'High quality male' viral star charges followers R55k a month to join his fan group

A Chinese viral star has been booted off popular social media network Sina Weibo after reportedly charging followers thousands to join his exclusive fan group.

According to Global Times, Xu Genqin became internet famous a few months ago after he posted a video describing himself as a “high-quality male”.

The fame clearly went to his head, because it wasn't long before he started charging fans 25,000 yuan (R55,000) a month or 75,000 yuan (R166,000) a year to join his fan group.

The site later shut down the charging feature on his account and banned him, while investigating whether anyone had paid the fee. 

According to Tech Crunch, Facebook has a similar feature for fan subscriptions, which was launched in early 2018.

It allows creators to charge their fans $4.99 (R71) a month for access to exclusive content and a fan badge.

“Fan subscriptions allow dedicated fans to support your page by paying a fixed price every month for special benefits. You're able to customise the benefits your supporters receive, such as exclusive content, personal interactions and merchandise discounts,” Facebook said.

Twitter launched a similar service earlier this year.

“Super Follows is a way for people’s most engaged followers to help them earn money for their contributions on Twitter. When someone offers a Super Follows subscription, their super followers can see bonus tweets created especially for them.

"Super followers receive badges on all their replies to the person they’ve Super Followed, letting them stand out in the conversation,” Twitter explained.