourced advertisements," Luo Mei emphasized again.

Unlike before, no one treats the "job" in hand as a work, and no group of people get together to brainstorm.

This former team of bad students had to make more stable choices like good students.

In fact, in the final stage, Luo Mei faced the same problem as in his previous company: he couldn’t write anything. But in the face of outsourced copywriting, such troubles no longer exist, because "the writing is highly repetitive, and the pressure is not on creation."

Xu Yu evaluated Luo Mei as a "gold medal writer". After the team disbanded, he and Ran Yao also made a living on outsourcing, working on some projects that they were not interested in before. After the general project is underway, the first partner they think of is Luo Mei, because he is quiet, honest and trustworthy.

"Many people write outsourced copywriting, and they may lose their temper or be too lazy to change it. If they have done something good before, they will have a sense of arrogance, thinking that what they have done before is much better than this, why does Party A want to teach I do things?" But Luo Mei will not do this, he has his own way of dealing with customers.

"Customers always want everything. Luo Mei will agree, but he will not really solve all the needs for customers, but solve those that can be solved. After several changes, customers will find that the script has been roughly formed. There is really no place to add what you want. If the customer thinks that a part is not enough, Luo Mei will say, I will add the part you want, but you can only delete the other part. It’s like Tai Chi.”

Xu Yu is also learning how to be a qualified "outsourcer". At the beginning, he would try his best to do everything well, but later found that the customer not only didn't need it, but was scolded, and then he said what to do.

Ran Yao and Xu Yu started a life of private work after leaving the company, which they never dealt with when they were on the job-"The company actually gave me a lot at the time, and then I thought it was interesting to do things here, and it wasn't me One person is great, but my group of colleagues are all great, and everyone is willing to do one thing together to be great. I will not be moved at all."

The housing loan pressure was huge, and Xu Yu once needed to accept video clips for 800 yuan to make ends meet. Now customers and income are gradually stable, but he encounters the problem of not being able to receive payments from time to time, so he prefers businesses with a clear launch time: "Just like this year's 618, Tmall's video will be launched on June 11. , Even if you change me to death, it will only be a week, right? I’m afraid that the online time is uncertain, and it has been delayed for a year, and we still haven’t settled the bill with us, and we haven’t responded to WeChat messages.”

"When making videos in this environment, they are all Party B and dogs."

Xu Yu considered changing careers, and Ran Yao also wanted to sell luxury goods. The two thought about going abroad, but they gave up because they were worried that they could not adapt to another culture. "I think I have been stereotyped. Foreign cultures are more self-centered, and I don't like people who are too self-centered."

Chen Bo has a practical optimism about the team and the future. "As long as we have the opportunity to do visual video programs, we are very happy."

But he went on to say, "It must be a lot of trouble for me to do videos again, right?"

Luo Mei didn't feel that it was a pity that he couldn't do the expression he used to. This kind of relief comes from a new understanding of myself: "Now let me do what I did before, and I can't beat others, because there are so many strong people. If everyone can express and create freely, we may not be so good. Where are you going?"

He gave an example that in the past his immediate leader was a real student who was the number one student in the college entrance examination. I can’t write particularly good humanistic things, and I’m actually not very curious and interested in a matter.”

Regarding his current job, he said that he used to work part-time, but now he wants to try to support the company with Chen Bai. His mentality has changed, and he has more voice and sense of participation. Luo Mei's idea is very real, that is, to get things done, "As long as the company can survive, I can continue to pay social security."

In 2022, Luo Mei was quarantined at home for nearly 50 days. In the face of tremendous changes in work, life and social environment, his biggest feeling is uncertainty.

"I'm not sure what the world will be like two years from now. What I can be sure of is that this job can continue. I used to think that I could open a small bar in the future. But in the past few years, everything has to wait for notice. If you plan, then there is no need to think about it.”

08

The drastic changes in the environment have come to everyone, and people are going to take the postgraduate entrance examination and public examination. This former team of bad students also had to make more stable choices like good students.

There are not many opportunities left for bad students.

In her work before entering the paper clip, Luo Mei once made a long picture, telling the process of a cow from birth to turning into a leather satchel. In it, he quoted a sentence from Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age":

"For ordinary bulls, you can just cut them off with a knife. But for those with special sex, you need to use the hammering method, that is, cut open the scrotum, take out the testicles, and smash them to pieces with a wooden hammer. They know how to eat grass and work, but they don’t know anything else, and they don’t even need to be tied up to kill.”

Luo Mei’s quotations stop here, but the novel is most famous for the latter passage:

"Later I learned that life is a slow process of being hammered. People grow old day by day, and their extravagant hopes disappear day by day, and finally become like a bull that has been hammered. I feel that I will be strong forever, and nothing can be hammered. I."

At the end of the long picture, the protagonist, the calf with the cloud pattern on his body, is sent to the assembly line. The meat is fresh, and the fur is made into leather bags, which are placed on the shelves of commodities.

Does Luo Mei feel that she and the paper clip are bulls who have been hammered? He doesn't think so, "I think being hammered is a law in the world," he still said flatly, "People will feel that they have not made progress one day, and that is the day when they are hammered."