The ice and fire of young people's offline social networking: snubbing KTV and becoming obsessed with mahjong

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Photon Planet, author | Furong He, Editor, | Wu Xianzhi

Around the Spring Festival, in some Douban groups and WeChat groups, about the same city mahjong has become extremely hot, and most of these organizers are biased towards young people and mostly celebrate the New Year on the spot.

It is not unusual for young people to form a game, and what is different from the normal is that everyone is a "mahjong game", and the script killing, room escape, etc. seem to have been left behind.

Historically, mahjong has been more associated with middle-aged and elderly people, and there is even a saying that Alzheimer's disease is prevented. However, since the Spring Festival this year, mahjong has obviously become active among young people.

Zhang Miao, an Internet Drifter, responded to the "New Year in place" policy and did not return to her hometown in Hubei to reunite with her family.

In a big city like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, there are thousands of Zhang Miao.

"There are too many Shanghai drifters who don't go home during the Spring Festival, don't worry about not finding anyone to celebrate the New Year together, everyone is young, it's a good organization." Thinking of her parents urging marriage every Spring Festival and relatives interrogating wages, she was even quite relaxed for the New Year on the spot.

"During the Spring Festival, I made an appointment with my fellow villagers to eat Chinese New Year's Eve meals and play mahjong together, which was quite lively, and the atmosphere of the New Year came up." During the seven days off, our main entertainment is to play mahjong, sometimes even until the early hours of the morning, and the more we play, the more excited we are. Zhang Miao was very excited.

For why choose to play mahjong together, the main thing is that everyone will play and like it, which is easy and interesting, and also helps to bring the relationship closer. In addition, many outdoor entertainment venues during the Spring Festival are also closed, coupled with the epidemic situation and the cold weather, they have more choices for indoor activities.

In addition to many people themselves love to play mahjong, mahjong and the New Year has a closer relationship, the New Year mahjong in many places has long been a tradition, but also one of the indispensable elements to shape the taste of the New Year.

Under the influence of various external factors such as the epidemic, young people seem to love mahjong this Spring Festival.

A game of mahjong is familiar to everyone

The love of mahjong by the people of Sichuan and Chongqing has been carved into the bones, and it is not only a form of entertainment, but also a daily necessity for social activities. Playing mahjong and drinking tea is a typical portrayal of the life of the people in old Chengdu, and the so-called "drinking tea" in Chengdu is playing mahjong in a tea house.

Yang Lin is a post-95 Chengdu native, and her Spring Festival holiday was also filled with mahjong. "We have to go to relatives in the New Year, but for us, going to relatives is to play mahjong in another place."

In Sichuan and Chongqing, the phenomenon of a family with a mahjong machine is not unusual, its main use is to come with relatives and friends at the New Year, mahjong is often a party when everyone entertains and closes the relationship.

"The Spring Festival reunion, many relatives are once a year, not familiar with or even can not talk to a few. However, everyone gathered around to play a game of mahjong and naturally became familiar. Yang Lin said. Relatives and friends play mahjong together, not to win or lose, but to enjoy this family atmosphere.

In addition, in addition to offline play, online mahjong is also very popular. Yang Lin said that during the New Year, they all played online and offline. Online mahjong is flexible and free, which can make up for the gap that cannot be made up offline.

It can be seen that mahjong has played the dual role of social and entertainment, bringing relationships closer, passing the time, and increasing the fun of the holiday, so it is loved.

Zhang Miao, the above-mentioned Shanghai drifter, also said that single young people in big cities are now biased towards strangers to socialize, but stranger social taboos involve too many private entertainment activities.

"At that time, when the fellow villagers gathered, everyone basically played mahjong, and after a few rounds, they were all familiar. The partners who would not have been taught by us were all familiar with each other, and everyone who did an interesting thing together naturally became acquainted. Zhang Miao said.

Mahjong social is actually very comfortable, whether it is acquaintance social or stranger social is very suitable, neither too private nor too open, by the public like is not surprising.

In addition, when a person is exposed to mahjong, it is often easier to fall into a state of continuous obsession, because mahjong will win or lose, continue to give people hope, and then make people addicted. In order to increase the fun of entertainment, when playing mahjong will generally come to the real, when winning or losing in terms of money, it is more addictive.

Relatives and friends play mahjong together, gambling is not the goal, but gambling psychology has always run through it, so it will always hang on to the player's interest. "We generally play very small, mainly for fun. But there is indeed a gambling psychology driven, more money does not matter, the main thing is to win. Yang Lin sighed.

Therefore, mahjong addiction is also one of the factors that cause more and more people to like mahjong.

Niche entertainment cannot replace the "national essence"

The pursuit of ease and self-centeredness seems to be the basic principle of many post-95s and post-00s young people. "Singing K with a group of people who are not familiar with it is better to play with the phone alone for a while", many young people have this feeling.

Dai Li is a post-95s state-owned enterprise employee, and when we communicate with him, we clearly perceive his rejection of going to KTV team building. "The leaders are older, and the second activity after the company's dinner likes to be arranged in KTV, and it is too embarrassing to sing to a group of colleagues and leaders who are not familiar with them."

"I've been in the company for more than a year, and I still don't like this way of team building, and I can take leave when I can take leave when I don't have to." Dai Li said.

KTV is gradually falling out of favor among young people, and the reasons can be summarized as follows. First, because singing in front of unfamiliar people is very uncomfortable for contemporary social fears; in addition, it is difficult to integrate with people of all ages to sing, and the age gap of songs is too large; secondly, not everyone is good at and likes to sing, which is only concentrated in a small number of groups; in addition, KTV's copyright restrictions and bundled consumption models have also made many singing fans flee KTV to sing online.

According to tianyancha data, the growth rate of the mainland KTV industry reached a peak of nearly ten years in 2015, and since then it has shown a downward trend, and the KTV industry has ushered in a wave of store closures.

After KTV, script killing is a phenomenon that has emerged in the past two years, but it also exists only in a small number of young people. "Script killing often takes an afternoon, and all kinds of reasoning are more brain-burning." A script killer said. Its high threshold, the length of each round, the brain-burning, the need to have the ability to perform and other factors determine its niche attributes.

At present, the younger generation of otaku culture is prevalent, script killing, KTV, etc. are more present in the social network of acquaintances, and singing and script-based expression and performance are more private, so they are not very popular with young people in the social scene of strangers.

At the same time, with the increasing pressure of working life of contemporary young people, activities with higher thresholds or consumption are less popular with this part of the population. Zhang Miao, the above-mentioned Shanghai drifter, said: "The daily work is too tired, and now I do not like the recreational activities that are easy to cause physical and mental fatigue. ”

Referring to the explosion of short videos, it can be seen that fragmented, relaxed public entertainment activities are more likely to be popularized.

Mahjong is not so strict about the boundaries of age and group, and its popularity is more popular.

If mahjong is defined as a popular classic entertainment activity, then entertainment activities such as KTV, escape rooms, and script killings that have exploded at various stages can be regarded as fast-moving consumer goods in the entertainment industry. Their popularity depends to some extent on the impetus of external factors, such as variety shows and the influence of stars to promote the popularity of escape rooms and script killings.

They were once regarded as an outlet, and what was originally a niche entertainment activity attracted a large influx of people in a short period of time under the ripening of capital. When the industry calms down, the outlet will also be extinguished.

In the social process of continuous development and change of social economy, science and technology, and ideological concepts, people's daily entertainment activities will be constantly updated and iterated. When the old entertainment methods cannot adapt to the needs of users in the new era, it is necessary to eliminate them when they seek change and do nothing.

An offline entertainment industry practitioner said: "The entertainment industry has been changing rapidly, and if you don't want to be eliminated, you have to constantly follow the new trend. The KTV industry has been developing in the mainland for more than thirty years, and its existence for decades is not static, and it is also constantly adapting to new market demands. ”

Nowadays, many young people no longer like to go to KTV, and it is true that it has come to an end for practitioners who operate with inertial thinking, but there are still many practitioners seeking new growth paths.

Among them, grasping the middle-aged and elderly consumer group is one of the important ways, the middle-aged and elderly have money and leisure, and now many KTV specially launch relevant packages to seize this part of the group, for example, the KTV that was originally sold with alcohol even provides free boiling water and meals for the middle-aged and elderly groups.

In addition, the above-mentioned entertainment industry practitioners said that young people are not very fond of traditional business KTV and mass sales. In order to cope with the changes in the needs of young consumers, many KTVvs have begun to create new styles such as party private rooms and hi bags to attract the attention of young people with freshness.

However, subject to the niche nature of KTV itself, the new private room style cannot make it popular.

The entertainment industry is always in the process of constantly chasing young people, because young people can play and love to play. But young people are often also the most variable group, and in the process of distraction and change of young people, it will also affect the rise and fall of related industries.

Why has mahjong not fallen for a thousand years?

Mahjong originated in ancient China, has a thousand years of history, and has evolved into a classic national essence.

It is a classic entertainment for the whole people and the masses. Although there are different ways to play in different regions, such as Guangdong mahjong, Sichuan mahjong, Wenzhou mahjong, etc., the overall rules in a certain area are fixed and simple, the threshold is low, mahjong has the characteristics of becoming a mass entertainment, and the user group itself is very wide.

It has not suddenly become popular for a period of time like script killing, but it has always run through the daily life of the public for many years, and its popular attributes ensure that the changes of various external factors have less impact on it.

Of course, mahjong is also constantly changing in the inheritance to adapt to new user needs.

The first is the change in gameplay. Taking a place in western Hubei as an example, more than a decade ago, the local area was playing the so-called "hard mahjong", that is, the rules changed little and the way of playing cards was fixed, and now it seems that the overall gameplay is relatively boring. A few years ago, they added the "Laizi" gameplay, that is, there is a card that can be used as an arbitrary number. After the epidemic, on this basis, "lepers" were added to update the gameplay.

As the rules continue to change, the uncertainty of each game increases, and the odds of winning and losing are greater. Under the constant stimulation of dopamine, it is more addictive.

Secondly, mahjong-related entertainment facilities and venues are also constantly being updated.

Ten years ago, everyone played mahjong basically on the ordinary table with their hands, and now the popularity of automatic mahjong machines has also allowed players to get a better sense of experience.

In addition, we learned from a tea house staff in Chengdu that before 2020, they opened a traditional tea house in Chengdu, and after realizing the rise of young consumer groups and emerging consumption concepts, they built a self-service tea house, which is very popular among young people.

"The self-service tea house mainly provides consumers with relaxed and comfortable entertainment venues and entertainment facilities, and there is no staff escort service throughout the process, and any questions can be consulted and guided online." Said the above-mentioned staff.

"Our main client base is concentrated in young people, and this self-service tea house is perfect for gathering friends. During this year's Spring Festival, it was basically fully booked from the second day of the first year. ”

The relaxed and free consumption experience is the key to this type of self-service tea house to capture young consumers.

Compared with script killing and KTV, the social and entertainment experience brought by mahjong to young people seems to be more relaxed. This is just in line with the consumption and social habits of the younger generation such as the post-95s and post-00s.

Seeking progress in change is also one of the main reasons why mahjong is moving towards "classic".

At a time when many FMCG entertainment industry is cold, it is not surprising that young people will return their attention to the classics, which may be the reason why mahjong is popular this year.

*All respondents in this article are pseudonyms.