The manufacturer and the talent show organizers have effectively tied together 'contestant debut opportunities - product sales - fan voting', ultimately 'harvesting' the fans' wallets.

In recent years, talent shows have been booming, such as the grand annual 'Youth With You' and 'Produce Camp'... However, the editor has never been involved in the fan circle, always just an outsider. Today, I came across a video of dumping milk and was shocked to learn that voting in talent shows can be this wasteful... It's too exaggerated...

In simple terms, fans buy a specified milk to vote. They need to twist off the cap and scan the code inside to cast their vote. The problem is: what to do with the excess milk bought for voting?

Someone on Douyin revealed that their village got a job: dumping cartons of milk... dumping... When the camera panned, you could see a wall of milk waiting to be disposed of...

This... I've heard about it before... but it's the first time I've seen it... The scene is too shocking... I'm at a loss for words... It easily reminds me of the textbook image of capitalists pouring milk into the river. What is this... a repeat of historical events? Silver... Youth With You Mississippi River?

▼Video 29 seconds

This milk dumping incident is puzzling to outsiders not involved in fan circles. Many questions come to mind: Why dump it? Can't it be drunk or donated? Why is the voting code designed inside the cap?

To understand this, we must first understand the 'dǎ tóu' (fan voting) in fan circles. 'Dǎ tóu' refers to 'charting' + 'voting'. In current talent shows, the public votes, and the contestants with the highest votes can 'debut as a group'. If fans want to 'dǎ tóu' for their favorite contestant, they must buy the beverage brand associated with the show. The brand places the 'dǎ tóu' QR code on the cap, so fans must buy the drink and open the cap to get the vote.

Moreover, video site IDs have voting limits, but the milk ticket's support value has no limit. The more you buy, the higher the support value. So fan circles start buying the milk by the carton, and they even compete over whose idol has a taller 'milk wall'.

△Image from Weibo

One bottle of milk equals one vote. To ensure their favorite contestant 'debuts steadily', fans are really going all out.

By tying milk to voting, the milk dumping problem is somewhat 'unsolvable'.

Can't the bought milk be drunk? Answer: In many cases, it can't be drunk. It's said that due to the voting, the quantity bought each round is huge, and also because it tastes bad.

Why not donate it? The fact is—this milk with codes inside the caps can't be donated. Once you open the cap and scan the code, the opened milk can't be given to others.

Isn't SMS voting good? Like the old Super Girl days, isn't SMS voting good? Answer: SMS voting is easy to manipulate, and it's now banned.

Why tie voting to food? The logic of this buy-milk-to-vote model is that fans spend money on milk, not votes. Voting is a bonus for buying milk. It's also convenient for manipulating vote counts later.

Why not print on the outer packaging? The neighboring show 'Produce Camp' prints on the packaging. However, this design might be exploited, such as scanning the outer packaging and then returning the product.

Can it be made into cards placed in the box? It's possible, but...

...

Back to the point, the timing of this milk dumping video is not yet determined—whether it happened this year or was resurfaced from last year... According to the Douyin uploader, it's from a certain talent show this year. But some netizens question having seen similar videos last year... What? Last year too? Yes... Last year's talent show also had cap voting and milk dumping news... It even caught the attention of China Food Observation.

This year's show has improved with two voting methods: one is a milk card placed in the box. The other, same as last year, is printed inside the cap, requiring opening the bottle to scan and vote. The milk card type can be given away if you can't drink it all. But the cap type is problematic: once opened, it can't be stored for long, and there's no time for charity or anything—who would want to drink something already opened?

Moreover, the cap type is more cost-effective. Typically, a box with milk cards costs more and gives 10 votes, while a box with caps is cheaper and gives 20 votes. So, of course, people buy the more cost-effective one...

While everyone is still shocked by the video, netizens have started posting about the milk dumping phenomenon... The original poster later added pictures for everyone to see...

"......"

If it's not fake, this is really wasteful... What an outrageous act of 'discarding milk, keeping caps'... They could at least seal the cap with aluminum foil so it could be given away.

This 'tool milk' used for voting is said to taste bad, and the ingredient list shows it's a low-nutrition milk-flavored beverage... Although it tastes bad, dumping it directly is too wasteful and generates a lot of plastic!

Netizens who have participated in buy-milk-to-vote campaigns shared their experiences... Drinking two bottles a day, finishing a box in two days, freezing and then thawing to drink, forcing milk on colleagues every day... Various creative ways to deal with inventory, leaving everyone stunned...

It's crazy... With large-scale cap voting, if you can't drink it all, milk dumping is inevitable... Even! There's a 'drink on behalf' service... '2 years of milk drinking experience'—that resume is... well, at least it's not wasteful if someone drinks it...

Last year, fans drank milk desperately to vote for their contestants...

"Drank 4 bottles and had diarrhea in the afternoon."

"Felt like vomiting by the end."

"Spent my breakfast money on it; skipping a meal is okay, right?"

Really... you don't need to go this far for your idols... sigh.

What should be done about the milk dumping caused by cap voting?

Netizens' comments are hilarious, catching me off guard.

Talent show voting, really, don't use caps, and don't use milk... Perhaps sales have indeed increased, but this 'discarding milk, keeping caps' behavior is actually wasteful—wasting food, resources, and time...

Designing cap voting is also a lack of virtue. Many people in impoverished areas can't afford food or milk... and here you are dumping milk by the carton...

Just today, I saw the news about the Anti-Food Waste Law, and seeing this together is quite ironic...

Source: Shanghai Quan Zhidao

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