June 28, 2022, 11:12 AM
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Recently, an ex-TVB actress caused a bit of a stir after she reportedly charged a steep price for a five-minute one-on-one livestream chat.
According to HK01, a Hong Kong-based online news portal, Shirley Yueng (楊思琦), is one of several celebrities to have joined the livestream business via Douyin, China's version of TikTok.
At present, she has about 803,000 fans and 1,397,000 likes on the app.
"Pay-to-connect" feature
HK01 reported that some eagle-eyed users had noticed that the 43-year-old former TVB actress had turned on a "Pay-to-connect" feature for a livestream in late June.
Via Weibo
The users pointed out that Douyin does not have this feature set automatically, so it might have been manually activated by Yeung.
According to HK01, through clicking on the link, users could reportedly engage in a one-on-one livestream chat with Yeung, for a limited amount of time.
Via Weibo
However, users reportedly had to pay 8888 Douyin coins for a chat with Yeung. The chat duration was limited to five minutes. Users who apply to chat with Yeung had to share "reasons" for connecting with the host as well.
As the Douyin coin conversion rate is reportedly 1:7, this would mean that the five-minute conversation with Yeung would have cost fans approximately 1270 Chinese yuan (about S$263).
Amount priced too high?
In response, some users shared their dissatisfaction with how much Yeung was asking, adding that the amount for the personal chat was "far too high".
Others also said that Yeung was not even that well known, and shared that she was just a "passé Miss Hong Kong".
However, some users said that they felt Yeung's actions were "normal", and said that this could have been her way of avoiding a situation where too many fans randomly connected with her.
"If you don't want to spend the money, just don't join the personal chat, no one is forcing you".
In China, live streaming is a very lucrative business, and it is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Yeung is a former TVB actress, and acted in Hong Kong dramas such as "Angels of Mission" and "Always Ready".
She was the winner of the Miss Hong Kong Pageant in 2001.
Top images via Weibo and @szekikk Instagram
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