Duck tongue, stock price and the sincerity of 20 years ago, how can Mango reap the super girl bonus again?

▲ A trailer clip showing Wang Zixuan breaking down and crying. Picture / “Later Friendship Period”

The desire to eat melon is getting more and more intense, but every step of watching the show has already marked the price. Starting from the third episode, the show is split into two episodes. If you want to see the next issue on Thursday, you need to activate SVIP and pay at least 16 yuan. The feature films will be updated every week, and there will be additional updates and early viewing for an additional fee of 3 yuan. Although there is considerable overlap between the preview content and the feature film next week, you still have to pay for it. There are also netizens who are following the trend and shouting: “How much money can I spend to go straight to the finale now? I am willing.”

“Friends Later” is a friendship documentary reality show launched by Mango TV, also known as the friend version of “Goodbye Lover”. Before it aired, almost no one was optimistic about it. When it first aired on October 22, the program only had four brands to cooperate with: 999 Cold Ling, Qianwen, China Ping An, and Xunying, which was only half of the variety shows of the same level.

The turning point occurred in the third issue, when Xu Fei and Li Na talked in the cliff hut. The old dispute between the two is far more complicated than a quarrel between friends. In 2006, they participated in “Super Girl” together, lived in the same dormitory, shared snacks, and spent the most difficult days of the competition together. Xu Fei rarely ate snacks at that time, but Li Na taught her to eat duck tongue like melon seeds. Years later, this habit still remains in Xu Fei’s life.

▲ Picture / “Later Friendship Period”

But the friendship also broke down in the following years. Li Na believed that Xu Fei had reported her private work to Tianyu Media, which resulted in her being hidden by the company. Xu Fei denied this accusation. The entanglement between the two gave the audience a strong sense of involvement.

Netizens called it “a famous scene that no one can surpass in domestic entertainment in the past 10 years.” “I haven’t watched the short drama, and I haven’t studied AI anymore. I just want to know if the two of them can reconcile.” On social platforms, some people stayed up late to do archaeological research, and some watched the slices repeatedly. The UP owners in the film and television area of ​​Bilibili couldn’t wait to take out every expression between the two and analyze it frame by frame.

“I draw the ground as a prison, Li Na”, “What about all my financial losses” and “The preface of 30,000 yuan”, several lines of dialogue in the show have been repeatedly dismantled, edited and re-created by netizens. Xu Fei ended almost every sentence with “Li Na”, so netizens began to regard “Li Na” as a period and added this name to their lives, work, and emotions.

“I don’t want to go to work, Li Na.” “My salary hasn’t been paid yet, and the rent has been deducted first, so what about all my financial losses, Li Na.” Even the recommendations on the variety show page of Mango TV and the Dianping coupons on Juewei Yabo have begun to actively participate in this “Li Na Literature”.

▲ “Li Na Literature” has been added to the recommendations on Mango TV’s variety show page and the Dianping coupons for Juewei Yabo. Picture/Network

The popularity of the program has also shown an astonishing increase. After the third episode of Cliff House was aired, topics related to “Friends Later” increased by 2.3 billion clicks on Douyin in three days, and the popularity on Weibo continued to exceed 100 million. Topics related to the show were on the hot search list in turn, and Douban’s real-time hot list also reached the top.

The first person to convert this carnival into real money was: Duck Tongue. In the show, Xu Fei and Li Na recalled the past of eating duck tongue. Netizens began to ask about the brand name on social platforms, and Li Na replied: “Absolutely delicious.”

Juewei did not miss this opportunity. It only took less than two weeks from October 26, when Li Na was forwarded to respond on Weibo, to November 5, when Li Na was officially announced as a “Freshly Recommended Official”.

Other brands are quickly following suit. Zhou Heiya and Tengqiao Yabi joined the “Duck Tongue War” one after another. Zhou Heiya won a duck tongue in a lottery. Netizens urged to contact Xu Fei in the comment area. Luckin looked through Li Na’s little red book and found a post she had posted for 20 days, holding a Luckin coffee cup in her hand, and left a surprise message: “I have been waiting for this little brown cup for fifteen years Li Na.” Duolingo’s green bird also “knelt down” and begged Li Na to forgive Xu Fei, claiming that she was the one who made the whistleblower.

▲ Major brands quickly followed the hot spots. Picture/Screenshot of social platform

Nayuki’s Tea changed all the shop avatars on a takeaway platform to “Basque Cheese Pudding”. The reason is simple: in the show, Li Na took out the pudding from her bag and ate it for about 30 seconds. Subsequently, this product was frantically searched and ordered by netizens, and it was once sold out.

In this way, the Chinese Internet has entered the era of “Dali Na”, which is the duck tongue era.

Of course, it was Mango that really got the “big results” in the end. On November 2, Mango Super Media’s stock price reached its daily limit. Since then, the stock price has continued to rise, and as of November 5, the cumulative increase has exceeded 50%. On November 5, Mango Super Media closed up 9.27%. The popularity of a variety show was directly transmitted to the capital market.

The past events of Xu Fei and Li Na involve not only the friendship between the two people, but also the agency they once belonged to together, Tianyu Media. According to Tianyancha, Mango Super Media holds 100% of the equity of Tianyu Media and is its absolute controlling shareholder. In the past, disputes between artists and brokerage companies re-entered the public eye many years later because of a variety show, and fed back into the company’s stock price, forming a closed loop.

20 years ago, Hunan Satellite TV used the show “Super Girl” to promote Xu Fei, Li Na and countless girls to the whole country; 20 years later, Mango TV used “The Friendship Period” to bring these old people back to the public eye. This time, the audience pays for friendship, the brand pays for traffic, and the capital pays for content. And Mango also reaped the Super Girl bonus again.

用真心

In terms of singing skills, there is no shortage of good singers in domestic entertainment; in terms of appearance, there is no shortage of beautiful faces. Looking back at Hunan Satellite TV’s early talent show, Mango’s real bet may be something that is harder to copy than talent and appearance: sincerity.

In “The Friendship Period”, Xu Fei talks about the 2006 competition. She was still a sophomore in college when she was suddenly thrust into a massive, highly competitive draft. The game is over, the door is closed, and the world suddenly becomes quiet. Only laundry soap and small T-shirts were washed and hung on the balcony.

▲ Picture / “Later Friendship Period”

Those trivial lives are very close to the fighting on the stage. Girls have not yet learned how to be entertainers, nor have they had time to put beautiful packaging on their emotions. Like is like, loss is loss, grievance, jealousy, appreciation and unwillingness are all mixed together and shown directly from the face.

While they compete with each other, they also become each other’s most familiar witnesses. They know what each other went through on stage, what an elimination means, and they also know the embarrassment and loneliness outside the camera. Friendship grows in such an environment.

The last time such sincerity was exposed to the public was the 2007 “Happy Boys” reunion. In 2022, “Longing for Life” is preparing to record a spin-off program called “Welcome to the Mushroom House”. Lu Rover invited several fast male contestants from his generation to participate.

Originally, this was a program with a small budget, with a promotional fee of only 48,000 yuan. There were no sponsors, and they did not even dare to release more fish in the fish pond. Chen Chusheng did not catch a single fish in the end. Like “Friends Later”, no one was optimistic about it before it aired, but it unexpectedly became a hit and ended with 93.607 million views and superb performance. At that time, the Weibo topic #welcometomushroom# had been read 690 million times and discussed 232,000 times. The words “0713 Re-employed Boys Group” inspired domestic entertainment’s enthusiasm for research on super girls and fast boys.

▲ Picture / “Welcome to the Mushroom House”

Wei Wenbin, who was the leader of Hunan Radio and Television at the time, once commented on the 2007 Fast Boys. On the stage, “the strength of personality is always more important than singing skills and honor.”

Looking back, no matter whether they are super girls or fast boys, what was left from the draft back then was a group of young people with distinctive personalities and different edges. Li Na in “The Friendship Period” still carries this distinct personal imprint. When others were arguing, she slept next to them; as soon as she entered the restaurant, she just wanted to hold the rice in her hands and “eat it warm.” She once said that she could not create dramatic emotions in the reality show, but just worked honestly. “They asked me to herd cattle, so I herded cattle; they asked me to herd sheep, so I herded sheep; they asked me to chop wood, so I chopped wood.”

Li Na was like this 20 years ago. Press conference after the 2006 Six to Five match. Xu Fei was eliminated, and Shang Wenjie, Tan Weiwei, Liu Liyang, Ai Mengmeng and Li Na entered the top five. Facing the camera, exhaustion and loss were written on almost everyone’s face. The reporter tried to make them smile, but the atmosphere never became relaxed.

Only Tan Weiwei instinctively cheered up and tried to smooth things over. Li Na always looked in front of the microphone, her eyes unfocused and she didn’t speak. In less than 5 minutes, the press conference ended. The five people stood up, took a group photo, and then left.

▲ Li Na remained silent at the press conference after the 2006 Six to Five competition. Picture/Network

From today’s perspective, those inappropriate and even clumsy reactions constitute the most vivid part of them.

In 2026, AI is generating more and more realistic faces, voices and stories, and emotions and personalities on social platforms can also be carefully designed. When it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between true and false, we look forward to retrieving simple and innocent content. It is this kind of image left behind by Super Girl and Fast Boy. They are not so perfect, but they make people believe that the emotions in the camera have really happened, and the people in the camera have really lived, loved, and argued. In the face of true feelings, AI has no chance of winning.

In 2006, Zhao Xinwei was 14 years old and in the second grade of junior high school. Every week, she would stay at home in Shaanxi for three hours, tuning into Hunan Satellite TV to watch the live broadcast. She supports Li Na, who has short hair, is feminine, and has a lazy temperament. She loves to sing Fan Xiaoxuan, “There is no one who can replace her, she is quite unique.” Without telling her father, she used her mobile phone to vote for Li Na at 1 yuan each, in order to let Li Na stand on the stage longer.

Five into the four knockout rounds, Li Na faced off against Ai Mengmeng. At the time, Supergirl drew out the voting process. The audience took paper ballots, walked onto the stage, and voted one by one into the transparent ballot tube. Each ticket corresponds to a specific person. The distance between the audience and the players is less than 3 meters. The shouts, cries and the host’s voice were intertwined and included in the live TV broadcast.

Zhao Xinwei sat in front of the TV and watched one vote after another. Li Na lost. With her parents nearby, Zhao Xinwei burst into tears. She was very embarrassed, so she went back to her room, closed the door, and cried for a while. After school on Monday, classmates told Zhao Xinwei that they also cried.

Later, Li Na also watched this clip of the elimination voting in “A Date with Lu Yu”, and her emotions were still difficult to calm down. Lu Yu said: “I know that we TV people can be quite cruel sometimes.”

▲ Li Na in “A Date with Luyu”. Picture/Network

Cruel because it touches something real. Television amplifies this belief, ultimately allowing players and viewers to participate in a real emotional event. The reason why sincerity is moving is that it has been truly given. The competition, jealousy, misunderstanding and reconciliation that happened between the contestants, and the tears and cheers that the audience once delivered, did not become fiction because the show ended. They leave traces in time and give weight to the relationship 20 years later.

A few days ago, Zhao Xinwei re-listed to Tieba because of “The Post-Meeting Period”, and her account is still there, called “50 Yuan Duck Tongue”. All the memories came flooding back. A reporter once interviewed Li Na. She said that she loves duck tongue and can eat as much as 50 yuan at a time. 14-year-old Zhao Xinwei simply chose this name. In 2026, duck tongue becomes popular again. Zhao Xinwei was not too surprised. She once voted sincerely, took a sum of cash to the bank, and told the teller that she wanted to send money to Tianyu to buy the latest album of 2006 Super Girl Li Na.

Super girl, fast boy, Mango’s money tree

After a variety show ends, the contestants usually complete their mission. But Super Girl and Fast Boy seem to be exceptions.

Starting from “Super Girl” in 2004, these young people voted by SMS have appeared in various programs on Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV. They participated in competitions, sang, acted, and did reality shows, and were reunited again and again after many years. As long as a few people stand together, the audience can quickly recognize them and remember the stories that happened back then.

This vitality has gradually been regarded by Mango as a business that can be developed repeatedly. The end of the talent show does not mean the end of the artist’s story. As long as the people are still there, the relationships are still there, and the memories are still there, there is still room for them to be redeveloped.

After the popularity of “Welcome to the Mushroom”, the reunion of the early talent show groups became a hot topic. The 2009 Fast Girls Jiang Yingrong, Huang Ying, Pan Chen, and Liu Meihan once recorded the pastoral reality show “Summer of Singing”. The program did not become very popular, with a Douban score of only 5.8. Liu Wei also revealed that Dragon TV planned a reunion program for the contestants of “My Style, My Show” called “Get Together?” “Let’s Get Together”, but it has not been officially broadcast.

▲ “Summer of Singing Whenever You Want” has a Douban score of only 5.8. Picture / Douban

Reunion variety shows are not always hit-or-miss. It was not until 2026, when Xu Fei and Li Na showed their true feelings full of tension in “The Friendship Period” that public opinion was instantly ignited. After a lapse of 4 years, after the “0713 Re-employment Boys Group”, Mango TV once again made a successful bet, and the protagonist is still the Super Girl and Fast Boy contestant.

In fact, if you look closely, you will find that they have never disappeared from the Mango series. If mango variety shows are viewed as an ever-extending production line, Super Girl and Fast Boy is the most familiar resource among them and the easiest to be redeployed.

In 2013, “I Am a Singer” was launched. The total broadcast volume of the first season of the program reached 940 million times, and the ratings of the final battle of the king of singers were as high as 4.127%. Among the 12 participating singers, the 2006 Super Girl National Champion Shang Wenjie is impressively included.

In 2014, Hunan Satellite TV gradually took back the online copyrights of its variety shows and handed them over to Mango TV for exclusive broadcast. “Flowers and Boys” became one of the first programs to test the waters. In less than a month, the program was viewed more than 20 million times and was eventually played 168 million times. Among the two male guests invited by the show is the 2013 Fast Man Champion Hua Chenyu.

In 2020, Mango TV found female artists over 30 years old and formed a competition group called “Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves”. The broadcast volume reached 1.43 billion times. On the day of the broadcast, Mango Super Media’s stock price closed up nearly 7%. One month later, the market value reached 109.7 billion yuan. Among these 30 female artists who have brought huge profits, there are still super girls, including Zhang Hanyun, Xu Fei, Yu Kewei, and Li Sidani. Moreover, in the next few seasons, previous Supergirls will still take turns. In 2021, the same type of program “Brother Overcoming Troubles” will also be launched. In every season, at least one artist is a fast boy contestant.

The program prototype of “The Friendship Period” is “Goodbye Lover”. Zhu Yaqiong, the top 13 Super Girl in the country in 2006, became one of the guests in the first season. By 2024, the show triggered a discussion on the entire Internet due to the “smoked chicken incident” between Li Xingliang and his wife Mai Lin. Li Xingliang was the sixth fastest man in the country in 2010.

▲ Li Xingliang and Mai Lin, who caused controversy in 2024 due to “Goodbye Lover”. Picture / “Goodbye Lover”

Some people joked that Hunan Satellite TV arranged the life of the super girl and the fast boy. Starting from “2004 Super Girl”, Hunan Satellite TV has sent a large number of “grassroots” singers selected by SMS voting to domestic entertainment, seeming to have established a talent pool. However, at the beginning, Hunan Satellite TV did not realize the explosive power of this entire group.

In 2004, “Super Girl” had just started, and Tianyu Media only signed An Youqi, the champion of that year. After the game, it was the third runner-up Zhang Hanyun who really became popular. She was signed by Zhongtian Culture and quickly opened up the commercial market. In 2005, Mengniu Dairy invited Zhang Hanyun as its spokesperson, and her personal album “I Am Very Zhang Hanyun” was released at the same time, with sales reaching 800,000 copies. Among them, “Sour and Sweet is Me” is the advertising song for Mengniu Sour Yogurt.

This song, together with Zhang Hanyun’s image, has become an important part of the sour yogurt brand marketing. According to media reports at the time, sales of new sour yogurt products increased by nearly 1.8 billion yuan. Mengniu thus saw the connection between talent shows and the commercial value of artists.

▲ Zhang Hanyun participated in Mengniu Sour Yoghurt offline promotion activities. Picture / Visual China

That year, Mengniu won the naming rights of “Super Girl” with a sponsorship fee of more than 10 million yuan. The packaging of the 2 billion bags of sour yoghurt is printed with “2005 Mengniu Sour Yoghurt Super Girl”, and Zhang Hanyun’s profile picture also appears on the packaging. Talent shows, artists, brands, and products are all connected on a large scale for the first time.

“Super Girl” has truly become a national cultural event. The stock price of Dianguang Media continued to rise that year. As of August 26, 2005, it rose from 4.93 yuan per share to 7 yuan. After missing Zhang Hanyun, Tianyu Media also changed its strategy. In 2005, the company signed a large number of players and won the top ten in the five competition areas, with a total of 50 players. No matter who becomes the next Zhang Hanyun, the artist’s management rights will be included in the company system.

Since then, the appearance rate of Super Girl and Fast Boy on Hunan Satellite TV has increased rapidly.

Take the New Year’s Eve concert as an example. After the success of “2005 Super Girl”, Hunan Satellite TV held the first New Year’s Eve concert in the history of local television. The performance lineup was divided into two teams, one of which was the “Super Girl Team”. Composed of players from the 2004 and 2005 classes. Li Yuchun, who is in the center of the poster, is further forward than Tao Zhe and other music industry seniors.

Since then, Super Girl and Fast Boy can be seen in every New Year’s Eve concert. At the end of the competition, they take the stage; at the anniversary, they return; at the midnight finale, they may appear as a chorus, medley or group. For the TV station, this is a mature content reuse; for the audience, it is an opportunity to reopen the memories of youth again and again.

Xu Fei is also one of them. She has appeared on Hunan Satellite TV’s New Year’s Eve party many times, singing songs such as “The Flight I Want” and “Left Half Wing”. Among them, “The Flight I Want” is the ending song of Hunan Satellite TV’s idol drama “Let’s Watch the Meteor Shower”. After she finished singing, Wei Chen and Yu Haoming, who took over the stage and were also Fast Boy contestants, also sang derivative songs from the series.

The super girl and the fast boy have already formed an intertwined network of relationships. The appearance of a person can often bring up another memory. It is a content industry chain that can be continuously extended. Talent shows create stars, variety shows restart relationships, brands take advantage of the opportunity to consume, and the platform gains traffic and members. Since then, every reunion and every stage appearance has been a re-development of these content assets.

▲ The 2013 Happy Boys Finals invited previous Super Girls and Fast Boys to the same stage. Picture / “Happy Boys 2013”

But there is a premise for this business. What happened back then must be true. Mango can use a new show to rekindle the topic, but it cannot create old grudges, concerns and tacit understanding between them out of thin air. The audience is willing to pay for the reunion because they want to know whether the people who played together back then will still remember each other 20 years later? How will those people who have truly loved, hated, and been jealous of get along with each other today?

In this sense, the most valuable part of a super girl and a fast boy is the real relationship that time has accumulated for them. The platform can mine the mine over and over again, but cannot re-create the ore. The sincerity delivered by those young people back then has become the most difficult thing to copy today after 20 years.

（Zhao Xinwei is a pseudonym)

References:

[1] “Who is the most popular variety show on satellite TV in the first three quarters of this year?” Let the data speak”, Huxiu APP

[2] “Data Control | 2014 Television Industry Semi-Annual Report, Full Analysis of Big Data”, Entertainment Capital Theory

[3] “The Origin of “Sisters”: The Capital Ticket Behind “Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves””, Southern Weekend

[4] “Spin-off variety show breaks through, this “poorest” show is popular all over the Internet”, Variety News News

[5] “”I draw the ground as a prison, Li Na”, after the variety show left the circle, Mango Super Media hit the 20% limit”, Tencent Finance

[6] ” is a firecracker, and netizens are shouting: Send money to Xu Feilina”, Times Finance APP

[7] “Where is the path for Mango Super Media?” 》, Heike Finance

[8] “Super Girl is also the Goddess of Wealth, the secret of wealth behind “Super Girl””, Jiangnan Times

[9] “The Academy of Social Sciences released a blue book analyzing the Super Girl industry chain, with a valuation exceeding 2 billion”, China Youth Daily

[10] “The Academy of Social Sciences interprets the “Super Girl” industry chain: contributing at least billions of yuan”, CCTV

[11] “Sun Jun: The “Super Man” Behind the “Super Girl””, China Youth Daily

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