Fame academy, the Chinese college offering classes in how to become an internet celebrity
Students offered training to become live-streaming stars
A college in southwest China has opened an “internet celebrity” programme for students who want to be live-streaming stars.
Chongqing Institute of Engineering has already enrolled 19 students, mainly female, to be taught about how to present themselves online to attract viewers and translate fame into profit, Beijing Youth Daily reported.
“[We will teach] for example how to ask for gifts, how to create a viral topic, how to manage the fans’ minds,” an official of the programme was quoted as saying.
“We want to train the students into both skillful performers and persuasive online marketing and sales persons.”
The courses in the three-month long programme include psychology, character-building, hairstyling and dressing, posture, performance, app usage and live streaming skills. It started this week.
The students in the programme volunteered to participate, and were selected after tests to measure their body shape, facial appearance, expressiveness and other skills, a teacher surnamed Zhang told the newspaper.
The first batch of students largely consists of fourth-year students from e-commerce and marketing courses.
As it continues the programme will also be open to public.
“After graduation we could be signed by companies to become internet celebrities,” one of the students, Li Shan was quoted as saying.
“I feel good. If I can do well in the course I will benefit a lot and become famous.”
