Crime-related content has fascinated the Chinese audience for centuries, from gong’an (court case) novels in the 16th century to modern detective novels, crime thrillers on the big screen, and true crime videos and articles widely consumed online.
True crime as a genre has also helped boost the podcast industry, turning it into a global phenomenon in the 2010s. In this episode, we invited three noted crime-themed content creators to discuss their journey, audience, unique storytelling, and how they sustain their content production.
Guests:
A Yi is a former policeman, journalist, and emerging Chinese writer known for his avant-garde literary style.
Eric Chang’an Wannian is a vlogger on YouTube (@eric10000) and Bilibili, specializing in crime-related video analysis.
He Wapi is the founder and main writer of the true-crime WeChat account Moyao Huayuan (没药花园) and a crime fiction author.
The following are excerpts from the transcript of the episode (edited for clarity):
04:00
Aladin: What do your family and close friends think about your work? And how did you first start?
Wapi: Most of my family and friends have received it very well, but I did block some of my relatives from my account because of the cruel and violent content. I wrote my first article for Moyao Huayuan in 2017. At the time, there were some true crime accounts on WeChat, but most didn’t have many followers. Maybe because in Chinese culture, there is a taboo against talking about crimes, but it seems young people tend to enjoy true crime stories more.
A Yi: When I write crime stories, I like to mimic the act in my house. For example, when I was writing about a murder, I would gesture the killing with a pen in my hand. My girlfriend at the time was very scared, so I restrained myself and went to work somewhere else. When you’re writing, you have to find a way to get a feel of the subject matter.
I first began to write crime novels out of convenience. I worked as a policeman for several years, dealt with cases, and gained some understanding of the mentality of criminals. But you don’t have to be a policeman or have a legal background to write about crime. I noticed that many Chinese writers, mostly male, born in the 1970s or 80s have written about crimes when they first started their literary journey.
For the masses, crime is naturally captivating: When I was a journalist for Beijing News, our domestic and community news coverage featured a lot of crime reporting. If there’s no element of violence or obscenity, readers hardly care about the news event in question.
I believe that crime-themed content takes up a large portion of contemporary Chinese literature because it’s a tried and tested path to get the attention of readers, popular fiction magazines, and even TV and film producers who seek adaptation rights.
09:08
Aladin: Who are your audiences?
Wapi: The majority of my readers on WeChat live in bigger cities like Shanghai, Beijing, and cities in Guangdong province. Most are in their 20s and 30s. More than 80 percent are female. Since they like to read long-form articles on cases happening in other countries, which usually involve information in foreign languages, my readers must also be well-educated.
Eric: My viewers are mainly people aged 25 to 35. Around 70 percent of my viewers are from southern China—Guangdong accounts for about 15 percent, the highest percentage across the country. But I don’t know why this is the case.
12:50
Aladin: What type of crime stories do you produce?
A Yi: All my stories are based in China, and many are set in small towns and rural areas because I spent my teenage years in a small town. Some stories take place in cities too, like my novel, What Should I Do Next. It’s about a high school student from a small town who struggles to adapt to urban life and ends up committing murder. A recurring theme I explore is when a person’s identity is torn apart. For example, a rural person falls in love with a city person, a destined tragedy. Or a rural person moves to the city and finds themselves at a total loss. Then crime would rise from such a state.
Wapi: The majority [of the true crime stories we write about] took place in Western and East Asian countries. We don’t write much about cases in China because we cannot find enough detailed information. Mostly we rely on court documents, news reports, books, and sometimes online information.
Eric: In the US, there are sunshine laws, so the authorities have to release relevant materials once it goes to court. So, every detail about this case will be released to the public. You can find them online if you want, from police reports, memos, interrogation videos, evidence…pretty much everything. But in China, we don’t have first-hand information. We rely on media. I guess that’s the difference.
Aladin: For sure. I don’t know about other European countries, but at least in France, we would never see information disclosed like the interrogation videos.
Eric: When I first started, I focused a lot on topics like police activities, crime, and interrogations, mostly based on English footage. But over time, I realized my audience is primarily Chinese or at least Mandarin-speaking, so I started incorporating footage from Chinese sources. I figured they might find content that is directly relatable to them even more interesting. But I wasn’t moving away from true crime, rather expanding to a broader range of topics. Another reason for this was to establish my own brand.
20:00
Aladin: Could you share with us your own business model?
A Yi: I just checked, Eric has 570,000 fans on Bilibili, which is quite impressive. Likewise, online writers can monitor readers’ data, but my writing is blind to the market. It’s like a gamble that I am betting on people buying my work. I am all for the intense competition of online literature, but I’m too used to the traditional path to literary publishing: working on commission from journals, or publishing books with a few publishing houses. I envy those who make online content directly to the audience. Whereas my entire creative process is separated from the market. Under this model, the question I focus on is what Kafka wrote, you know, the writer who already passed away, or why Proust achieved such high recognition back in the day. I rely on such third-party evaluation schemes to assess my writing down the road. Writers like us have heads full of ideas and fantasies, but none of which can be validated by data. But I’m lucky to have literary editors, publications, and publishing houses in China and abroad to work with. However, our industry’s income has shrunk with the changing reading habits and decline in paper book sales. Many publishing houses even cut back on their publishing projects and invest their money somewhere else.
Wapi: I wasn’t hoping to make money from it when I first started the WeChat account, but when I devoted all my time to it, I really had to have an income to support it. And now we have many writers to support as well. The revenue of our account mainly comes from three sources: advertising, subscription fees, and book sales, which is not a big portion of it. I personally also write novels, and some of them have sold film and television adaptation rights.
Eric: I actually do a lot of things. After the pandemic, my professional life has diversified significantly. Both my YouTube and Bilibili channels generate revenue based on a view count. I embedded advertising in my videos, which makes up a significant portion of my income. Beyond video production, I offer body language coaching and consulting services, primarily to business people and occasionally to actors as well. Lately, I’ve been advising many video game companies and it’s a lot of fun. At the same time, I’m involved in knowledge-based monetization. You get paid by providing educational content and expertise.
I understand A Yi represents a classical way of creating content. How to get people to read a book is very different today from what it was 10 years ago. Even to me, I make videos and a lot of people don’t even watch videos. They play them when they are driving, and just listen to them. But I still have to think about how to get the audience’s attention from start to finish.
The Middle Earth Podcast is your source of insight into China’s culture industries, where you can hear from people creating and producing content in the world’s second-biggest culture market. It is hosted by Aladin Farré, and presented by The World of Chinese magazine.
Subscribe to the Middle Earth Podcast:
Website: https://www.theworldofchinese.com/podcasts/when-true-crime-pays/
小宇宙: https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episode/66afa4deb56ceb45ea47f230
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3F1h8tkbzwkKRhKOMsqgTx
Cover image: Design by Wang Siqi; elements from VCG
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