The director of Happy Camp responds to comments that nowadays, whoever is popular goes on the program (rather than in previous years, in which Happy Camp could make people popular).

During an interview, Gan Yi, the director of Happy Camp, responded to the debate brought upon by comments along the lines of "Nowadays, whoever is popular gets to go on Happy Camp. In the past, whoever went on Happy Camp got popular." He said that the root cause of this change is that nowadays, the Internet has the greatest ability to create exposure. Popularity first begins to spread through Weibo. For a weekly variety show, no matter how quickly you work to produce it, you still require at least a week for it to air. 

For the episode with the two leads from Word of Honor, there was only a gap of a week between recording and broadcast. In fact, the appearance was scheduled just after Word of Honor had broadcast its second episode. But indeed, they cannot beat the speed with which things happen on the Internet. 

Netizens reacted with the following comments: 

1. Although...it's indeed true that whoever is popular gets to go on the show. [+109220]

Response: If you're not popular and you go on the show, you won't have screen time anyway 🙏[+34073]

Response: Li Yifeng and William Chan once were the background behind Park Yoochun. The hosts will continuously speak to those who are popular. If you're not popular, they pretty much won't pay attention to you. [+22880]

Response: This industry is indeed like this. It's not just variety shows. During press conference activities, when the interviewers ask questions, they also won't ask those who are not popular. They will only ask the leads.  [+17720]

2. So would you rather they find some obsolete people and have them on the show? No one would watch then [+82794]

Response: Yup. Originally, it's been the case that whoever is popular goes on variety shows. It's difficult to pay a subsidy and invite people no one knows on the show as charity work. [+19604]

3. It's indeed the case that whoever's popular goes on the show. It's also the case that the hosts on the show play along with whoever's popular  [+40782]

4. Nowadays, it's not just that whoever's popular gets to go on the show. Would you be willing to watch if some people you didn't know came on the show?  [+19608]

Source