If the first season of last year's "Farming Boy" was still questioned and regarded as a spectacle, the second season aired this year has completely become a popular player. It is so popular that if you walk through the Chang'an Street underground passage in Beijing on an ordinary working day morning, you will see a blue backpack pendant with "No. 58 Houdoumen" written on it among the crowd of stern-faced people.
has a blue background with white characters, and is in the shape of a rectangular house plate. Its body is the iron door plate where "Farming Bar" was filmed. In November 2022, 10 post-95 teenagers with different personalities and experiences left their confused acting careers temporarily and came to No. 58 Houdoumen, Sandun Town, Hangzhou, where they spent 200 days farming. They want to harvest rice and plant wheat, raise sheep and chickens and ducks, build sheds to grow roses, and open ponds to fish and shrimp. During this period, they were responsible for their own profits and losses, became disgraced, made jokes, and made people unhappy. Half a year after the end of the first season, the young people returned here and "returned to their old careers."
The two seasons of "Farming Bar" are both good entertainment variety shows. In popular terms, they are both "crazy" and "healing". Nowadays, as long as any film and television drama works hard on one of these points, it will not worry about being unmarketable, not to mention that it is natural and has become a talisman in the depressed lives of many people.
Before the start of the second season, the program team actually planned a study tour program, "Hello, Farming Boy". As a spin-off group show, it is not very popular, but is more concise and warm. In just 10 episodes, the members went to eight provinces and regions including Jiangsu, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Henan for study tours focusing on agriculture, and visited each other's villages along the way. Home visits.
At that time, it was like a dessert for loyal viewers. Now it seems that it provides the key clues for the second season - young people saw the technology greenhouse in Shouguang, Shandong, praised it, and used it in practice; Xuyi's small business Lobster farming was moved to Houdoumen Reservoir; Dandong's strawberry and strawberry jam ideas were also moved to Hangzhou, and a large area of elevated strawberries was planted in the greenhouse.
patiently learned the details of agriculture and expanded production, which partially dispelled the suspicion of "showing off". The director team was willing to implement documentary shooting and also gained a reputation for sincerity. All these make "Farming" unique in the slow variety show market with homogeneous content, relying on celebrities and creating topics, and it is also different from the big farmer-style "Clarkson's Farm".
It's just that sometimes it's too plain. The beginning of the second season is about working in the fields. There is no review of the past and no character introduction. Some internal jokes make old viewers smile, but for new viewers, it is a bit inexplicable and boring.
The lack of personnel also led to fights between fans of various companies, which was quite detrimental to the spirit of a variety show that focuses on group portraits.
has to be broadcast until the 10th episode before the program gets better. The team members finally gathered together after a brief separation, and the work lines of farmland, greenhouses, and fish ponds went hand in hand. Everyone became more familiar and relaxed, and the stories in each episode also had their ups and downs.
aired on the 26th issue, which was May 18, and their popularity reached its peak. The "Farming Bar 518 Ainong Day" launched during the May Day holiday received offers from 63 cultural and tourism units, institutions, organizations and schools. The number of live broadcasts on the "Ainong Day" exceeded 45 million, and 25 products were sold at once. And empty. You know, in the first season, their live broadcasts often had only a few hundred viewers. Once
has traffic and popularity, it will automatically become correct and unreal.
When 10 teenagers have to find a way out for their agricultural products in the show and negotiate prices with partners, they can get a higher-than-expected figure without any effort. Whether they are selling their own products or supporting agricultural products in their live broadcast room, they are always in a state of chaos.
Once Zhang Guoli and his wife came to Houdoumen as guests, and they chatted while growing hydroponic lemon thyme, thinking about a good harvest. Zhang Guoli proposed to buy some when the crops were harvested. The young man immediately said that he would give them away. Zhang Guoli and his wife insisted on buying. They meant to support them with their own actions, but they underestimated the popularity of this program. Member Li Gengyun blurted out: I can’t buy it.
Whether as artists or farmers, they are very lucky to have made a name for themselves in just one year. But it is difficult to balance being an artist and being a farmer.The former is glamorous, with tens of millions of people crowding around and paying attention; the latter is patient, with its face facing the loess and its back turned to the sky. When they are unknown, they can still have a kind of mental connection, but once they become famous, they are easy to exclude each other. Both of
's main businesses require full dedication, which forcibly cuts off their time. They were originally artists, but they took on this farming variety show because they had "nothing to do", and unexpectedly gained attention and traffic by being farmers. So now, will they go back to being artists or continue to be farmers?
In the second season, everyone is walking and balancing on a tightrope visibly. The
program team first gave them 450 acres - three times the land area of the previous season, plus 10 acres of greenhouses and 30 acres of artificial lakes. Secondly, it thoughtfully increased the proportion of various talent performances in the main film, so as to achieve both goals. The 10 teenagers, in addition to taking care of farming matters, participated in plays, movies, and TV series, or wrote and released singles in their spare time, and decided to hold 8 group concert tours. The fragile balance of
is in jeopardy. Once it becomes too fan-oriented and ignores business capabilities, the farming boys promoted by "Farming Bar", which has worked hard to accumulate reputation and explore new models, will become a substitute for the boy band in the post-draft era. .
Fortunately, most of the time, they are still very pragmatic. They have not given up their former ideals of acting or making music, and try their best to seize hard-won opportunities. When the workload exceeds expectations, they get up early and work in the fields until late at night. In the program, whether they were discussing store rent, manufacturer cooperation, or technical learning, they all introduced themselves as young people engaged in agriculture.
As an audience, we still hope to see "Farming" continue planting season after season, with a time to work and a time to reap. I also hope to see relaxed and simple natural people, with joy, anger, sorrow and joy all coming from the heart.
During a media tour and brief interview this spring, they were asked what they would like to say about their past and future selves. Member Li Hao said that he wanted to express his gratitude to himself last year and say be steady to himself in the future.
Yes, hold on.
Special writer for Southern People Weekly Editor-in-chief of Clockwork Bird
Yang Jingru
