These past few days, my WeChat Moments feed has been flooded again. The story that went viral was written by a young man named Niko, titled “Youth Shall Not Be Bullied,” calling out Youku and Momo. The gist is that Niko and a few friends planned an event to “photograph the Earth from a weather balloon” — and they pulled it off. Afterward, an editor surnamed Wang from Youku contacted Niko to discuss a collaboration. After learning the full details of the kids’ planning and execution, this editor shelved the shoot under various pretexts, then went ahead and had someone else produce a creative short film based on the same concept.
Niko provided emails, audio recordings, and video evidence to support his accusations. The story largely checks out with Niko’s account. The article has been shared over 100,000 times, sparking a massive wave of public outrage against Youku and Momo.
Judging the matter on its own merits, the editor surnamed Wang at Youku deserves condemnation. Using “collaboration” as a pretext, he gained the kids’ trust, extracted key information, then kicked them to the curb. Sound familiar? You may have encountered variations of this playbook: a company planning a redesign invites several design agencies to bid, listens to all their creative pitches, then cancels the bidding process under various excuses — only to base their redesign on those agencies’ proposals. Or a VC invests in one product, then meets with several of its competitors, extracts their strategies, and feeds them to the team they’ve already funded…
Behind all of this lies a single mentality: stealing ideas doesn’t count as stealing — it’s not even a thing. I’ve been through this a few times myself. I wanted to build a product, and the other party also wanted to build something similar. They claimed they wanted to bring me on board, talked with me extensively to understand my ideas, then booted me out with the excuse that I wasn’t a good fit for their team. The resulting product was riddled with my original ideas. Fortunately, it ended up being lukewarm — otherwise I might have stepped forward to brag about it and gotten my fifteen minutes of fame too.
I can’t guarantee that “The Kids Who Chased Balloons” isn’t a publicity stunt. In an internet awash with manufactured controversies, any topic inevitably carries a whiff of hype. Niko clearly came out of this incident with substantial gains — perhaps even more exposure than a smooth collaboration with Youku would have brought. After all, people who sympathize with the underdog and consider themselves righteous still make up the majority. As for Momo, who appeared to be an innocent bystander, they too seem to have benefited enormously — without spending a dime, they got another massive wave of shares and comments (exposure), and even harvested sympathy through their PR response. Youku, sitting at the center of the storm, could have also come out as a winner if they’d handled things properly — but alas… well.
As for the truth of the matter, outsiders can only speculate. Only those directly involved will ever truly know.