Rise of the cyberstar economy

Papi Jiang and Karisma Collins (above) are Internet sensations in their own countries. Photos provided to China Daily

"As much as 615.3 billion yuan of clothes in China was sold through e-commerce in 2014, of which clothes promoted by a cyberstar accounted for 100 billion yuan. There is also a huge potential in using these stars to promote other industries such as gaming, tourism and plastic surgery," wrote Lv Ming, an industrial analyst with Guotai Jun'an Securities, in a 23-page report in January.

According to Ding Chengling, the founder of an establishment that helps educate cyberstars, some of these individuals have also been offered opportunities in the entertainment industry that range from appearing in shows, promotions, television series to even movies, according to their popularity.

Chen Yujin, founder of Shanghai-based digital celebrity incubator Tophot, said that the trend has validated her belief that her business idea is full of potential. Chen aims to design tailor-made styles for every one of the more than 100 Internet starlets who have signed up with her company. Tophot's mobile platform attracted more than 500,000 users within three months of its launch in November 2015.

"Just like the yacht industry 10 years ago, when people barely knew about it, the digital celebrity economy has a very bright future," said Chen, who started her business of producing Internet celebrities in February 2015.

"We want to overthrow the traditional opinion that cyberstars are unlike general artistes. As a matter of fact, we have already received some advertising opportunities from affordable luxury brands and the top digital celebrity with us has already reached a similar level as third-tier artists, based on appearance fees at shows," added Chen.

Ding said that today's cyberstars will need to keep up with the ever-changing Internet trends by consistently generating creative content to engage their audiences or risk being forgotten, even if they are as popular as Papi Jiang.