Zhou Shen's "fandom"
May. 29th, 2021 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoSince I've recently got into 周深's music, I've been doing some reading on his background. While trawling through various chinese sites, I've also come to a basic understanding of his fandom...
There was a TV station that did a basic census of his fans that turned up the number of 49% male and 51% female fans. Zhou Shen himself was surprised by this number, since he expected to have much larger percentage of female fans. (Though, you can get the same impression when you search for reactions to his songs on bilibili, or even youtube, and you'll see a very large number of men who have made multiple reactions to him.)
There is a significant portion of fans who had been following him since before his official music career started, back when he was just an unnamed webcaster singing online for fun, during his high school days. Or have been following him since his early career. These people have watched him grow from someone the industry/mainstream looked down on (and often dissed as girly), and tend to be very protective of him.
I've also seen another breakdown of the average age of his fans (from some platform). From what I remember, at least half of his fans were older than him. And even some of his fans who are younger than him have mentioned having protective instincts, likely due to his appearance and stature.
The majority of his fans are definitely music fans, who started to follow him after hearing a particular song that wowed them. He's not a traditional artist of the current Chinese entertainment industry, whose primary fanbase are typically "bought" by their media agency, or drawn in via a "persona" crafted by their agency. On the contrary, Zhou Shen seemed to have gotten very little support from his agency (which he left after his contract expired in mid-2020 and started his own studio, yay!). The majority of his early resources come from established artists/producers/etc. who he befriended or saw his potential and individually reached out to help him, sometimes on their own dime. It's only very recently (and by recent I mean mid 2020 to present) that he can be really stated to be "顶流" and started to attract fans who were introduced to him via non-music reasons (and then it's usually due to him having a great sense of humor and appearing on many humor oriented variety shows).
Zhou Shen has collaborated with many artists before, but the RPF that I've seen tend to be concentrated on two artists.
The first is a bass singer Wang Xi. They were part of 36 participants in the Super Vocal music variety show in late 2018. They sang one duet together, and also a trio with another guy. Like all variety shows, there was a script. The script Zhou Shen got was someone who's unconfident in himself, who learned to be confident through the show and his teammates, including the team leader Wang Xi.
(Due to scheduling conflicts, he didn't show up much in the first few episodes of the show, because he was recording for the Masked Singer show, and in that show he presented a completely confident stage persona. And yet his absence in the first few eps of Super Vocal was presented as him being to shy for the stage. So. ~handwaves~)
Anyway, Super Vocal drew in a lot of fangirls, since all the participants were men, and most were the tall and handsome type from prestigious music academy backgrounds. MangoTV probably wanted to cash in on the CP fandom, cuz there were a lot of such subtextual pairings scripted into the show.
Problem was that Zhou Shen himself didn't approve of CPF. And in the post-show interviews, was visibly trying to steer the conversation toward brotherhood and friendship. His solo fans (and he was the one of the few among that cast who had a significant fandom already) took his lead and fervently rejected any attempt at casting him as a "damsel in distress", thus coming into direct (ie. flaming) conflict with the CP fans.
Wang Xi, for whatever reason, made some comments that supported the CP fandom. The problem is, Wang Xi is a married man with a 2 year old daughter at the time. The stirred up CP fans started sending his wife death threats. As a result of this, since early 2019, these two artists have never interacted, or even stepped on the same stage.
I think at one point Zhou Shen outright came out to nix the pairing as well, not too sure. But anyway, what happened then was that a significant portion of this CP fandom turned on him...for denying their fantasies I guess. Even today (2-3 years since the show), they still pop up once a while to spread malicious rumors about him or talking trash about his songs/performance/etc.
The whole experience had seemed to give Zhou Shen and his actual fans something of a PTSD, from what I can tell. ZS has been careful since then to never leave the wrong impression with regards to any of the male artists he's collaborated with.
Anyway, the second pairing that I see any significant fanfics for is 李克勤/Hacken Lee.
He and Zhou Shen were partnered for the musical variety show Our Songs (我们的歌), in late 2019. In that show, they performed something like... at least 10 duets, several of which trended or were hailed as "经典".
The large number of collaborative works and the large amount of time these two spent together (long enough to build up obvious comfort around each other) on the show is probably why they have CP fans. They were the only partnership that stayed together through the whole season, and the winners of the show's contest portion.
Still, the majority of the fans of this grouping (officially called 勤深深 on the show) are still music fans, and in it for the music. There's also the fact that Hacken Lee is in his...50s? I mean, he started his music career before Zhou Shen was born, and his son is closer in age to Zhou Shen than he is. And, the official 勤深深 tag on weibo has a banner stating no CPF.
In other words, the CP fandom for this group is very niche and very... out of sight... from the main fanbase of both artists. So everyone (that matters) is happy.
So to end that wall of text on a happier note, some songs!!
勤深深 + 费玉清: 《另一种乡愁》 - Three top tier vocalists encompassing three age brackets, three regions (Taiwan, HK, mainland), in the three languages/dialects the song has been historically sung in.
勤深深: 那片海 + 听海 -- Incredibly seamless mix of the two songs.
周深 + 王晰 + 刘彬濠: 《山楂树》 - Honestly, I think this is the better work than ZS & WX's duet.
周深 solo 《和光同尘》 - A sorta recent work. I didn't wow me like some of his other songs the first time I heard it, but dang if it hadn't become addictive background music on subsequent rounds.
和你一起歌 和你一起合 月落星沉 日出东海
和你走过 理想的大河 从容的 沸腾着
你看那盛放的花儿 来自期盼的种子
你看那丰硕果实 来自耕耘的浪漫
[宽广的大河 来自八方汇聚的小溪
奔腾向前的大江 来自高山的哺育]
和光同行 跌跌撞撞的摸索
和光同舞 奋不顾身的坎坷
和光同尘 不为盛名而来 不为低谷而去
和光同尘 为你而来
有你 我在
周深 + 张也:《灯火里的中国》 - His first CCTV Chinese New Year performance.
There was a TV station that did a basic census of his fans that turned up the number of 49% male and 51% female fans. Zhou Shen himself was surprised by this number, since he expected to have much larger percentage of female fans. (Though, you can get the same impression when you search for reactions to his songs on bilibili, or even youtube, and you'll see a very large number of men who have made multiple reactions to him.)
There is a significant portion of fans who had been following him since before his official music career started, back when he was just an unnamed webcaster singing online for fun, during his high school days. Or have been following him since his early career. These people have watched him grow from someone the industry/mainstream looked down on (and often dissed as girly), and tend to be very protective of him.
I've also seen another breakdown of the average age of his fans (from some platform). From what I remember, at least half of his fans were older than him. And even some of his fans who are younger than him have mentioned having protective instincts, likely due to his appearance and stature.
The majority of his fans are definitely music fans, who started to follow him after hearing a particular song that wowed them. He's not a traditional artist of the current Chinese entertainment industry, whose primary fanbase are typically "bought" by their media agency, or drawn in via a "persona" crafted by their agency. On the contrary, Zhou Shen seemed to have gotten very little support from his agency (which he left after his contract expired in mid-2020 and started his own studio, yay!). The majority of his early resources come from established artists/producers/etc. who he befriended or saw his potential and individually reached out to help him, sometimes on their own dime. It's only very recently (and by recent I mean mid 2020 to present) that he can be really stated to be "顶流" and started to attract fans who were introduced to him via non-music reasons (and then it's usually due to him having a great sense of humor and appearing on many humor oriented variety shows).
Zhou Shen has collaborated with many artists before, but the RPF that I've seen tend to be concentrated on two artists.
The first is a bass singer Wang Xi. They were part of 36 participants in the Super Vocal music variety show in late 2018. They sang one duet together, and also a trio with another guy. Like all variety shows, there was a script. The script Zhou Shen got was someone who's unconfident in himself, who learned to be confident through the show and his teammates, including the team leader Wang Xi.
(Due to scheduling conflicts, he didn't show up much in the first few episodes of the show, because he was recording for the Masked Singer show, and in that show he presented a completely confident stage persona. And yet his absence in the first few eps of Super Vocal was presented as him being to shy for the stage. So. ~handwaves~)
Anyway, Super Vocal drew in a lot of fangirls, since all the participants were men, and most were the tall and handsome type from prestigious music academy backgrounds. MangoTV probably wanted to cash in on the CP fandom, cuz there were a lot of such subtextual pairings scripted into the show.
Problem was that Zhou Shen himself didn't approve of CPF. And in the post-show interviews, was visibly trying to steer the conversation toward brotherhood and friendship. His solo fans (and he was the one of the few among that cast who had a significant fandom already) took his lead and fervently rejected any attempt at casting him as a "damsel in distress", thus coming into direct (ie. flaming) conflict with the CP fans.
Wang Xi, for whatever reason, made some comments that supported the CP fandom. The problem is, Wang Xi is a married man with a 2 year old daughter at the time. The stirred up CP fans started sending his wife death threats. As a result of this, since early 2019, these two artists have never interacted, or even stepped on the same stage.
I think at one point Zhou Shen outright came out to nix the pairing as well, not too sure. But anyway, what happened then was that a significant portion of this CP fandom turned on him...for denying their fantasies I guess. Even today (2-3 years since the show), they still pop up once a while to spread malicious rumors about him or talking trash about his songs/performance/etc.
The whole experience had seemed to give Zhou Shen and his actual fans something of a PTSD, from what I can tell. ZS has been careful since then to never leave the wrong impression with regards to any of the male artists he's collaborated with.
Anyway, the second pairing that I see any significant fanfics for is 李克勤/Hacken Lee.
He and Zhou Shen were partnered for the musical variety show Our Songs (我们的歌), in late 2019. In that show, they performed something like... at least 10 duets, several of which trended or were hailed as "经典".
The large number of collaborative works and the large amount of time these two spent together (long enough to build up obvious comfort around each other) on the show is probably why they have CP fans. They were the only partnership that stayed together through the whole season, and the winners of the show's contest portion.
Still, the majority of the fans of this grouping (officially called 勤深深 on the show) are still music fans, and in it for the music. There's also the fact that Hacken Lee is in his...50s? I mean, he started his music career before Zhou Shen was born, and his son is closer in age to Zhou Shen than he is. And, the official 勤深深 tag on weibo has a banner stating no CPF.
In other words, the CP fandom for this group is very niche and very... out of sight... from the main fanbase of both artists. So everyone (that matters) is happy.
So to end that wall of text on a happier note, some songs!!
勤深深 + 费玉清: 《另一种乡愁》 - Three top tier vocalists encompassing three age brackets, three regions (Taiwan, HK, mainland), in the three languages/dialects the song has been historically sung in.
勤深深: 那片海 + 听海 -- Incredibly seamless mix of the two songs.
周深 + 王晰 + 刘彬濠: 《山楂树》 - Honestly, I think this is the better work than ZS & WX's duet.
周深 solo 《和光同尘》 - A sorta recent work. I didn't wow me like some of his other songs the first time I heard it, but dang if it hadn't become addictive background music on subsequent rounds.
和你一起歌 和你一起合 月落星沉 日出东海
和你走过 理想的大河 从容的 沸腾着
你看那盛放的花儿 来自期盼的种子
你看那丰硕果实 来自耕耘的浪漫
[宽广的大河 来自八方汇聚的小溪
奔腾向前的大江 来自高山的哺育]
和光同行 跌跌撞撞的摸索
和光同舞 奋不顾身的坎坷
和光同尘 不为盛名而来 不为低谷而去
和光同尘 为你而来
有你 我在
周深 + 张也:《灯火里的中国》 - His first CCTV Chinese New Year performance.
