General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Produce Camp 2021 (创造营2021)

Produce Camp 2021 (创造营2021), also known as CHUANG 2021 or Chuang 4 (创4), was a Chinese boy group survival show produced by Tencent Video, the fourth season of the Chuang (创造营) series. It was billed as an international youth cultural exchange boy group growth variety show and gathered 90 male trainees from different countries, agencies, and schools, from whom viewers voted an 11-member international boy group, INTO1.¹^•² The show premiered on 17 February 2021 and ended with its debut night on 24 April 2021.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	International youth cultural exchange boy group growth variety show, produced by Tencent Video¹
Run	Premiered 17 February 2021; finale 24 April 2021; 10 episodes, Saturdays at 20:00, each about 300 minutes in two parts¹
Trainees	90 trainees, including 23 foreign trainees from Japan, Russia, Thailand, the US, and Ukraine³
Result	11 members debuted as INTO1; Liu Yu took first place and the center position⁴
Mentor lineup	Deng Chao (initiator team leader), Ning Jing (founder representative), Zhou Shen, Amber Liu Yiyun, Zhou Zhennan, and Zheng Naixin as international trainee assistant⁵
Slogan	"世界那么大，我们一起闯" ("The world is so big, let's venture together")¹
Viewership	Positive-film total plays exceeded 3 billion; the Douban discussion group exceeded 187,000 members⁶

Spoilers

Finale and INTO1

The debut night on 24 April 2021 was held at Haikuo Island (海花岛) and hosted by He Jiong, with Jackson Wang (Wang Jiaer) as debut witness and the senior Chuang groups R1SE and BonBon Girls 303 performing. Twenty-five finalists competed for the eleven debut slots.¹⁵ The final ranking placed Liu Yu first, debuting at the center position, followed by Zando (赞多), Rikimaru (力丸), Mika, Gao Qingchen (Nine), Lin Mo, Bo Yuan, Zhang Jiayuan, Yin Haoyu (Patrick), Zhou Keyu, and Liu Zhang (AK).⁴ The group name INTO1 was explained as meaning an international group born in the new internet era, and as eleven members fusing into one whole to surpass themselves and become No.1; the Weibo topic "INTO1" reached 530 million reads by 14:30 the next day.⁴

INTO1 was a 24-month limited group. At the group's debut press conference on 16 July 2021, 84 days after the show ended, chief group operations officer and Wajijiwa president Long Danni announced the "INTO1'S WONDERLAND" plan, and the group released its first album Storm Eye (风暴眼), whose presales passed 100,000 copies within an hour of opening and 200,000 copies within 24 hours.⁹ On debut night INTO1 was also announced as brand ambassador for Chuncen (纯甄), with further endorsement deals planned with more than 20 brands including L'Oréal Paris, Clarins, and Perfect Diary.¹⁵

Format and rules

The show kept the 101-series survival structure of performances, rankings, and eliminations, but changed several elements for its fourth season. The debut slots returned to 11, a number announced only partway through the initial stage evaluations, and the initial evaluation was decided jointly by the mentors and the trainees themselves, each of whom held a vote on every other trainee's first stage.⁵ The visual style used 8-bit pixel game imagery, and the first episodes covered the initial grading of the 90 trainees.⁵^•⁷

International casting. The defining change was the decision to build an international group. Trainees were selected from 500 domestic agencies, 52 Japanese companies, and 10 Thai companies, and the rules from the outset defined the group as one with international members.⁸ Of the 90 trainees, 23 were foreign nationals from Japan, Russia, Thailand, the US, and Ukraine.³ Producer Duo Xiaomeng, head of Tencent Video's NOVA studio, described the season as a kind of social experiment that brought together 90 young people of different backgrounds and personalities for the public to watch, collide, and grow, before choosing the most representative individuals.⁹

Language difference became a central feature of the program. At the first recording the production team provided simultaneous interpretation in Chinese, Japanese, English, Russian, and Thai.¹⁰ For overseas distribution on WeTV, the production worked with Tencent's broadcast technology and AI teams on real-time multilingual translation and released the program in English, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Indonesian.¹¹

Production background

The Chuang series had run for four years, and by 2021 several similar programs were scheduled, raising industry questions about whether the format's talent pool and model had grown stale. Producer Duo Xiaomeng said the team needed a differentiated new face for the genre, and chose internationalization as the entry point, a first for the series.¹² Director Sun Li, founder and CEO of the production company Haofeng Qingyun, said that both audiences and makers had entered a fatigued stage and that the international version arose from the industry's need for a breakthrough; she noted young people's interest in guochao (Chinese national-trend culture) and the popularity of foreign creators' reaction videos on short-video platforms.³ The stated goal was to create an international boy group formed of Chinese and foreign trainees, born in China, to carry Chinese culture to young people in other countries.¹²

The mentor lineup mixed actors and idols: Deng Chao was named initiator team leader, followed by founder representative Ning Jing, initiator team members Zhou Shen, Amber Liu Yiyun, and R1SE's Zhou Zhennan, and Zheng Naixin of BonBon Girls 303 as assistant to the international trainees. After the lineup was announced, the hashtag CHUANG2021xNene reached first on Thai trends and fourth in worldwide trends.⁵

Broadcast and reception

The show aired weekly on Tencent Video from 17 February 2021, with double updates on Wednesday and Saturday in the first week.¹ Early episodes drew mixed reviews, with some viewers mocking the first stages as an "international exchange assembly" or comedy show, but the program's reputation shifted within its first episodes as distinctive trainee personalities emerged.⁵ By the finale, the show's positive-film plays had exceeded 3 billion and its Douban discussion group had more than 187,000 members.⁶ According to a summary of first-quarter 2021 web variety by the media outlet 传媒1号, the show led the quarter in both heat and viewership.¹³

The program also generated crossover internet memes beyond the idol audience, including Deng Chao's phrase "世界的参差" (the world's disparity), Han Peiquan's persona "Han Meijuan", and the Russian trainee Lelush's stated wish to "get off work" and be eliminated.⁶ Kuaishou announced an exclusive short-video partnership when the show premiered, with all trainees joining the platform; after the finale Kuaishou signed INTO1 as its "youth creation officers", and non-debuting trainee Han Peiquan (Han Meijuan) grew past 12.08 million followers on the platform.¹⁴

Significance

Produce Camp 2021 produced the first international boy group formed through a Chinese idol survival program, described by its makers as the first international boy group "created in China".¹⁵^•¹⁶ The Thai trainees Nine and Patrick debuted in the final lineup, and their debut was covered in Thai media.¹⁷ Commentators framed the season as an attempt to break the fatigue of the domestic idol-selection format by widening the talent pool and the audience: popular clips drew substantial overseas viewership on YouTube, with large numbers of non-Chinese comments under them.¹⁸ Fan media later described INTO1 as China's last idol-survival boy group.¹⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026