bioinnovel Chapter 40 A Stunning Reversal in Reputation
Chapter 40 A Stunning Reversal in Reputation
Just as Lu Ran had predicted, the online mockery intensified over the next half day.
Li Deyu even posted another Weibo post, showing photos of the celebration party held by the "Time Train" team, with the caption:
Thanks to the team for staying true to their original aspirations. I also hope that some of our peers can learn from this experience and work more diligently.
A wave of sarcastic remarks swept across Weibo.
Starlight Entertainment not only did not stop it, but a number of its middle and senior executives praised it, seemingly elevating this victory to the level of "Starlight surpassing Starlight".
Meanwhile, within Xingyao, some people who previously disliked a few individuals in short-term projects and were envious of their data began to make sarcastic remarks in private chats.
"This time, the short drama department has really embarrassed Xingyao."
"We, Xingyao and Xingguang, have always been at odds, and this time, they've become quite smug."
"If you ask me, it's all the fault of the short drama department. Why did they have to take on such a challenge? They should have just done their job."
"A bunch of people with connections, they're hopeless cases."
"I think Mr. Li has misjudged the situation this time."
The editorial staff, wearing plaid shirts, even casually shared an article titled "Data Speaks: Analyzing Why 'The Return of the God of War' Failed So Badly" in the department group chat.
At this moment, it seems that the pressure has fallen on the short drama department.
But they forgot what kind of people were in the short drama department.
They're either masters of slacking off or have connections.
The only thing that can put pressure on the short drama department is from the outside; nothing can come from within.
However, Director Li Mo still called, his tone relatively calm: "Lu Ran, I've seen the data. It's just one competition, don't take it too seriously. The short drama department was set up rather hastily, so achieving this result is already quite good. Just keep up the good work."
Li Mo didn't say much on the phone. Although Lu Ran could hear a hint of disappointment in his voice, he was mostly relieved.
Seeing that it was almost time, Lu Ran decided to take action.
In the afternoon, just as the criticism of "The Return of the God of War" reached a small climax, and some people even started to stir up trouble by "demanding that the Kuaishou and Douyin platforms re-examine the data of "The Return of the God of War" and suspecting that Xingyao had manipulated the data but had not done so," Lu Ran felt that the time was about right.
He logged into the official Weibo account of Xingyao Entertainment's short drama project department.
This account is usually managed by Sun Tianyu, and its number of followers has just exceeded 100,000. However, at this moment, the comments section is filled with all kinds of sarcasm and ridicule.
Lu Ran took a deep breath and flexed his fingers.
"Keyboard warriors, are you ready to shoot arrows in the opposite direction? We'll need you to put the force into it."
@Starry Entertainment Short Drama Project Department V:
"Thank you to all the friends who paid attention to and supported this short drama competition on Kuaishou and Douyin."
Although we came in second place in this competition, we made some interesting discoveries about the rankings that we'd like to share with you.
We firmly believe that the truth cannot be hidden.
The Weibo post was very brief, but it was accompanied by a nine-grid photo collage.
The first image shows the popularity growth curve of "Time Train".
In the final 72 hours, a nearly vertical straight line rose, with an extremely unreasonable growth rate in the last day, especially in the last few hours, forming a stark contrast with the smooth growth curve in the previous period.
The accompanying annotation shows the normal daily active user growth curve of the Kuaishou and Douyin platforms for comparison.
Actually, some people had already noticed the trickery in this data, but it was overturned by a large number of online trolls and fans who were unaware of the truth.
Lu Ran's sudden outburst immediately drew everyone's attention.
The second chart is a pie chart showing the distribution of viewing time among new "viewers" on the last day of "Time Train".
More than 65% of the viewing records lasted between 1 and 5 seconds.
Note: When a typical viewer clicks on a short drama, even if they close it immediately, the average viewing time will be greater than 10 seconds. More than 20% of the records show a duration of 5-10 seconds.
This data was summarized by Lu Ran through data crawling.
In such a short time, some fans with their own opinions have already realized what this means.
This is clearly data manipulation.
A normal fan, even if they don't like a show, will watch it for a few minutes before making a decision, less than 5 seconds, and might not even finish a sentence.
The third image is a heat map showing the geographical distribution of IP addresses for this section of "1-5 second viewing records".
The locations are densely packed and unusually concentrated in a few specific areas, some even being consecutive IP ranges.
A scatter plot of sampled IP distribution data from "God of War Returns" was attached for comparison, showing that the latter is widely and evenly distributed.
This further confirms the data manipulation behavior and corroborates the above.
The fourth image shows some duplicate account records. The same batch of accounts not only had a 1-second view record under "Time Train", but also had the exact same view duration and like pattern under several other short dramas participating on the platform.
The fifth chart shows an analysis of the activity times of these suspicious accounts. They are concentrated in the low traffic period from 2 AM to 5 AM, and their behavioral patterns are highly consistent.
The sixth picture...
...
The ninth image contains only one sentence: "All the above data was obtained through analysis using publicly available APIs. We welcome verification from any technical professionals. We have no intention of blaming anyone; we simply want to present the facts."
Lu Ran's Weibo post instantly reignited the discussion on Weibo.
At first, a few scattered online trolls came to copy and mock the comments.
But soon, netizens realized something was wrong.
The data listed in these charts looks so real!
Many experienced technicians began trying to retrieve data from "Time Train," and many viewers who were already skeptical left comments on Weibo, arguing with the online trolls.
Lu Ran did not define whether keyboard warriors could be considered heroes.
However, Lu Ran wholeheartedly approves of the keyboard warriors turning their guns on the enemy after this Weibo post.
"Holy crap! This data chart looks so professional!"
"One-second view? If the data is real, then it confirms that 'Time Train' is manipulating its viewership!"
"I knew it! I couldn't even watch 'Time Train' properly, so why were the numbers so high? Now I understand."
Shouldn't Kuaishou and Douyin (TikTok) come out and explain themselves?
"Where's Li Deduction? Wasn't he pretty arrogant just now? Why is he pretending to be mute now!"
Because the reversal came so quickly, Li's reasoning hadn't even had time to react.
One second, Li was singing celebratory songs with his colleagues at a karaoke bar, and the next he was being frantically tagged by people on Weibo.
"This is fake, this is impossible." Li Tingyu looked incredulous. His first priority was to log on and refute the rumors.
But anyone who's been in the industry knows that sometimes the more you try to refute a rumor, the more likely it is to be true.
Just as Li's article refuting the rumors was published, a player with the online name "The Matrix" also posted a Weibo post.
This Weibo post was analyzed from both a technical and data perspective, and the final conclusion was:
The Starry Sky data is completely accurate, but the Starlight data was all artificially inflated.
The article also concluded by expressing admiration for the person who extracted this data from Xingyao.
Lu Ran, who was far away in the Xingyao Short Drama Department, never expected that a piece of his web scraping data would actually give him another little fan.
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