Author: Pang Hongbo/Yuan Jiaqi

No matter what is right or wrong, the "rivalry" between Cao Yunjin and Guo Degang successfully overshadowed the hot topic of "baby divorce".

This afternoon, Cao Yunjin wrote a long article, "It's time to settle things." ”, the article was simultaneously released through Weibo, Toutiao, and WeChat, and attracted much attention from netizens as soon as it was published. In just a few hours, the number of retweeted comments exceeded 100,000, and the response was very enthusiastic. However, judging from the comments, there were mixed reviews. There were those who said "one day is a teacher, always a father", and there were also people who said "Guo Degang is careless and bullies others."

Relevant information reviewed in "Entertainment Unicorn" shows that Guo Degang and the "Deyun Society" behind him have huge commercial value.

According to relevant data, Deyunshe has three cultural communication companies under its umbrella, all of which are owned by Guo Degang’s current wife, Wang Hui. Wang Hui’s name has invested in six companies, including a biotechnology company and a catering management company. People can’t help but lament that Guo Degang is involved in a wide range of business fields. It can be said that Guo Degang has formed the Guo Degang industry chain.

In the opinion of industry insiders interviewed by "Entertainment Unicorn", the key point of the contradiction between Cao Yunjin and Guo Degang is: the contradiction between "modern corporate governance" and "feudal patriarchal system." "One is the rapid expansion of the commercial value of Guo Degang and Deyunshe behind him, and the other is the serious lag in corporate systems and management, which led to the outbreak of this conflict, which was sooner or later."

1All the turmoil came from “a contract”?

The restructuring of Deyun Society was the key to Cao Yunjin’s departure.

Crosstalk is one of the traditional Chinese folk art forms and has also been selected as an intangible cultural heritage. But as most people know, cross talk was not very profitable at first, and its income was very small. In the late 20th century, crosstalk masters led by Hou Baolin and Ma Sanli passed away one after another. Since then, the "age of masters" has declined, and the development of crosstalk has also entered a trough. It was not until 2005 that Guo Degang realized the second revival of cross talk with the help of emerging media such as online video websites.

Although cross talk has become popular again, Deyun Club still implements a traditional patriarchal management system. Whether it was the revival of cross talk in the era of "Internet celebrities" or the subsequent conflicts, Deyunshe was inevitably put on the stage of corporate restructuring. It is precisely because of the restructuring that, on the one hand, Deyun Society became popular, and on the other hand, Deyun Society was involved in the center of right and wrong.

From yesterday afternoon’s Weibo post, Cao Yunjin seemed to be slandering Guo Degang, but today he declared war “above and above board”.

This incident originated on August 31. Guo Degang posted the family tree of Deyunshe and posted it on the top of his blog: "What should be cleaned up, what should be driven out. The so-called cleaning up the family is to give an explanation to the good people. Wherever the sun and the moon shine, and where the rivers go, they are all based on loyalty and integrity. Leave your stage name and take away your face. I wish you a long journey. From now on, we will never have to meet again."

Behind the so-called cleaning up of the portal, netizens had already expected that there would be a fierce fight, but what they didn't expect was that it would come so quickly.

It is reported that Cao Yunjin's departure from Deyun Society first originated on Guo Degang's birthday on January 18, 2010, when Cao Yunjin borrowed wine and caused a scene. In August of the same year, another disciple of Guo Degang, Li Hebiao, had a conflict with a Beijing TV reporter over the issue of his villa occupying public green space, which pushed Guo Degang and the entire Deyun Club into the spotlight of entertainment.

When the situation slowed down a bit, Guo Degang decided to change the family system of Deyun Club into an enterprise system, which meant that he needed to sign a work contract with each apprentice. However, it is said that Cao Yunjin refused to sign the contract, so Deyun Club hid him and stopped all his performances. As soon as the incident broke out, Cao Yunjin once revealed that the contract was a "overlord contract" such as liquidated damages reaching 1 million, etc., but this was later denied by Guo Degang.

2Is Deyun Society, which is at its peak, insufficiently commercialized or commercialized too fast?

Judging from Guo Degang's behavior of publishing family trees and cleaning up the family, even today's Deyun Club still cannot completely abandon the old tradition. After all, crosstalk itself is an "old" art. As Guo Degang said, the number of people sitting in the audience is the same as that of 50,000 people, because the foundation of cross talk is still based on the skill of the mouth, and its core is the working model of a small workshop.

He Yunwei and Li Jing, who were also involved in the runaway scandal, once admitted in a talk show that Deyun Club had undergone too many changes before and after the "Deyun Club Incident", and the revival of cross talk seemed to have led to a "vicious cycle." Li Jing said frankly that cross talk itself is not a quick art, it requires long-term accumulation. In order to expand, Deyunshe needs people. But if there are too many people, we can't line up, so we need a venue. If the results are not good after people are hired, we need to continue to recruit people, which invisibly forms a vicious cycle.

Whether what Li Jing said is true or false, Deyunshe has indeed embarked on a path of corporate restructuring. Not only has it opened branches in many places, but in 2013, Deyunshe even opened a Melbourne branch in Australia. This is the first branch established overseas by a Chinese cross talk society. It is understood that Deyun Club’s annual income from resident performances is about 10 million yuan. In addition to income from resident performances, commercial performances or tours have become an important source of income for Deyun Club members. According to the official website of Deyun Society, Deyun Society held a total of 20 commercial performances or tours in 2015.

Guo Degang himself has also adopted a multi-development strategy from cross talk to hosting, making movies and TV series. Some people once predicted that Guo Degang's income will increase 10,000 times in the 20 years since his debut, becoming a famous cross talk actor with an appearance fee of 800,000 yuan and an annual income of 27.1 million yuan. Business Studies, School of Business Administration, Liaoning UniversityShao Jianbing, director of the institute, once said: "From a business perspective, the three characters 'Guo Degang' are not a person's name, but a brand and an intangible asset."

According to relevant data, there are three cultural communication companies under Deyunshe, all of which are owned by Guo Degang’s current wife Wang Hui. Wang Hui’s name is involved in six companies, including a biotechnology company and a catering management company. People can’t help but lament that Guo Degang is involved in a wide range of business fields. It can be said that Guo Degang has formed an industry chain for Guo Degang and even sells facial masks!

The entertainment unicorn discovered that although "Deyunshe" is developing rapidly, it only has two shareholders: one is Guo Degang's wife Wang Hui, and the other is Guo Degang's brother-in-law Wang Maoqin. So far, there has been no financing. It can be said that Guo Degang's "Deyun Society" has always been a family business that Guo Degang has the final say from beginning to end.

In addition to Guo Degang, Yue Yunpeng is also very popular now. Xiao Yueyue is also not limited to cross talk, but has also been involved in film and television works and variety reality shows. However, cross talk still follows the old tradition of apprenticeship and genealogy. When this kind of contradiction between the old and the new occurs when interests are uneven, conflicts can easily arise.

After the second season of "Happy Comedian" ended, Guo Degang accepted an interview with Caijing magazine. During the interview, Guo Degang was asked why he did not list Deyunshe. Guo Degang admitted that someone had asked him this question ten years ago. According to outside speculation, the important reason why Deyunshe is not listed is that it may be more detrimental to the group's control after it is listed.

After all, today’s market is a market that is gradually eliminating boundaries. Those who make movies can do variety shows, and those who sing can make movies. Behind all of this is the word profit. It can be said that cross talk has become one of the most popular "IPs" in recent years. However, once Deyun Club is listed, the gap between internal members will continue to widen, which may not be the most beneficial choice for the group. Guo Degang also admitted in an interview:

"Any crosstalk group, no matter how much commercial packaging, behind-the-scenes promoters, and IP operations you mentioned, it will not become a Deyun Club. Why has only Deyun Club been able to perform commercial performances for 2,000 people in 20 years? Because artistic things always account for two-thirds of the factor of artists."

Although many people believe that people from Deyun Club keep leaving because of insufficient commercialization and lack of a set of modern corporate management concepts. Some people have even analyzed that if Guo Degang chose to invest in or even control Cao Yunjin's studio at the beginning, giving him freedom and benefits, then the relationship between master and apprentice might not be so rigid, because from the current point of view, with the development of Deyun Club, the control of the team is the most important thing for "class leader" Guo Degang.

3 Cao Yunjin went solo against Guo Degang, and the ten-year feud finally turned against him

Cao Yunjin, whose original name is Cao Jin, reportedly studied cross talk with Guo Degang in 2002 and chose to pursue a solo career in 2010. In fact, Cao Yunjin was not the first disciple of Guo Degang to leave, but he wasThe first apprentice to set up his own business and compete with his master.

When he was in Deyun Society, Cao Yunjin was highly regarded by Guo Degang and was called one of the "Four Young Masters of Deyun Society". After going solo, Cao Yunjin established himself as an all-around artist. Cao Yunjin was nicknamed the "Daniel Wu" in the cross talk world. After his solo career, he also began his own multi-dimensional development. Make TV series, make movies, act in plays, and publish books. But the most important thing is that he opened Tingyunxuan and began to "grab business" with Deyun Club. And Cao Yunjin also established his own film and television studio in Shanghai.

After going solo, Cao Yunjin also became popular. Since 2012, he has appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for three consecutive years. However, it has been plagued by negative news. It was revealed that he was violent with people on the street and was fired for being a big star on the set. In the past two years, career development seems to have encountered a bottleneck. On the other hand, Guo Degang and Yue Yunpeng seem to have reached a new peak in their careers in the past two years.

As soon as the Guo Degang clean-up incident broke out, Cao Yunjin's reaction was quite quick. From the initial allusion to the current open battle, Cao Yunjin's long article was quickly published on Weibo, Toutiao, WeChat public accounts and other platforms. It can be said that he is very good at using self-media to build momentum for himself. Judging from Yue Yunpeng's victory in "Comedian" to Guo Degang teaming up with Yue Yunpeng again in the upcoming "Comedy Story", Cao Yunjin's popularity has indeed declined.

In fact, any company or group will face the dilemma of development and change from small to large. Especially for a very traditional art form like cross talk, it relies on new media to successfully revive and grow successfully. How to get rid of the traditional craftsman-training apprentice model and use a modern enterprise operation model to manage the commercialized cross talk industry is particularly important for traditional groups.

If we make a bold assumption, if the conflict between Cao Yunjin and Guo Degang can be resolved using Jack Ma's "Eighteen Arhats" partnership system, can it be avoided like today's "Cao Yunjin" feud?

After ten years of grievances and hatreds, in the end they only ended up with the words "The world is so big that we will never see each other again." And Guo Degang has not yet taken action to fight back. It seems that the biggest "rivalry" in the entertainment industry will be more fierce yet.