Since yesterday, many people’s Moments have been flooded with “2017-2019” . At this year's large-scale photo-sharing event, in addition to the selfie experts who came online one after another, joke tellers also used silly emoticons to show their changes in the past three years.
In 2017, I was called "Zha Mao" every morning, and in 2019, I changed my name to "San Mao".
She had a sweet smile in 2017, but had a double chin in 2019.
In 2017, the balance in my WeChat wallet was 0 yuan, and in 2019, I still have no money.
Time is a butcher's knife. Besides reducing my hairline, it has also shrunk my wallet.
There is still one month left until the end of 2019, and everyone seems to be particularly prone to reminiscing. Although 2017 is not a special year, the topic #从2017到2019# dominated the hot searches on Weibo within two days, with nearly 400 million reads.
In fact, the topic of "2017-2019" was not initiated by another "silly" netizen, but a carefully planned end-of-year event by Weibo. As for why the year was set to 2017, the relevant person in charge of Weibo said: If compared with 2018, the change in one year may be too small... This answer is really ridiculous, as if I have not gained weight since 2018!
In fact, a topic similar to this comparison challenge was already popular at the beginning of this year. The #Ten-Year Comparison Challenge# initiated by the People's Daily official Weibo account that time covered a longer time span. The topic #From 2017 to 2019# planned by Weibo this time is also intended to compete with the #Ten Years Comparison Challenge#.
Ten Years of Killing/ Public Account Media
At certain times of the year, a bunch of topics become popular on the Internet for unknown reasons. Although it is not a new way of playing, people still enjoy participating in it and it is flooding the entire Internet. What kind of topic can trigger "universal participation"? How to plan hot topics first and bring huge traffic to your own account?
Today we are going to talk about the “topics of the nation” .
01 Why did “2017-2019” become so popular for no apparent reason?
/ Relieve year-end anxiety
There are still 35 days left in 2020, and many people will fall into a sudden year-end anxiety. The anxiety that could usually be relieved by eating a hotpot is now suddenly overwhelming. China Youth Daily once conducted a survey, in which 86.4% of the respondents said they had "year-end anxiety" , with the anxiety mainly reflected in the economy, work pressure, and interpersonal relationships.
The circle of friends is a place where people can vent their emotions, so we can also see graduation anxiety, employment anxiety, and single anxiety there.
These are reflected in the "2017-2019 Comparison" as changes in renting/school/being single/breaking up/raising cats/hair loss. The comparison challenge is not to complain about life. On the contrary, you will laugh out loud at the silly emoticons in the comparison challenge and relieve your uneasy emotions through self-deprecating.
The unique "sand sculpture culture" is a panacea for treating late-night anxiety. For those young people who are under pressure, emoticons, ghost animals and reversals have become their best safe havens. After watching a lot of simple and meaningless stupid content, your anxiety will be suppressed, you will forget the pressure in life and party with the stupid netizens.
/ Find a reason to post a selfie
After the “2017-2019 Comparison” became popular, netizens opened their QQ albums after a long absence and picked out the best looking photo from 2017. Seeing the comments filled with "The girl is so beautiful" and "You look so handsome when you lose weight", I couldn't help but fall into deep thought. Isn't this a competition between beauty apps?
Nowadays, posting on Moments requires choosing the right occasion and having a reason. If you post too frequently, you will be criticized by those who criticize you, but if you don’t post, you will feel like you have no sense of existence. So , many times, it’s not that you don’t want to post selfies on Moments that show your daily life, but that you dare not.
Those photos that you looked good in the past but didn’t have the chance to post can now be used in the “2017-2019 Comparison”. By the way, you can also let new friends see what you looked like before and receive everyone’s praise. It can be said to be killing two birds with one stone.
/ Memories kill the emotions
Nostalgia is an irrational emotion that is easily ignited and occurs regularly when people face identity changes and life disruptions. When we are nostalgic, we often use filters to amplify the emotions at that time. So when users see photos taken in 2017, they will unconsciously think of the scene when the photos were taken that year and send out the photos with special emotions.
NetEase Cloud Music’s annual music listening report brought back a wave of nostalgia with text that was specific to the date.
You slept very late on June 3rd 02:36 Still with the music
August 21 is probably a very special day. On this day, you listened to XXX 51 times.
This year, you spent 33 days immersed in the world of music after midnight...
There are many memories hidden in every song. NetEase Cloud locates the scene to a certain night and a certain line of lyrics, which can better awaken users' memories at that time, recall their emotions at that time, and recall certain people.
02 What kind of topics are likely to trigger "national participation"?
In July this year, the "aging challenge" suddenly became popular in China from Europe and the United States. Open Twitter, Facebook, Weibo, or WeChat, and you can see netizens showing off their old-age makeup everywhere. It was as if when I woke up, the whole world had become older.
Even celebrities like Jay Chou, William Chan, and Bolin Chen have joined the challenge.
Aging makeup/ William Chan's Weibo
In addition to the aging challenge, there are also comparisons before and after military training, comparisons of celebrities before and after weight loss, comparisons before and after falling in love... These popular comparison challenges on the Internet spread faster than a virus.
These topics that have sparked a wave of dissemination on social platforms actually have similar underlying logic.
/ Low entry threshold
First of all, in order to achieve universal participation, hot topics must have the power to transcend various circles such as age, class, industry, etc., and influence all kinds of people to the greatest extent. Most of us are ordinary people, so topics that resonate with ordinary people can get more participants.
Secondly, there should be room for discussion on the topic. Topics with a large discussion space tend to be very inclusive, that is, discussions on this topic are not subject to too many restrictions and there are no clear standards of right or wrong. For example, discussions on the topic of "fear of marriage" affect many more people than discussions on topics related to marriage law.
Furthermore, it is easy to participate in the topic. Some topics may encounter such an embarrassing situation: users want to participate, but have no materials or information to participate. For content like posting selfies, the threshold for participating in topics is relatively low. It is not difficult to find a photo of yourself taken three years ago. This topic can be used as UGC by everyone.
/ Winning by form
Content is the flesh and blood, form is the bones. Novel forms can also bring extremely high popularity to a topic, because people are naturally curious and users always like to explore and share new things.
In 2017, a video game called "Look! The H5 product "This is my military uniform photo" became popular. The "Military Uniform Photo" H5 was planned and produced by the People's Daily client and led by the development, and Tencent Tiantian Ptu provided image processing technology. Since its launch on the evening of July 29, as of August 2, the "Military Uniform Photos" H5 has been viewed a total of 820 million times, with a peak of 410,000 visitors per minute.
Hundreds of millions of netizens have posted “military uniform photos” of themselves or their family members from different generations online. From WeChat to Weibo, the “military uniform photos” dominated the screen and became extremely popular. In fact, the dissemination effect of images on various social media is far better than that of text , especially topics that can be accompanied by selfies and beautiful photos have extremely high user participation.
With the help of advanced image processing technology, the "Military Uniform Photo" H5 can quickly change clothes and generate beautiful photos based on the photos uploaded by users. The whole process is novel and unique, which is very attractive to users who have little exposure to H5 generation products in 2017.
Similarly, during the National Day in 2019, the message “@微信官方, give me a national flag” quickly swept the WeChat Moments because users were attracted by the novel form of “national flag avatar”.
/ Topic is appropriate
Every time the college entrance examination comes, the whole network will recall the struggling youth; every holiday, the circle of friends will post photos of "huge crowds of people" of tourists; every Valentine's Day, there will be couples showing off their love in various ways and singles becoming jealous... Some specific and important time nodes occur every year, and topics that are appropriate to the occasion are more likely to attract high attention.
Topics that attract nationwide participation are even more prolific during the Spring Festival. Apart from various classic topics such as the Spring Festival Gala, just the Alipay "Collect Five Blessings" activity that has been popular since 2016 is enough to make the entire network cry for Jingyefu. In addition, there are some special time nodes.
On December 31, 2017, the “18-year-old photo” was all over the WeChat Moments.
18-year-old photo/ Public account @少年与网红
Because this day is the last day of 2017, it represents that the last batch of post-90s will turn 18, and all the post-90s have become adults. For all those born in the 1990s, this is a very meaningful node.
/ Awakening human resonance
The book "Screen Swiping" states: Users' maintenance of their own persona and venting of their own emotions are far more important than the truth, which may be the key reason for emotional screen swiping. In other words, topics that can generally arouse emotions are more likely to be popular on the screen. The main motivations for users to participate in sharing are: showing superiority, gaining a sense of identity, building a sense of ritual, and obtaining social currency.
On November 3, 2018, the IG team invested by Wang Sicong won the League of Legends Global Finals. For a time, "IG is awesome" quickly topped the trending searches and flooded QQ Space and Moments. Users who had previously said “I’ll xxxx if IG wins” were overjoyed and cried, and fulfilled their wishes like crazy; various IG emojis were flooding the social platforms; people celebrating IG’s victory and those who were swept up in the frenzy and sincerely asked questions about why IG won each occupied half of the Internet…
Weibo @You said the moonlight is so beautiful tonight
The key to the topic of “IG is awesome” triggering nationwide participation lies in the emotions it carries with it. Especially for those born in the 1990s who love e-sports, the shouts of "IG is awesome" are not just the ecstasy of victory, they are more like calling out for their love and youth that are not understood.
The misunderstood choice and the unsupported e-sports dream were finally vindicated at this moment by IG's feat of winning the championship.
/ Self-deprecation makes it easier to have fun
User participation is mostly manifested in the form of self-expression by users, which is either intended to resonate with others or to make self-deprecating comments or to be funny and humorous. It can also be seen from the popular topic of "2017-2019 Comparison Challenge" that funny content such as complaints, self-deprecation, and spoofs account for half of the topic.
Internet users influenced by "Buddhist culture" and "sorrowful culture" are more willing to interpret various realities and express themselves in a playful and spoof way, such as emoticons, barrages, jokes , etc.
On August 16, 2017, a group of videos titled “Who are we? Party A!” became popular after being released on Weibo. While the comic resonated with a large number of netizens, it also set off a wave of image modification craze.
Who are we? Party A》/Weibo@三人设计才图
Who are we? Public relations! What is our daily routine? Take the blame! When should I recite it? Always be prepared!
Who are we? Single dog! Why are you single? Yearning for freedom! Say it again? Having no money is troublesome and ugly!
Who are we? Mom! What do we do every day? nagging! What are you nagging about? I keep nagging about everything I see!
This comic book, which is full of self-deprecating spirit, quickly resonated with people from all walks of life, and everyone instantly turned into a drama queen and got caught up in an irresistible photo-editing competition. There are college version, police version, doctor version, reporter version...all kinds of versions are in full bloom, and everyone makes various jokes about their respective industries or lives.
In this era of UGC for everyone, content generated spontaneously by users has penetrated into various media. The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment generated when creating are the driving force for users to continue to delve deeper into the content. One of the underlying logics of screen swiping is to stimulate the imagination and creativity of each user, rather than simply satisfying user needs. Instead of operating users, it is better to let users operate themselves.
