Lao Fanqie: The Gamer Who Became Bilibili's First Ten-Million-Follower Creator

Lao Fanqie, whose real name is Zhang Qiushi, is a Chinese video creator, game commentator, and one of the most influential figures in the history of Bilibili, China's premier video-sharing platform for user-generated content. Born on August 13, 1997, in Inner Mongolia and raised in Shanghai, he is a graduate of Fudan University, where he earned a master's degree in finance after completing his undergraduate studies in the university's economics program. His academic achievements at Fudan were notable: he received a freshman scholarship, maintained a GPA of 3.94 during his junior year, and graduated in the top ten percent of his class, which secured him a recommendation for graduate study without the need for entrance examinations. Despite this conventional path of academic excellence, Lao Fanqie's true passion lay in video creation, a pursuit he began in middle school when he first explored the basic video editing software pre-installed on his family computer. What started as a classroom assignment evolved into a decade-long creative journey that would ultimately redefine what was possible for individual content creators on Bilibili.

Lao Fanqie's entry into Bilibili came in 2013, when he uploaded a Pokémon gameplay commentary video that rapidly climbed to the third position on the platform's daily viewership chart. At the time, he was still a high school student, and his parents had restricted his computer use to academic purposes only. Undeterred, he engaged in what he later described as "underground creation," producing videos in secret while maintaining his studies. By the time he entered university, he had already accumulated three to four hundred thousand followers on the platform. His channel's positioning has always been rooted in game commentary, but his creative output has expanded to encompass music, short films, and reality programming, reflecting a restless creative energy that refuses to be confined to a single genre. As of March 2026, his Bilibili channel has over twenty million followers, and his cumulative video views exceed 3.48 billion, making him one of the most-watched individual creators in the platform's history.

What distinguishes Lao Fanqie from other gaming creators is his distinctive approach to narrative construction and comedic timing. Rather than simply playing games and offering live commentary, he treats his videos as carefully scripted short films, often transforming open-world games such as Grand Theft Auto and Minecraft into structured comedic narratives with clear beginnings, developments, and resolutions. His editing style is fast-paced and densely layered, with rapid cuts, sound effects, and visual gags that reward attentive viewing. His voice-over delivery is similarly brisk, a characteristic that interviewers have noted extends even to his English speech, leading some commentators to joke that listening to him is like taking an English listening comprehension examination. The humor in his videos is often self-deprecating and absurdist, drawing on internet culture and gaming conventions while remaining accessible to viewers who may not be familiar with the specific games he features. This combination of technical polish, narrative ambition, and genuine comedic talent has created a viewing experience that feels more like watching a well-produced web series than a conventional gameplay video.

Several of Lao Fanqie's video series have achieved iconic status within Bilibili's gaming community. His "Shishang Zui Sao" series, which translates roughly to "The Most Ridiculous" or "The Most Outrageous," includes installments focused on games such as Hitman, Red Dead Redemption, and Batman, each featuring elaborate scenarios that showcase his characteristically irreverent approach to gameplay. The "Zhao Si Da's Fantasy Adventure" series and "Hardcore Black Uncle Fights Zombies," based on The Walking Dead, further demonstrate his ability to impose coherent narrative structures on disparate gaming experiences. One of his most celebrated works, "Six Rogues," released in October 2016, represents a departure from gameplay content into pure short-film territory, and it remains a landmark in his creative evolution. In 2018, he won the second season of Story Man, a competitive storytelling program on Bilibili, which confirmed his reputation as not merely a gamer but a genuine entertainer and narrative talent. His 2020 reality show "Happy Brothers," co-starring several other prominent Bilibili creators, extended his reach beyond gaming into mainstream entertainment.

The platform impact of Lao Fanqie is difficult to overstate. In April 2020, he became the first individual creator in Bilibili's history to surpass ten million followers, a milestone that was widely reported in Chinese media, including by People's Daily and China Youth Daily. He has been named to Bilibili's Top 100 UP Creators list for eight consecutive years, from 2018 through 2025, a distinction shared by only a handful of creators. His total view count of over 3.48 billion places him among the platform's most-watched accounts, and his follower count of more than twenty million as of early 2026 continues to grow steadily. Beyond these quantitative measures, he has received the platform's Highest Popularity Award and has been recognized for his commercial influence, reflecting his ability to translate creative success into sustainable professional practice. In 2021, he was selected as a lead instructor for the "Youth Great Learning" online ideological education program, a role typically reserved for figures of significant cultural standing, and in 2026 he was appointed as the Chief Content Co-Creation Officer for the 48th World Skills Competition, further demonstrating his crossover appeal into institutional and educational contexts.

The broader social value of Lao Fanqie's work lies in his demonstration that gaming content can be intellectually substantial and creatively ambitious. By combining rigorous academic achievement at one of China's most prestigious universities with a full-time career as a video creator, he has challenged the persistent stereotype that gaming and internet content creation are incompatible with serious intellectual pursuits. His videos are not merely entertainment products but constructed narratives that display a sophisticated understanding of storytelling, pacing, and audience engagement. For young viewers who aspire to creative careers, he represents a model of professionalization that does not require abandoning intellectual curiosity or academic discipline. At the same time, his sustained success over more than a decade reflects the maturation of Bilibili's creator ecosystem, in which individual talents can build durable careers and evolve their craft over time. His journey from a middle school student secretly editing videos on a family computer to the platform's first ten-million-follower creator is a testament to both his personal dedication and the cultural shift that has made gaming content a legitimate and respected form of creative expression in contemporary China.

In summary, Lao Fanqie occupies a unique position in the landscape of Chinese digital culture. He is simultaneously a product of and a catalyst for the transformation of Bilibili from a niche anime-focused community into a broad-based entertainment and knowledge platform. His creative evolution, from Pokémon commentary to scripted comedic short films, mirrors the platform's own expansion and diversification. His academic credentials, far from being incidental to his success, inform the discipline and narrative intelligence that distinguish his best work. For English-speaking readers who may be unfamiliar with Bilibili, Lao Fanqie offers a compelling entry point into understanding how gaming content, internet culture, and youth identity intersect in the Chinese digital sphere. His enduring significance lies not only in the millions of followers he has attracted but in the standard of creative excellence he has set for a generation of content creators who see in his work the possibility of building something both personally meaningful and widely resonant.