Screenshot of Liu Yuanjie during live streaming

 Liu Yuanjie is a live streamer who recently became popular on the Chinese internet in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Unlike most netizens, his rise to fame was due to an "accident" - netizens watching the live broadcast noticed that the background of his video was not live footage and began to have questions.

In order to respond to the questioning and prove that he was indeed doing live streaming in the great scenery of Xinjiang, Liu started looking for various ways to "interact" with the video background. He threw buckets and shoes into the river behind him, and also found friends and horses to prove that his video background was not a post-synthesis. What he didn't expect was that his actions would be remembered by netizens. Netizens then turned his slightly crazy actions into one meme after another, and Liu became an internet sensation.

Netizens' enthusiasm didn't stop there, on the night of July 25, Liu's live stream reached a cumulative total of more than 30 million viewers, just a month after his first live broadcast on the platform.

He recalled to the Beijing Daily that he first came to Xinjiang in the summer of 2020, when he found that the quality of local balsam pear is very good, but there were no sales. Liu wanted to try to increase his sales through live streaming.

In the initial ten days of his live stream, there was not a single transaction. However, a week later, a video Liu shot about the customs of Xinjiang suddenly went viral, leading to the sale of nearly 30 tons of balsam pear.

Looking at the cattle and sheep in groups, the grassland, the snowy peaks, the meadow at hand, and with his ability to open the sales of Xinjiang balsam pear, he felt that he was healed by Xinjiang, Liu said.

Liu, who was born in 1997, said he hopes to use his influence to further help the farmers in Xinjiang to sell their products. "Xinjiang is my second hometown." Liu said, according to the Beijing Daily.

Global Times