Picture source @Visual China
Text | Diving Fish x, author | He Runxuan
Audiences are increasingly emphasizing their own subjectivity, although this subjectivity is a collective identity rather than personal empowerment. In this collective confrontation, domestic dramas are reduced to others. Whether they are given the identity of epileptic dramas or are unsafe settings ready to explode, it all points to the audience treating themselves as the subject of power.
For domestic dramas, the past year has undoubtedly been a key node in improving quality and reducing production . According to data from
Lighthouse, the number of effective drama series in the online drama market in 2023 was 294, a decrease of 10.6% compared with last year. However, the total playback index of major feature films reached 38.612 million, bucking the trend and increasing by 7.7%. The broadcast volume of drama series in the seven months of the year exceeded that of the same period last year, and the distribution of top drama projects was more even. The summer vacation hit a new high in the past three years.
But at the same time, 2023 is also the first year of domestic dramas . Although people have never had high hopes in this category, in the name of epilepsy, this is the first time. Why is
epilepsy? At first, some of the plots may be really crazy and irrational, but as the name of epileptic drama has been abused, the characters are not relevant, the direction is unsatisfactory, and the plot is not realistic enough. As long as the audience is not satisfied with the drama, it can be put into it. this box.
In this first year, we have also seen gender differentiation: there are many so-called female protagonists in the market, but those with high reputations are very rare. 2024 has also become the recognized year of the rise of male videos . The anti-love mentality has become the mainstream consensus, but when this big stick is knocked down, it does not really wake up women, but it knocks out a lot of male videos.
As the most star-making hotbed in the past, in the field of drama series, what we can see with the naked eye is that those celebrities who are ready to explode and are almost ready to explode are just a breath away and never explode. It is said that heroes make Zhu Zi famous, but in the field of domestic dramas, the situation is upside down: newcomers are not accepted, and only 85 flowers can return to the top.
In the past year, domestic dramas have certainly evolved, but this evolution is not linear, but spiraling in a tearing way. In the following, I will use several sets of contrasting buzzwords to present this "centrifugal" growth and show what kind of picture domestic dramas have played in popular culture in the past year.
Epileptic drama vs fear
Although the word "epileptic drama" is a new product only in 2023, its predecessor may be traced back to "Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan" . As an early domestic drama that became popular on short videos, it became famous because of the heroine’s love-mindedness. She gave up her good life to marry a Phoenix man. Not only did she stay in the poor house for eighteen years, but she was eventually forced to live in the house. Princess Ying.
Wang Baochuan, as the negative representative of the love brain, usually appears in short videos and various screenshots with a ragged image, with a miserable mental outlook, which accumulates into a negative icon through constant reading by the audience. Netizens may not have seen this drama, but they have a deep memory of her digging wild vegetables. This impression is the 1.0 version of "epileptic drama": the incomprehensible protagonist and the unreasonable behavioral motivations and psychological state behind it.
What really brought epilepsy drama into a more public discussion area was "One Thought of Guanshan" and "The Boy Who Sings the Dragon" at the end of last year. The emergence of these two dramas has brought new additions to the definition of epileptic drama: not only the protagonist is epileptic, but the plot direction and character relationships of the entire drama have exceeded a certain psychological paradigm expected by the audience, so it is called "high-level drama". "Open the Epilepsy" is version 2.0 of Epilepsy Drama.
"One Thought of Guanshan"
Taking "One Thought of Guanshan" as an example, the female assassin played by Liu Shishi had a good audience base at the beginning. Everyone also agreed that her view of love is a modern one of "removing the father and leaving the son". Unexpectedly, after falling in love, The plot takes a huge turn, with the male protagonist at the center of everything, and in the end he simply dies for love. As for the small team, they were also uncharacteristically wiped out after showing off their character highlights, leaving a stunned audience. There is no fixed paradigm for artistic creation, but in an era where the audience has actually occupied the high ground of public opinion, if their expectations are not met at all times, the outcome will obviously be called a lunatic drama.
This "dissatisfaction" is also reflected in the second half of "The Boy Who Calls the Dragon". As a realistic romantic theme, the audience has already accepted that this is an experimental educational drama, but in the end the style In a twist, five people came up with three pairs of CPs, and it ended in a bloody love drama. Back then, Long Hai Jobs transformed into a classic middle-aged man who only wanted to have more children, which made people wonder whether this was just the same thing.
Netizens' discussion about "The Young Man Who Calls the Dragon"
It may be difficult for the main creator to accept that his work is called an epileptic drama, but in fact, works that are often called epileptic dramas still have something to be said about , such as The recently hit "Sword of Immortal" IV and VI are not included in the discussion at all. Therefore, the second round of epileptic drama controversy is essentially a battle for the right to interpret and define the work.
However, as the term "epileptic drama" became popular, it gradually evolved into a big colander. Any domestic drama poured into it can sift out some of the epileptic flavor. The summer entertainment drama "My World's Fireworks" is an epileptic drama. After all, the rich daughter only loves white porridge and the character is too insane. " Sauvignon Blanc " is also an epileptic drama because Xiaoyao seems to be a different person after leaving Qingshui Town. , not involved in production, just green tea back and forth between Tu Shanjing and Xiang Liu; "Ning'an Like a Dream" is even more insane. After all, the soul-destroying camera movement and the lead actor's erratic acting skills make it difficult not to make people feel It's like having a dream, and I'm not very impressed when I wake up.
Just like the madwoman in the attic, epileptic drama has evolved to this day. To some extent, it is also an artificial landscape intentionally created by the audience. How can it be done by putting it in the transparent glass attic of a domestic drama as a spectacle to make people laugh and vent their anger? It is said that this is not a kind of post-human epilepsy. Foucault has long said that madness is not a natural phenomenon, but a product of civilization. The current epileptic drama at that time was the collective product of this generation of viewers.. The mirror of
is . When the concept of epileptic drama is in hand, everyone can use this big stick to hit any drama, and the creators are naturally afraid of the public. There is also fear in the film industry, even more serious.
Last year's "Fengshen" is a classic case that has been repeatedly reversed in the field of public opinion. After the initial announcement of the final release trailer, due to the slippage of Huang Bo, Chen Kun and others, the change in the shape of the nine-tailed fox was ridiculed. "Feng Shen" was also classified as one of the previous low-quality fantasy films. List. The turning point occurred after the first round of screenings. Low expectations gave "Fengshen" room to rebound. A series of jokes such as "Fengshen Proton Group" and "Business Yin Yu" quickly swept ordinary people. However, towards the end of the film's release, Wu Ershan and Naran were involved in ethnic issues again, and new information about Chen Muchi's personal life continued to emerge. "Feng Shen" has already transformed from a movie into a free "nanny" in the field of public opinion. Wu Ershan himself also went through three stages of not understanding public opinion, speaking arbitrarily, and finally becoming silent, completing the closed loop of fearing public opinion.
Another film that is also on the verge of death in the public opinion field is " Azolla " at the beginning of 2023. The first half of its public opinion was dominated by literary and artistic discussions, and even the discussion of female aesthetics has not yet turned into a head-on attack. However, with the demise of many big Vs, "Man Jiang Hong" completely lost its literary and artistic identity and became another popular "nanny" . Zhang Yimou's own interviews have also been reduced to ghost material. If these two movies take place in Q4 2023, I am afraid that the concept of epileptic drama will evolve again and become epileptic film, realizing the epileptic film and television industry.
What needs to be clearly pointed out is that literary and artistic criticism is necessary, but using a universally applicable epileptic framework and smoothly applying it to all literary and artistic content is a kind of metaphysical "suspended" - no matter what Any short video you post can be paired with "suspended". Before the concept of epilepsy appeared, all kinds of problems in domestic dramas could be arranged one by one, but after it, everything returned to epilepsy. When the evaluator uses a "minimalist" language to summarize, it also puts the evaluee into a more chaotic situation. For the industry and creation, this is more like a kind of hot violence.
"Big Heroine" vs. Return of the Male Channel
In the past year, there have been many big heroine dramas on the market, but the real feminism content is still questionable.
Picture source @Visual China
Text | Diving Fish x, author | He Runxuan
Audiences are increasingly emphasizing their own subjectivity, although this subjectivity is a collective identity rather than personal empowerment. In this collective confrontation, domestic dramas are reduced to others. Whether they are given the identity of epileptic dramas or are unsafe settings ready to explode, it all points to the audience treating themselves as the subject of power.
For domestic dramas, the past year has undoubtedly been a key node in improving quality and reducing production . According to data from
Lighthouse, the number of effective drama series in the online drama market in 2023 was 294, a decrease of 10.6% compared with last year. However, the total playback index of major feature films reached 38.612 million, bucking the trend and increasing by 7.7%. The broadcast volume of drama series in the seven months of the year exceeded that of the same period last year, and the distribution of top drama projects was more even. The summer vacation hit a new high in the past three years.
But at the same time, 2023 is also the first year of domestic dramas . Although people have never had high hopes in this category, in the name of epilepsy, this is the first time. Why is
epilepsy? At first, some of the plots may be really crazy and irrational, but as the name of epileptic drama has been abused, the characters are not relevant, the direction is unsatisfactory, and the plot is not realistic enough. As long as the audience is not satisfied with the drama, it can be put into it. this box.
In this first year, we have also seen gender differentiation: there are many so-called female protagonists in the market, but those with high reputations are very rare. 2024 has also become the recognized year of the rise of male videos . The anti-love mentality has become the mainstream consensus, but when this big stick is knocked down, it does not really wake up women, but it knocks out a lot of male videos.
As the most star-making hotbed in the past, in the field of drama series, what we can see with the naked eye is that those celebrities who are ready to explode and are almost ready to explode are just a breath away and never explode. It is said that heroes make Zhu Zi famous, but in the field of domestic dramas, the situation is upside down: newcomers are not accepted, and only 85 flowers can return to the top.
In the past year, domestic dramas have certainly evolved, but this evolution is not linear, but spiraling in a tearing way. In the following, I will use several sets of contrasting buzzwords to present this "centrifugal" growth and show what kind of picture domestic dramas have played in popular culture in the past year.
Epileptic drama vs fear
Although the word "epileptic drama" is a new product only in 2023, its predecessor may be traced back to "Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan" . As an early domestic drama that became popular on short videos, it became famous because of the heroine’s love-mindedness. She gave up her good life to marry a Phoenix man. Not only did she stay in the poor house for eighteen years, but she was eventually forced to live in the house. Princess Ying.
Wang Baochuan, as the negative representative of the love brain, usually appears in short videos and various screenshots with a ragged image, with a miserable mental outlook, which accumulates into a negative icon through constant reading by the audience. Netizens may not have seen this drama, but they have a deep memory of her digging wild vegetables. This impression is the 1.0 version of "epileptic drama": the incomprehensible protagonist and the unreasonable behavioral motivations and psychological state behind it.
What really brought epilepsy drama into a more public discussion area was "One Thought of Guanshan" and "The Boy Who Sings the Dragon" at the end of last year. The emergence of these two dramas has brought new additions to the definition of epileptic drama: not only the protagonist is epileptic, but the plot direction and character relationships of the entire drama have exceeded a certain psychological paradigm expected by the audience, so it is called "high-level drama". "Open the Epilepsy" is version 2.0 of Epilepsy Drama.
"One Thought of Guanshan"
Taking "One Thought of Guanshan" as an example, the female assassin played by Liu Shishi had a good audience base at the beginning. Everyone also agreed that her view of love is a modern one of "removing the father and leaving the son". Unexpectedly, after falling in love, The plot takes a huge turn, with the male protagonist at the center of everything, and in the end he simply dies for love. As for the small team, they were also uncharacteristically wiped out after showing off their character highlights, leaving a stunned audience. There is no fixed paradigm for artistic creation, but in an era where the audience has actually occupied the high ground of public opinion, if their expectations are not met at all times, the outcome will obviously be called a lunatic drama.
This "dissatisfaction" is also reflected in the second half of "The Boy Who Calls the Dragon". As a realistic romantic theme, the audience has already accepted that this is an experimental educational drama, but in the end the style In a twist, five people came up with three pairs of CPs, and it ended in a bloody love drama. Back then, Long Hai Jobs transformed into a classic middle-aged man who only wanted to have more children, which made people wonder whether this was just the same thing.
Netizens' discussion about "The Young Man Who Calls the Dragon"
It may be difficult for the main creator to accept that his work is called an epileptic drama, but in fact, works that are often called epileptic dramas still have something to be said about , such as The recently hit "Sword of Immortal" IV and VI are not included in the discussion at all. Therefore, the second round of epileptic drama controversy is essentially a battle for the right to interpret and define the work.
However, as the term "epileptic drama" became popular, it gradually evolved into a big colander. Any domestic drama poured into it can sift out some of the epileptic flavor. The summer entertainment drama "My World's Fireworks" is an epileptic drama. After all, the rich daughter only loves white porridge and the character is too insane. " Sauvignon Blanc " is also an epileptic drama because Xiaoyao seems to be a different person after leaving Qingshui Town. , not involved in production, just green tea back and forth between Tu Shanjing and Xiang Liu; "Ning'an Like a Dream" is even more insane. After all, the soul-destroying camera movement and the lead actor's erratic acting skills make it difficult not to make people feel It's like having a dream, and I'm not very impressed when I wake up.
Just like the madwoman in the attic, epileptic drama has evolved to this day. To some extent, it is also an artificial landscape intentionally created by the audience. How can it be done by putting it in the transparent glass attic of a domestic drama as a spectacle to make people laugh and vent their anger? It is said that this is not a kind of post-human epilepsy. Foucault has long said that madness is not a natural phenomenon, but a product of civilization. The current epileptic drama at that time was the collective product of this generation of viewers.. The mirror of
is . When the concept of epileptic drama is in hand, everyone can use this big stick to hit any drama, and the creators are naturally afraid of the public. There is also fear in the film industry, even more serious.
Last year's "Fengshen" is a classic case that has been repeatedly reversed in the field of public opinion. After the initial announcement of the final release trailer, due to the slippage of Huang Bo, Chen Kun and others, the change in the shape of the nine-tailed fox was ridiculed. "Feng Shen" was also classified as one of the previous low-quality fantasy films. List. The turning point occurred after the first round of screenings. Low expectations gave "Fengshen" room to rebound. A series of jokes such as "Fengshen Proton Group" and "Business Yin Yu" quickly swept ordinary people. However, towards the end of the film's release, Wu Ershan and Naran were involved in ethnic issues again, and new information about Chen Muchi's personal life continued to emerge. "Feng Shen" has already transformed from a movie into a free "nanny" in the field of public opinion. Wu Ershan himself also went through three stages of not understanding public opinion, speaking arbitrarily, and finally becoming silent, completing the closed loop of fearing public opinion.
Another film that is also on the verge of death in the public opinion field is " Azolla " at the beginning of 2023. The first half of its public opinion was dominated by literary and artistic discussions, and even the discussion of female aesthetics has not yet turned into a head-on attack. However, with the demise of many big Vs, "Man Jiang Hong" completely lost its literary and artistic identity and became another popular "nanny" . Zhang Yimou's own interviews have also been reduced to ghost material. If these two movies take place in Q4 2023, I am afraid that the concept of epileptic drama will evolve again and become epileptic film, realizing the epileptic film and television industry.
What needs to be clearly pointed out is that literary and artistic criticism is necessary, but using a universally applicable epileptic framework and smoothly applying it to all literary and artistic content is a kind of metaphysical "suspended" - no matter what Any short video you post can be paired with "suspended". Before the concept of epilepsy appeared, all kinds of problems in domestic dramas could be arranged one by one, but after it, everything returned to epilepsy. When the evaluator uses a "minimalist" language to summarize, it also puts the evaluee into a more chaotic situation. For the industry and creation, this is more like a kind of hot violence.
"Big Heroine" vs. Return of the Male Channel
In the past year, there have been many big heroine dramas on the market, but the real feminism content is still questionable.During the summer vacation, the concept of "male competition" became popular for a while. It mainly refers to a woman and a man, and each man is trying his best to show off his strength. The reason is probably that "Sauvignon Blanc" collided with "Fengshen". A group of men sang and danced in front of the female audience, which made everyone feel like "I can see that you are very interested in me", but after thinking about it again, "Xiong Jing" "It just stays in various road shows, and the essence is still a variation of Mary Sue.
"Good Things Come in Twos" and "A Lady's Dignity" are all representatives of this type of pseudo-heroine. On the surface, the heroines are all facing difficulties in life, but their dilemma is still marriage and childbirth. The real solution to the problem is not Still rely on men to help.
On the other side, the male videos that were once discarded have made a comeback as . According to public statistics, there are at least 10+ major male channel IP reserve projects in 2024, 8 of which have been finalized. 60% of the top 5 on Tencent’s video expectations list are male channel IPs. Among them, the second season of " Celebrating More Than Years " ranked first on the TV series expectations list, with more than 10 million reservations (see ➡️Male Channel Returns to High Moment).
Many years ago, "Martial Arts" and "Jiang Ye" were all mixed up when they were released on the market. The market looked down on the male channel, and the reason was simply the misalignment of the broadcast: in order to cater to the female audience of the series, the idea of adapting the male channel is often Addition on the emotional line reduces the sense of joy that should be there and turns it into a mixture of neither yin nor yang.
Just like all problems will be solved by higher-level meta-issues, the problem of frequent misalignment between men and women has quietly been corrected in in the past two years. The fundamental reason is that the overall evolution of drama series has driven the expansion of the male channel market. After Mist Theater in 2017, various companies rushed to lay out suspense tracks, making suspense dramas one of the most competitive content tracks. There are all types of criminal investigation, costume suspense, social suspense, and life suspense dramas. There have been "The Hidden Truth" and " Hot hits such as " The Long Season" and "" have gradually cultivated a male user base. In addition, science fiction dramas and comic-book dramas such as "The Three-Body Problem" and "Underworld" have also attracted many male audiences.
At the same time, high-quality dramas of all ages have also expanded the tastes of female audiences. The "2023 IP Wind Vane" shows that the gender ratio of "Hurry" is 58:42, while that of "The Long Season" is 55:45. Some time ago, "Time on Fire", as a male drama, had a higher gender proportion of the audience, reaching 59.77%. It can be seen that the barriers between men and women are indeed dissolving.
"2023 IP Wind Vane"
In the gender divide of the drama, the real crisis is the failure of the female channel paradigm . Just like what I talked about in a conversation with the up host communication scholar Liu Yang last year, domestic dramas used to always focus on romance because the creators believed that the audience only needed to fall in love. Now that this fixed paradigm is outdated, audiences are beginning to look for freshness in high-concept genre dramas, and they will naturally flock to male videos. Speaking of
, male videos have not produced any new gameplay, it is nothing more than a genre plus. In "Celebrating More Than Years" and "Brother-in-law", comedy elements are added, relying on Tian Yu and Guo Qilin's talking, learning and singing to ensure a certain palatability. In "Once Upon a Time on Lingjian Mountain" Xu Kai was rarely recognized because of his contribution of comedy lines. He cue from his previous work "Story of Yanxi Palace", "This guy is really good at acting. He almost transformed from Wei Yingluo to me in one second." Sister Fucha, Queen."
In the past, the problem with male videos was that they liked to play big chess. The opening chapters often involved the construction of the world view, the level of spiritual power, and the level of military force. The audience was persuaded to quit before they entered the drama. However, the typification of male videos themselves is sufficient. Take the classic IPs of China Literature as an example: "The Ring of Fate", "The Lord of Mysteries", "The Story of Mortal Cultivation of Immortality", "Fights Break the Sky", "The Naming Technique of the Night", "Full-time Master" "" covers many genres such as steampunk, fantasy and immortality, urban superpowers, games, etc., giving the story enough room for development.
Looking back at the female channel works in 2023, whether it is the fun dramas "My World's Fireworks", "Camping with Love", or the higher-scoring "Pretending Revelation", you will find that the essence of female channels is love, and the genre Just embellishment. The long-term lack of subjectivity of female channels has made the concept of genre dramas become empty talk. From fairy tales to martial arts, from ancient assassins to modern firefighters, regardless of professional status, the purpose of female channels is to fall in love .
"Camp with Love"
Male channels have always had no shortage of subjectivity. They only need to make some light-hearted adaptations to sell them to female audiences immediately. However, female channels are busy looking for love in various new genres. Return is still the first Two natures. However, as viewers who are being sexualized, they are actually aware of it and even have strong resistance. Therefore, after the middle part of "Sauvignon Blanc", Xiaoyao was busy in love, which aroused the backlash from netizens. They wished they could pass through Wang Ji and become the empress and win four men in one fell swoop; in "Camp with Love", the female reporter relied on her beauty to attract men. She is also looked down upon by the audience, far inferior to Zhang Jiayan, the desperate girl in "News Queen" who works hard to lose her career.
"News Queen"
Participatory culture is not a new proposition, but in the field of domestic dramas, the main creators may not have realized one thing: reconstruction is not only the appropriation of story materials, but also the first step into the drama. It happened - just like a game, the audience can choose any perspective to open a drama, and can substitute the male and female protagonists, any supporting characters, or even non-human beings (for example, a fan of "Lotus House" has the perspective of traveling into the Poison of Bitcha) . In this context, female videos that only talk about love are not only backward in gender concepts, but also like an old game whose core has never changed, which is boring .
The real reason why classic professional British and American dramas such as "The Gambit", "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" are difficult to land is not professional dramas, but the perspective of female self-reliance. Can the next domestic female channel regain the hearts of the audience? Judging from these dramas in early 2024, it is still very uncertain.
To be exploded vs. No more top-notch
The origin of the word "To be exploded" is a little difficult to verify, but the concept of "to be exploded" is that can clearly position the timeline.
In the summer of 2023, the Otome-style marketing of "Sauvignon Blanc" caused the four men in the play to go on hot searches, which also led to the emergence of the first generation of "explosion kings". Currently, the four most popular ones recognized by public opinion are , Zhang Linghe, , Zhang Wanyi, Deng Wei and Chen Zheyuan, two of whom are from Sauvignon Blanc. These male stars are all born after 1995. Before last year, they had no masterpieces that were strong enough. The reason why they are among the most popular movies is largely due to the summer release. According to Beacon data, the summer drama market last year hit a new high in the past three years, with the cumulative playback index in July reaching 4,331,176, which was 2.5 times that at the beginning of 2022. In addition to the two sons of "Sauvignon Blanc", Zhang Linghe has "Yun Zhi Yu" in the summer, and Chen Zheyuan has the occasional "Secretly Can't Hide". Both of them have received top-up traffic in the summer market, and their popularity has reached a new high.
"Sauvignon Blanc"
After the summer, although the market fell back, the word "to be exploded" has officially entered the public opinion field. Those who are in the stage of becoming popular, those who want to gain some popularity, those who deserve to be popular or not, all begin to claim that they are ready to explode. In the past, there were only popular and non-popular people in the entertainment industry, but when the news breaks out, a new emperor's seat will be carved out between the two. The only difference is that the main actors waiting to be exploded are not artists and their subjects, but more from the fan circle. Entertainment Manager mentioned this kind of fan operation in the interview: As career fans of artists, fans develop concepts to be exploded out of utilitarian psychology. On the one hand, they obscure the fact that their main owner is not popular; on the other hand, they blur the The way of grouping together creates a synergy to achieve interest-free "loans" on popularity.
It can be seen from its definition that the word "to be exploded" itself is chaotic. To a certain extent, it is similar to epileptic drama: because it is vague, anything can be put into it. This semantically ambiguous framework also quickly spread to other fields: dramas to be popular, CPs to be popular, teams to be popular... Overnight, domestic entertainment has no more ambiguities, and everyone is waiting to be popular.
fans have great wishes, but those who are willing to pay for the concept are mostly brands, not the drama company . Brands are driven by profit. When choosing artists to cooperate with, they will basically buy cheap with the expectation of low price and high returns, so they often have the mentality of "buying new stocks". Take Wang Xingyue mentioned by Entertainment Management as an example. He was still the brand ambassador of Haoshi Bread when "Ning'an Like a Dream" was launched. As the popularity increased during the broadcast period, his title was also upgraded to brand spokesperson.Another popular actor Tan Kenci also replicated this rocket speed: before "Sauvignon Blanc", Jo Malone perfume was just his personal aesthetic orientation. After the show became popular, the brand's business quickly became established.
But for the drama, the concept of being ready to explode is avoided as much as . Looking back at the "fear of public opinion" mentioned above, it is not difficult to understand this mentality. There were rumors on Weibo that there were four major dramas to be released in 2023, including "Seven Occasions". As it turned out, this A-level drama had too high expectations, and the launch was particularly tragic.
"Seven Auspicious Occasions"
In the midst of the buzz, it seems that everyone has forgotten one thing: is actually domestic entertainment, and has not been top-notch for a long time. Top streaming is more like a concept created by Internet capital that invested heavily in the past few years. In the b2c model of the film and television industry, it has the right time, place and people, and it is the front spokesperson of capital. Representatives of them are Xiao Zhan and Cai Xukun. One has reaped the benefits of the first-generation delay modification, and the other has absorbed the traffic of the first-generation draft. Both of them once stood at the top of the traffic. But standard traffic is closely related to the times. Although these two people have different destinies, they have gradually become invisible with the times. Cai Xukun's house collapsed, and even Hupu fans lost the target of ridicule; Xiao Zhan caused the subculture circle to tear apart, and his identity was difficult to confirm in the midst of multiple struggles, and he could only become a beautiful but fragile image. In addition to
capital, in this era of circles, many consensuses no longer exist, and the natural identity of the "top class" as a collection of consensuses has also been cancelled. If you shift your focus slightly to the field of short videos, you will find that this phenomenon is even more obvious with . In 2022, Liu Genghong once had huge traffic, with an increase of more than 25 million followers in a week, and even turned female users on the streets into I met "Liu Genghong Girl" and danced with him. Just one year later, no one mentioned Liu Genghong again, and his live broadcast room became an ordinary announcement venue. Zhang, who is in the field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, has also repeated this ups and downs. When he was the most popular, Zhang appeared on the Spring Festival Gala of Beijing Channel and Liaoning Channel, and even starred in a movie. At that time, MCN spent 20 million to sign a contract with him, but he was rejected. But also half a year later, Zhang’s traffic hit a plateau. According to Cicada Mama’s data, with 17 million fans, his sales data in the past month was only between 1 million and 2.5 million.
is a super app with 700 million DAU, and the traffic trend on Douyin can undoubtedly reflect some trends. Yu Wenliang, an ordinary person, and the two kindergarten teachers who chanted "dig, dig, dig, dig" all thought they were lucky when the wind blew up. However, it turns out that those who chase the wind are always passive, and those who create the wind are the winners. is an iron-clad platform and has popular Internet celebrities/artists. There is not much difference between short videos and long videos in . The only difference may be that the commercial value brought by celebrities is more lasting, and the platform's blower blows longer.
Even if you step out of the domestic field and look around the world, you will find that today's popular culture is becoming more and more difficult to understand. The only exception is Taylor Swift, who will kill everyone in 2023. Interface Culture calls this popular "American Li Qingzhao" the representative of the contemporary American dream, who combines many aspects that the public wants: a girl next door, a millionaire, and a hopeless romantic. An activist and a shrewd businesswoman; an ignorant girl and a serious adult creator.
"Taylor Swift: Era Tour" Douban rating
Taylor brings a revelation to the Lao-Chinese cultural circle: if wants to become the top class, it needs to become the dream spokesperson with the greatest common denominator. But looking at the field of domestic dramas, even though there are so many to-be-exploded dramas, none of them seems to be qualified to become a "Chinese Fantasy." Fantasy does not exist at this moment, and the audience will naturally look for it in history. This is why the 85 flowers have recently returned to the top: in the era when the 85 flowers debuted, with the rise of GDP, everything was still beautiful.
Conclusion
Through the above three groups of keywords, we can clearly see a tendency: viewers are increasingly emphasizing their own subjectivity, although this subjectivity is a collective identity rather than personal empowerment .In this collective confrontation, domestic dramas are reduced to others. Whether they are given the identity of epileptic dramas or are unsafe settings waiting to explode, it all points to the audience considering themselves as the subject of power. This is a conscious rebellion by the public against the film and television industry that was monopolized by elites in the past. It has forced the evolution of the industry and brought more unpredictable new tears. As a result, public opinion has become more complicated and layered.
American historian Daniel Boorstin mentioned a concept called "pseudo-event" in "Phantom", which refers to a type of event that is artificially shaped for the purpose of spreading traffic. This type of event has nothing to do with reality. Relationships are often ambiguous, ambiguous, and ultimately self-fulfilling prophecies. Words like epileptic drama, fake heroine, and waiting to explode just fall into this category. This is enough to remind us that all popular things may be just illusions.
The tearing between the subject and the other, the tearing between illusion and reality, is happening in domestic dramas at this moment.. It is not yet known what new tension this tear will bring to 2024. The only thing that is certain is that this tear will continue to exist in the future.
"Camp with Love"
Male channels have always had no shortage of subjectivity. They only need to make some light-hearted adaptations to sell them to female audiences immediately. However, female channels are busy looking for love in various new genres. Return is still the first Two natures. However, as viewers who are being sexualized, they are actually aware of it and even have strong resistance. Therefore, after the middle part of "Sauvignon Blanc", Xiaoyao was busy in love, which aroused the backlash from netizens. They wished they could pass through Wang Ji and become the empress and win four men in one fell swoop; in "Camp with Love", the female reporter relied on her beauty to attract men. She is also looked down upon by the audience, far inferior to Zhang Jiayan, the desperate girl in "News Queen" who works hard to lose her career.
"News Queen"
Participatory culture is not a new proposition, but in the field of domestic dramas, the main creators may not have realized one thing: reconstruction is not only the appropriation of story materials, but also the first step into the drama. It happened - just like a game, the audience can choose any perspective to open a drama, and can substitute the male and female protagonists, any supporting characters, or even non-human beings (for example, a fan of "Lotus House" has the perspective of traveling into the Poison of Bitcha) . In this context, female videos that only talk about love are not only backward in gender concepts, but also like an old game whose core has never changed, which is boring .
The real reason why classic professional British and American dramas such as "The Gambit", "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" are difficult to land is not professional dramas, but the perspective of female self-reliance. Can the next domestic female channel regain the hearts of the audience? Judging from these dramas in early 2024, it is still very uncertain.
To be exploded vs. No more top-notch
The origin of the word "To be exploded" is a little difficult to verify, but the concept of "to be exploded" is that can clearly position the timeline.
In the summer of 2023, the Otome-style marketing of "Sauvignon Blanc" caused the four men in the play to go on hot searches, which also led to the emergence of the first generation of "explosion kings". Currently, the four most popular ones recognized by public opinion are , Zhang Linghe, , Zhang Wanyi, Deng Wei and Chen Zheyuan, two of whom are from Sauvignon Blanc. These male stars are all born after 1995. Before last year, they had no masterpieces that were strong enough. The reason why they are among the most popular movies is largely due to the summer release. According to Beacon data, the summer drama market last year hit a new high in the past three years, with the cumulative playback index in July reaching 4,331,176, which was 2.5 times that at the beginning of 2022. In addition to the two sons of "Sauvignon Blanc", Zhang Linghe has "Yun Zhi Yu" in the summer, and Chen Zheyuan has the occasional "Secretly Can't Hide". Both of them have received top-up traffic in the summer market, and their popularity has reached a new high.
"Sauvignon Blanc"
After the summer, although the market fell back, the word "to be exploded" has officially entered the public opinion field. Those who are in the stage of becoming popular, those who want to gain some popularity, those who deserve to be popular or not, all begin to claim that they are ready to explode. In the past, there were only popular and non-popular people in the entertainment industry, but when the news breaks out, a new emperor's seat will be carved out between the two. The only difference is that the main actors waiting to be exploded are not artists and their subjects, but more from the fan circle. Entertainment Manager mentioned this kind of fan operation in the interview: As career fans of artists, fans develop concepts to be exploded out of utilitarian psychology. On the one hand, they obscure the fact that their main owner is not popular; on the other hand, they blur the The way of grouping together creates a synergy to achieve interest-free "loans" on popularity.
It can be seen from its definition that the word "to be exploded" itself is chaotic. To a certain extent, it is similar to epileptic drama: because it is vague, anything can be put into it. This semantically ambiguous framework also quickly spread to other fields: dramas to be popular, CPs to be popular, teams to be popular... Overnight, domestic entertainment has no more ambiguities, and everyone is waiting to be popular.
fans have great wishes, but those who are willing to pay for the concept are mostly brands, not the drama company . Brands are driven by profit. When choosing artists to cooperate with, they will basically buy cheap with the expectation of low price and high returns, so they often have the mentality of "buying new stocks". Take Wang Xingyue mentioned by Entertainment Management as an example. He was still the brand ambassador of Haoshi Bread when "Ning'an Like a Dream" was launched. As the popularity increased during the broadcast period, his title was also upgraded to brand spokesperson.Another popular actor Tan Kenci also replicated this rocket speed: before "Sauvignon Blanc", Jo Malone perfume was just his personal aesthetic orientation. After the show became popular, the brand's business quickly became established.
But for the drama, the concept of being ready to explode is avoided as much as . Looking back at the "fear of public opinion" mentioned above, it is not difficult to understand this mentality. There were rumors on Weibo that there were four major dramas to be released in 2023, including "Seven Occasions". As it turned out, this A-level drama had too high expectations, and the launch was particularly tragic.
"Seven Auspicious Occasions"
In the midst of the buzz, it seems that everyone has forgotten one thing: is actually domestic entertainment, and has not been top-notch for a long time. Top streaming is more like a concept created by Internet capital that invested heavily in the past few years. In the b2c model of the film and television industry, it has the right time, place and people, and it is the front spokesperson of capital. Representatives of them are Xiao Zhan and Cai Xukun. One has reaped the benefits of the first-generation delay modification, and the other has absorbed the traffic of the first-generation draft. Both of them once stood at the top of the traffic. But standard traffic is closely related to the times. Although these two people have different destinies, they have gradually become invisible with the times. Cai Xukun's house collapsed, and even Hupu fans lost the target of ridicule; Xiao Zhan caused the subculture circle to tear apart, and his identity was difficult to confirm in the midst of multiple struggles, and he could only become a beautiful but fragile image. In addition to
capital, in this era of circles, many consensuses no longer exist, and the natural identity of the "top class" as a collection of consensuses has also been cancelled. If you shift your focus slightly to the field of short videos, you will find that this phenomenon is even more obvious with . In 2022, Liu Genghong once had huge traffic, with an increase of more than 25 million followers in a week, and even turned female users on the streets into I met "Liu Genghong Girl" and danced with him. Just one year later, no one mentioned Liu Genghong again, and his live broadcast room became an ordinary announcement venue. Zhang, who is in the field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, has also repeated this ups and downs. When he was the most popular, Zhang appeared on the Spring Festival Gala of Beijing Channel and Liaoning Channel, and even starred in a movie. At that time, MCN spent 20 million to sign a contract with him, but he was rejected. But also half a year later, Zhang’s traffic hit a plateau. According to Cicada Mama’s data, with 17 million fans, his sales data in the past month was only between 1 million and 2.5 million.
is a super app with 700 million DAU, and the traffic trend on Douyin can undoubtedly reflect some trends. Yu Wenliang, an ordinary person, and the two kindergarten teachers who chanted "dig, dig, dig, dig" all thought they were lucky when the wind blew up. However, it turns out that those who chase the wind are always passive, and those who create the wind are the winners. is an iron-clad platform and has popular Internet celebrities/artists. There is not much difference between short videos and long videos in . The only difference may be that the commercial value brought by celebrities is more lasting, and the platform's blower blows longer.
Even if you step out of the domestic field and look around the world, you will find that today's popular culture is becoming more and more difficult to understand. The only exception is Taylor Swift, who will kill everyone in 2023. Interface Culture calls this popular "American Li Qingzhao" the representative of the contemporary American dream, who combines many aspects that the public wants: a girl next door, a millionaire, and a hopeless romantic. An activist and a shrewd businesswoman; an ignorant girl and a serious adult creator.
"Taylor Swift: Era Tour" Douban rating
Taylor brings a revelation to the Lao-Chinese cultural circle: if wants to become the top class, it needs to become the dream spokesperson with the greatest common denominator. But looking at the field of domestic dramas, even though there are so many to-be-exploded dramas, none of them seems to be qualified to become a "Chinese Fantasy." Fantasy does not exist at this moment, and the audience will naturally look for it in history. This is why the 85 flowers have recently returned to the top: in the era when the 85 flowers debuted, with the rise of GDP, everything was still beautiful.
Conclusion
Through the above three groups of keywords, we can clearly see a tendency: viewers are increasingly emphasizing their own subjectivity, although this subjectivity is a collective identity rather than personal empowerment .In this collective confrontation, domestic dramas are reduced to others. Whether they are given the identity of epileptic dramas or are unsafe settings waiting to explode, it all points to the audience considering themselves as the subject of power. This is a conscious rebellion by the public against the film and television industry that was monopolized by elites in the past. It has forced the evolution of the industry and brought more unpredictable new tears. As a result, public opinion has become more complicated and layered.
American historian Daniel Boorstin mentioned a concept called "pseudo-event" in "Phantom", which refers to a type of event that is artificially shaped for the purpose of spreading traffic. This type of event has nothing to do with reality. Relationships are often ambiguous, ambiguous, and ultimately self-fulfilling prophecies. Words like epileptic drama, fake heroine, and waiting to explode just fall into this category. This is enough to remind us that all popular things may be just illusions.
The tearing between the subject and the other, the tearing between illusion and reality, is happening in domestic dramas at this moment.. It is not yet known what new tension this tear will bring to 2024. The only thing that is certain is that this tear will continue to exist in the future.
