Wen | Zhang Mengyi of the Weekly Magazine of Finance and Economics
Editor| Yang Jie
The li ziqi storm has not yet subsided, and the movement to create the "next plum ziqi" is already in full swing.
In less than 60 days, the number of Douyin account fans has exceeded 14 million, and the total number of videos played on related topics has reached 4.5 billion times, and "Classmate Zhang" has completely caught fire. Watching the rural life of the northeast bachelor "Classmate Zhang" has also become a hobby of many "city people".
In the Douyin short video, Zhang took care of the most common small flat head, wore a pair of plush camouflage liberation shoes, drove a three-wheeled agricultural car, and at first glance was just a mediocre rural middle-aged man. But countless fans said that the videos he shot could give people a breath of life and evoke countless people's memories of childhood, countryside and homeland.
Returning to the countryside and the authenticity of the countryside, the various "labels" that netizens used to describe Li Ziqi are now attached to The body of Zhang.
Why is Zhang "on fire"? The smooth editing and technical flow but human depth of photography style in the videos he released once triggered the analysis and interpretation of the entire network film and television circles, editing circles and MCN industry people. For a time, speculations about whether there is a team behind Mr. Zhang and whether he is a "professional who returned to the countryside" have emerged endlessly.
And some people speculate that behind Zhang's popularity, whether there is inevitably a vibrato to its deliberate traffic blessing. For Douyin, which is about to run out of traffic growth dividends and is getting closer and closer to the traffic ceiling, it is obviously of great significance to have a phenomenon-level "exclusive IP". What is worth playing is that on douyin, this time it is Zhang who has a "pastoral atmosphere", and douyin is also making efforts to sink the market and rural theme content, and it is getting farther and farther on the road of "local flavor".
Who created "Classmate Zhang", and can he carry the ambition of Douyin and become the next Li Ziqi or Ding Zhen?
Like many rural people, Mr. Zhang would put a pair of socks and a knife under his pillow, hide his home key in old cloth shoes on the windowsill, or secretly clip a piece of paper money from a book page. Whether it's brewing a bowl of frangipani with boiling water, serving a six-flavored yellow pill for breakfast, or digging cabbage in the cellar to make pork stew noodles, his videos are very suitable for the rural living environment.
It is a "rough and ordinary" life, but it also reveals a faint warmth and happiness. In the video, Zhang has both cats and dogs, raises chickens and feeds geese, often meets three or two neighbors to drink wine and eat meat, and can also pay on credit many times when going to the town supermarket to purchase. To some extent, these contents are in line with many people's imagination of "Chinese pastoral and pastoral life".
(Source/Douyin screenshot)
"There are posters of Hong Kong star Wen Bixia in my home, there are flower quilts and flower curtains, and I also saw water tanks and water scoops, sewing machines, these details have a feeling of the countryside in the past." He is very natural in front of the camera, even brushing his teeth with a mouthful of foam, choking and coughing when eating, these movements can be captured, coupled with fast-paced shots, especially can give people a sense of substitution. He has seven or eight minutes of a video, but I can watch it in one sitting. Xiao Qin, a "post-85" who lives in a first-tier city, said that he is also one of Zhang's fans.
On October 4, Zhang released the first video, and his Douyin number rose by more than 6 million fans in just ten days. Up to now, the number of Douyin fans of Zhang has exceeded 14 million.
Many netizens believe that in Zhang's video, what touched people's hearts was his love for the black land and his return to a simple and simple life. Emotional blogger "Shakespeare of One Man" commented: "Compared with the people who live in the house and the car every day, he pulls time back to that era, and the daily life of the clouds and waters is the past that we can never go back to, the simple and pure happy life that we miss, and he uses the solitary life of a single man to integrate the love of life into every meal, every six-flavored yellow pill, and every bite of Karma meat." ”
There are also bloggers who say that behind Zhang's shooting technology, there is "full tension, lonely warmth, wordless pouring, and every emotion has stepped on the emotional resonance of urban people." In his view, the seemingly shabby external environment reflects The positive and optimistic attitude of life in the heart of Mr. Zhang; and the explosion of Mr. Zhang and Zhang Yimou's films in foreign countries are somewhat similar, satisfying people's curiosity and exploration psychology, and now people living in the city are watching Mr. Zhang's primitive and simple rural life with a sense of freshness.
But there are also a large number of fans who are impressed by Zhang's fast-paced and realistic video technology. A netizen said that his video, each shot can be accurately stepped on the rhythm of the music, even drinking saliva has three sub-shots, the technology is very delicate, "look rough, actually fine."
Douyin Film Critics member "Kemo Ai Ono" analyzed in detail a video by Zhang, and he found that the average length of the 186 sub-shots of this video was only 2.27 seconds, while the average shot length of the Hong Kong martial arts film "Smiling Proud of jianghu 2 Undefeated in the East" known for its fast cut was 1.35 seconds, and the length of the shot of the Oscar-winning "Spy Heavy 3" was within 2 seconds. This also means that The level of Zhang's video shooting is "comparable to that of Hollywood blockbusters". He also said that Zhang also used a large number of first-person perspective storyboard design, high-frequency quick cuts, J-shaped clips, and empty shots with emotions in his videos, which not only had technology, but also did not blindly show off, and the form and content matched very well.
When asked by the "Finance and Economics World" weekly about the industry's evaluation of Mr. Zhang's video, an MCN industry insider could not help but praise it: "Most of Mr. Zhang's videos are short-shot narratives, the content is not difficult, but the background music is well selected, very emotional. He uses a delicate narrative to shoot the single and slow life of a rough man in the countryside, which makes people feel contrasting. ”
Therefore, after Zhang became popular, the controversy and speculation surrounding his identity also increased day by day. For example, some netizens found that in the douyin head portrait, Zhang held a copy of "The Foundations of Literary Theory", and his bookcase displayed "Lu Xun Anthology" and foreign literature books, and the soundtrack in the video was a German song, so it can be inferred that he has a high level of education and is not an ordinary farmer. Subsequently, another netizen claimed to have "pickpocketed" the "real identity" of Zhang, saying that he graduated from the directing department of Jilin Academy of Arts, not only with the director of "Sweeping Black Storm" and the screenwriter of "Hello, Li Huanying", but also starred in many TV series including "Little Aunt Duohe" and "Huang Danian", and was a veritable professional.
Some people in the photography industry believe that so many of the large number of sub-shots in the video cannot be completed by Zhang Alone, saying that there is a professional team of at least twenty people behind it, planning, photography, editing, publicity, pushing, and the level is very high, indispensable."
Some people also questioned That Mr. Zhang was suspected of speculation: "The farmers in Yingkou, Liaoning Province, live in small bungalows, and the video shows the bungalows of the 90s of the last century, indicating that this is just a kind of shooting props, and the so-called 'Classmate Zhang' is only a person created for harvesting traffic." ”
Under the heavy questioning of public opinion, Zhang recently responded to the media that he is a native of the countryside, has been married for many years, has a son and a daughter, but "nine years of compulsory education is still one year away", not the "graduate degree" circulating on the Internet, nor has he learned professional editing training, and the shooting content is all shot by a person's mobile phone.
For questions about why the video quality is so high and whether it will be commercialized in the future, he said that he has engaged in behind-the-scenes editing and shooting work, and the current theme of rural single life is only run into after four or five themes have been modified. "Since The popularity of Mr. Zhang's account for two months, I have not made money, and in the future I will continue to maintain my original intention, shoot rural themes, and sell agricultural products from my hometown."
In any case, Zhang was "out of the circle". The creators of Douyin have imitated The shooting methods of Classmate Zhang and made their own life documentaries, and for a time "Students Zhang learned from all over the world" blossomed everywhere. Some people filmed their single life in the city, some people took pictures of a day in the countryside of Guizhou with triplets, and some people recorded their own life of starting a business and moving bricks, and matched these videos with the exclusive background music of Zhang Classmate.
"Finance and Economics" Weekly noted that as of now, the number of broadcasts of the Douyin topic "imitating Classmate Zhang" has reached 12.71 million. At the same time, topics related to Zhang such as "Zhang Classmate BGM (Background Music) is Good" and "Rural Life Award" have also been on the Douyin hot search list many times.
In the view of another MCN industry person, "Zhang's popularity is a bit like Ding Zhen last year, giving people a feeling of returning to the basics and being surprised." Last year, Ding Zhen was able to become popular because everyone did not expect that there were such good-looking young men in the southern Tibetan plateau. Now everyone did not expect that people living in the countryside can make the countryside so interesting through the lens, and it also gives people a sense of contrast and surprise. Coupled with media assists, his fame was pushed from a single video platform to a wider audience. ”
But another interesting thing is that Zhang, who quickly became popular on the Douyin platform, had a mediocre response in the "earthy base camp". At present, the number of fans of Zhang on the Kuaishou platform is only about 800,000, which is less than one-tenth of the number of Douyin fans. Among them, the most viewed video "Brother Tofu" had 58,000 likes, while the video on the Douyin platform had 2.12 million views.
Why is the "earthy" Zhang student on the vibrato fire, instead of in kuaishou? After all, Kuaishou has the largest basic disk of rural "old irons" and is also the earliest platform for recording rural life video.
However, some people in the industry believe that a fact that cannot be ignored is that Kuaishou has been basically "monopolized" by the head Internet celebrity anchor family before, and it is not easy for new Internet celebrities to "emerge". Now, under the strategy of Kuaishou's "de-familyization", "earthy Internet celebrities" including Wu Zhaoguo, Tieshan Pao, and Convex Ye are migrating to Douyin to find new space for traffic growth.
On the other hand, the content and rhythm of Zhang are actually more in line with the tone of the Douyin platform. A person in charge of Xiamen Self-Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd. told Caijing Tianxia Weekly: "Zhang's mirror movement and rhythm are actually 'very vibrato', advanced, content and real, not 'low'. Most of the 'old irons' of Kuaishou actually do not adapt to the rhythm of Zhang Students, and they will not have the patience to watch such a long short video. ”
"A lot of 'old iron' only play fast, which just shows that they are 'not cold' to this kind of content." Some of the 'old iron' that are not limited to Kuaishou may have brushed this content on Douyin, and will not repeat likes and comments after Kuaishou sees it. Other platforms saw him in the Douyin fire, and they were not very willing to continue to pursue. Because this is equivalent to helping Douyin to praise people. He added.
However, He Jin, a short video promoter, believes that the popularity of Zhang is inseparable from the traffic support of the Douyin platform. "From the perspective of the algorithm mechanism, if the content is sufficient, it means that its playback data will be good, then the algorithm of Douyin will push it into a larger traffic pool according to the conditions of playback, replay rate, likes, comments, forwarding and sharing." He Jin also said, "If there is no support from Douyin, or if the platform restricts its flow, Zhang can't do it." If you can incubate an exclusive super IP, Douyin itself can have more traffic and new users, and Zhang can also get shares, which is a win-win situation. ”
But from another level, the rural themes that are very common on Kuaishou are still relatively blank in Douyin. The popularity of "Classmate Zhang" also means that Douyin no longer hides its ambition to compete for "rural traffic".
For the Douyin platform, Zhang and the sinking users he brings are of great significance.
In recent years, with the disappearance of the short video traffic dividend, the revenue growth of Douyin has gradually slowed down. It is understood that from 2019 to 2020, the Douyin DAU will grow from 250 million to more than 400 million. However, some media reports said that after 2020, as of September 2021, the Douyin DAU has grown to 640 million, of which the main station is about 500 million, and the speed version is about 140 million; the main station DAU has not grown significantly, and the growth mainly relies on the speed version.
Under the background of the weak growth of mobile Internet in first- and second-tier cities, the value of the sinking market is becoming increasingly prominent. QuestMobile's "2020 Sinking Marketing Insight Report" shows that the scale of users in the domestic mobile Internet sinking market has exceeded 600 million, compared with users in the non-sinking market, their per capita mobile Internet usage time is longer and faster; and the fastest growing App for users in the sinking market is a pan-entertainment application, and short video is the most prominent growth advantage. The report shows that this also shows that users in the sinking market have more spare time, low Internet penetration, and more room for user growth.
In recent years, the trend of vibrato's sinking market penetration has become more and more significant. According to the "Douyin Sinking Market Analysis" released by Kasi Data, the proportion of users in the third- and fourth-line sinking markets on Douyin has reached 52%. Some insiders said, "Before the users on Douyin were relatively fashionable young people, Kuaishou was mainly users in third- and fourth-tier cities, but now the two platforms are guiding and attracting the part of users it lacks." At present, there are five or six billion daily users in third- and fourth-tier cities, and such a large user group will undoubtedly be concerned by Douyin. ”
Douyin's rural theme content for the sinking market has entered an explosive period. In June this year, Douyin released the "Three Rural Data" showing that in the past year, Douyin's rural videos have received a total of 12.9 billion likes, and the income of rural video creators has increased by 15 times year-on-year. In April this year, Douyin also launched the "New Farmer Plan 2021", investing a total of 1.2 billion traffic resources to comprehensively support the creation of three rural content from the aspects of traffic support, operation training, and monetization guidance.
"Finance and Economics" Weekly noted that many of Zhang's videos also brought the topic of "New Farmers Plan 2021". As of press time, the cumulative number of views on this topic has reached 72.4 billion, and many of Zhang's videos have been listed on the list of popular videos on this topic.
With the strong support of the platform, in recent years, a number of head rural theme Internet celebrities have emerged on Douyin. "Taking the road of Plum Ziqi" has become a new trend on Douyin. For example, "Nianxiangren Zhouzhou", which shoots guizhou's local cuisine and has more than 9 million fans, "Nanping farmer Peng Chuanming", a post-80s farmer with more than 6 million fans, and "Niu Aifang's Little Spring Flower", an Internet celebrity couple who shares the rural life of Shaoyang, Hunan Province, and has 18 million fans.
Before Zhang became popular, "Mohe Ballroom", which reflects the love story of the small northeast city of Mohe, has been "out of the circle" from Douyin to the whole network. The original "exquisite, trendy" route of Douyin, and the "earthy, rough" style of Kuaishou, the boundaries have become more and more blurred, and users are more and more overlapping.
Whether it is these rural Internet celebrities or the popularity of Zhang Students, they all pin their hopes and traffic anxieties on Douyin's "phenomenon-level exclusive IP".
But how long can Zhang be angry, still have to put a question mark. A number of MCN industry insiders said that the algorithm mechanism of Douyin relies heavily on content, and the frequency of Internet celebrities is updated and passed quickly, and even old Internet celebrities with tens of millions of fans cannot escape the fate of short vitality and declining traffic.
"If Zhang wants to continue to fire, he needs content iteration. That is to say, when he finds a sense of rhythm, he must also have the ability to continue to iterate. After all, the audience is very easy to get tired of watching. An industry insider believes that "Zhang's video is indeed real and technical, but he lacks a certain personality and does not let people see what his own positioning is." His 'rustic life' style is not acceptable to everyone's aesthetics, and it is also a challenge. ”
(Cover image source: Douyin Zhang student account avatar)
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