Chapter 13. Hot Comments

     The three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday brought more than 300 tourists to Xingzhou Island, and also caused considerable damage to the island’s ecological environment.

     Li Yaolin purchased a batch of trash cans and hired two hourly cleaners from the talent market of Poseidon Holiday APP, working four hours a day to ensure that the garbage on the island would not pile up again.

     However, she still hired a visible cleaner to clean up large garbage during the day and urge tourists not to litter.

     Lin Qitong played on the island for two days, collected materials, and became a few degrees darker, so she was ready to return to Yangshi. Li Yaolin asked her to stay for a few more days, but she felt a little embarrassed to continue eating and drinking.

     During these three days, Li Yaolin bought her almost all the top 10 local delicacies that could be found on the food APP. She really felt ashamed of spending so much money.

     Perhaps to live up to Li Yaolin’s enthusiasm, she returned to the hotel every night and did not chat with others. She turned on the computer to edit videos.

     Before returning to Yangshi, she sent the first promotional video to Li Yaolin for her to check the results.

     This time, she had too much content to share with netizens, so she deliberately divided the promotional video into three, and the remaining two videos will be edited when she returns to Yangshi.

     Lin Qitong did not appear in this short video. The camera only showed the blue waves quietly hitting the silver-white beach. She drew a heart shape on the beach, with various shells scattered among them. A crab crawled over, as if tearing the heart in half.

     This shot is matched with a piece of light music from NetEase Cloud Music and a copy that will resonate with lovers of youth pain literature, as if a story that is both sad and healing is being staged.

     Li Yaolin: “…”

     Yes, this copy cannot be written without ten years of immersion in the comment area of NetEase Cloud Music, and it will definitely be popular.

     “Professional matters should be handed over to professionals. I believe in your ability.” Li Yaolin gave Lin Qitong this feedback. The latter sent an OK expression and happily posted it to her short video account, Moments, and Toutiao, which she has a cooperative relationship with.

     Li Yaolin paid her the promotion fee and an additional red envelope of 200 yuan. 

     Lin Qitong was even more embarrassed and secretly used the red envelope to buy a popular promotion on the short video platform.

     After sending her classmates away, Li Yaolin sighed that she had no reason to go to a big meal in the future.

     It’s not that she can’t eat by herself or can’t afford it. The main reason is that the portion of those dishes is okay for two people. She can’t finish it by herself. If she orders less, people won’t sell it!

     “Next time, buy a fish from the angler and steam it yourself?” Li Yaolin thought.

——

     The first thing Lin Qitong did when she returned to Yangshi was to check her short video.

     As expected, the promotion did work. The growth rate of the number of views and likes was much faster than that of the previous video.

Most of the comments were the same as the text, and there were even confessions. Only a few comments praised the scenery and asked if it was a dynamic wallpaper.

     Lin Qitong was not in a hurry because the promotion failed. The first video was just to share the scenery. After arousing the curiosity of netizens, she implanted hard ads in the next video to prevent the audience from swiping away.

     After a day of rest, Lin Qitong hurried to edit the next video.

     The second video was about one minute long. She had to introduce and highlight the scenery and advantages of Xingzhou Island within one minute, so she focused on showing the beauty of the white sand beach, the clear sea water and the clean island.

     The third video edited the fish caught by the anglers together with the seafood feast she had on the first day. Although it was suspected of misleading the audience to think that the place to eat seafood was on Xingzhou Island, it was not a self-media if it didn’t exaggerate the facts.

     She has a group on the short video platform. After editing the video, she shared it in the group. She also pulled Li Yaolin into the group, but Li Yaolin was busy. When she had time to check her phone, the first video had 70,000 likes and more than 3,000 comments; the second video only had 20,000 likes, but the comment area looked a bit lively.

     The hot comment was a comment from a nitpicker: “You described a foreign beach as a remote island that you have never heard of. It’s really outrageous.”

     Below was Lin Qitong’s reply. She sent an eye-rolling expression: “You have been kneeling for so long that you don’t even recognize your parents?”

     This remark stirred up a hornet’s nest. The nitpicker said that there could not be such a beautiful beach in China. If there were more famous beaches, there would only be some famous tourist attractions in Qionghai, but there were very few white beaches in China. The most famous white beach was the Silver Beach in Shandong.

     If the Xingzhou Island she mentioned was really so beautiful, it would not be on the list. It would have become a popular check-in point and was popular all the time!

    Lin Qitong directly responded: “This island has just been developed. Who says it can’t become a popular check-in spot in the future?”

     The nitpicker said again: “Artificial development, how can it be as beautiful as natural ones? Your attitude is so bad, I will never go to this place.”

     Lin Qitong: “…”

     She couldn’t help but privately chat with Li Yaolin and apologize to her: “I’m sorry I was impulsive and brought a bad influence to Xingzhou Island. Will your boss blame you?”

     Li Yaolin smiled and comforted her: “No, you are right, but don’t ruin your good mood because of the nitpicker’s comments.”

     They really don’t need to be in a bad mood for such a few comments, because positive and active comments are still the majority, especially the nitpicker’s comment that there is no such beautiful beach in China, which successfully aroused the disgust of netizens, and there were battles with him below.

     Lin Qitong later replied to a few comments and completely ignored the nitpicker’s comment.

     Some netizens in Youshi also saw this video. Some of them forwarded it to the group, and some also left comments:

     “I am from Youshi, and I have never heard of Xingzhou Island.”

     “It used to be called Taipa Island, but it has been renamed.”

     “Taipa Island? No way, I kind of believe it. No one would go to Taipa Island. Can you believe that all the dead fish are floating on the sea surface in that area? What white beach? White pollution is more like that. I went there to camp once before, and the ground was full of shit and garbage. I couldn’t find a place to set up a tent! Especially the toilet. When I opened the door, I felt it was worse than the countryside. The dry toilet is disgusting. “

     Zhang Mei also happened to see this video because of the tag. When she saw this comment, she was even more angry than Lin Qitong. She typed a long string of words with her fingers: “You just came out, right? How long have you not been in contact with society? Please take your eyes to see it, it’s beautiful now!”

     “Hey, did the UP host hire water army? Where did so many brainless fans come from?”

     Zhang Mei couldn’t argue with the other party, so she sent the photos and videos she had taken to her work group, friend group and class group. Only by getting the recognition of the people around her can she adjust her mentality.

     It was through the forwarding and quarreling of netizens in Youshi, Xingzhou Island finally became well-known in Youshi.

     Li Yaolin put down her mobile phone and felt very emotional. Sure enough, no one would watch the serious promotion. If you want to attract attention, you have to rely on the smoky comment area.

     In the words of the sand sculpture netizens: Want to quarrel? Then I’m not sleepy.

     What she didn’t know was that this video not only attracted the attention of local netizens in Youshi, but also made the official and news media see the hot spots.

     What the official cares about is that she has managed the environment of Xingzhou Island so well, which will definitely become a positive example of pollution control.

     In recent years, Youshi has been building a city image brand of “Good-hearted Oil City” ^[1]油市(Youshi) = oil market,actively promoting “Lady Xian Culture” and carrying forward Lady Xian’s “Good-hearted Spirit”.

     “Good-hearted” naturally does not mean kind-hearted. It is an interpretation of the core socialist values in Youshi. Whether it is good people and good deeds, cultural and economic revitalization, or tourism development, they all belong to “good-hearted culture”.

     Environmental protection and pollution control are naturally included.

     The official media of Youshi pushes some beautiful scenery of new countryside, rivers and mountains after pollution control through V blogs and public accounts every day.

     Xingzhou Island fits this theme very well.

     As for the news media, they just want to go to Xingzhou Island for an unannounced visit to see whether Xingzhou Island has really improved the environment, or it is just a gimmick released by Li Yaolin.

     When the journalists went to Xingzhou Island for an unannounced visit, the Cultural and Tourism Bureau contacted Li Yaolin and invited a group of tourism entrepreneurs, including her, to attend the “Developing Rural Tourism” theme meeting to learn the concept of “Green Water and Green Mountains are Gold and Silver Mountains”.

     Li Yaolin thought that this was probably something that the little mermaid could not do on her behalf, so she agreed.

     The meeting was initially scheduled for late July, and Li Yaolin had more than a month to prepare. She asked the little mermaid to remember it for her and remind her a few days in advance so that she would not be too busy and miss the meeting.

     The little mermaid was busier than her, because her original layout had begun to show results, and Fang Xinhua really took the bait.