Two major routines: How did the "TikTok" divine song become a brainwashing feast for the whole nation?

Let’s learn to meow together, meow meow meow meow…” “321, love is like the blue sky and white clouds, the sky is clear, and suddenly there is a storm…”

"You said you like Mori girl style, but I have an extra G..."

Even if you don’t use Tik Tok , you must have heard these magical BGM songs. These songs not only dominate the charts of Tik Tok's popular videos, but with Tik Tok's astonishing user penetration of over 150 million daily active users and over 300 million monthly active users, they have also invaded all areas of online video. Wherever there is BGM, there are Tik Tok's divine songs, and even offline shopping malls and physical stores are not spared.

Among the comments on Douyin, there is even a large group of people who leave messages: "This music has never let me down", which shows the importance of music to Douyin.

What makes Music Pioneer curious is how the BGM on the short video APP has become a brainwashing feast for the whole nation?

1. Content formula: viral melodies and lyrics

Let’s start with the songs themselves. The songs that have become popular on Tik Tok are of various types, ranging from love songs to rock songs to news clips, and it seems that all of them have the potential to become popular. However, from the perspective of melody, it must be viral, and there are only two ways to do it: one is "pleasant to the ear".

The so-called "pleasant to the ears" is often called "catchy songs" in the professional music field. The melody is simple and catchy, and you can even sing many songs after listening to them twice. When people on the street are humming the song, then the song is not far from becoming popular. Some people have even conducted special research on the melodies of Tik Tok's hit songs. As long as you write songs according to the "CG-Am-Em-F-Em-Dm-G" pattern, you will find that the creation of the second song "Paper is Short, Love is Long" is not a difficult task at all, and it can even be mass-produced.

The second is "demonic nature". The evil nature mainly refers to the constant brainwashing, which stops abruptly when you are about to get tired of it. When "seaweed, seaweed" is echoing all over your mind, you may have been poisoned by Tik Tok. From a professional academic perspective, this phenomenon is called "earworm," or "involuntary musical imagination," which makes the melodies keep circling in your mind over and over again, and you can't help but remember them.

Of course, the devil may also be to break the routine and achieve a brainwashing effect. For example, the song "Tarzan Next Door", which was originally sung well, suddenly inserted a section of "Ah Ah" howling at the top of one's throat, forcibly creating a memorable point, and it seemed to be catching up with the hit song "What does the fox say" back then. With music that is full of dramatic twists within a dozen seconds, there is a lot of room for creativity in video shooting, so it is no wonder that it is favored by TikTok users.

The lyrics of Tik Tok's hit songs are more distinctive. The first is situational setting. In order to better utilize the characteristics of Douyin short videos in just a dozen seconds, songs often consist of three to five sentences. The lyrics are very situational and use a large number of verbs to match the actions of the video. For example, the song "123 I Love You" that made the Bi Heart Cat popular, "Gently close to your ear, Sharon hey yo", the cat followed the lyrics and made the movements stroke by stroke. The simple "gesture dance" of a few seconds won countless fans, and the background music contributed to this.

Secondly, the lyrics should be popular, earthy and rhyming. It doesn’t matter if the lyrics are unscientific, what matters is that they are catchy and unforgettable; it doesn’t matter if the connotation is unclear, what matters is that they rhyme.

How to create a hit song on Tik Tok? Brainwash melody + repetition + visual sense + earthy taste + rhyme, this is routine one.

2. Communication routine: catering to user characteristics

According to public data, the users of Douyin are mainly women under the age of 24, and most of them use Douyin for entertainment purposes. This means that the majority of songs on Douyin are light-hearted, funny, and describe the love emotions of young people. Songs that can be widely spread and have deep interactions are those that can resonate slightly with users, while songs that require deep explanation of their meaning or that require a slower emotional investment generally have poor effects.

Image from Penguin Intelligence

It is understood that 77.8% of Douyin users are inspired to create after seeing interesting videos posted by others. For Tik Tok users, the impulse to shoot and upload videos often comes from " imitation ", which means that after a video becomes popular, many people will follow suit and shoot similar videos, which promotes the further spread of background music. Music that caters to user psychology can increase the communication effect exponentially.

Therefore, there are two common Douyin divine songs. One is a sweet, fast-paced love song suitable for showing "gesture dance". Under the brainwashing of catchy music over and over again, watching the creative videos of many Douyin friends, it is inevitable that you will feel itchy. Another type is slow songs suitable for showing cover talents, which have become a stage for Douyin users to compete in appearance, singing skills and acting skills. The videos of just over ten seconds are full of affection and moving eyes, and each one is more like a sad song MV than the other.

In the spread of Tik Tok songs, we have to mention the help of young ladies and gentlemen. Since the rise of the internet celebrity economy , large numbers of fair-skinned beauties and handsome and cute young men have become synonymous with Internet traffic , and Tik Tok is no exception. Among the big celebrities on Tik Tok, whenever they post a new video, they will attract a large number of likes and reposts, and people will often shout "I feel like I have diabetes from the sweetness of the video", and it is reasonable that the background music will also become popular.

Of course, cute pets also help. The cat-dimensional economy is getting more and more intense, and cat-lovers have shifted from Weibo and official accounts to Douyin. A cute cat video can even bring hundreds of thousands of likes, which has also made an important contribution to the spread of Douyin's divine songs.

How to make a Tik Tok song popular? Sweet and fast songs + talent competition + internet celebrity promotion + cute pet economy, this is the second routine.

3. Beyond the routine: the promotion effect of Douyin’s hit songs

Coming from the routine and going back to the routine, Douyin's divine songs not only fueled the popularity of the videos on the Douyin platform itself, but also paved the way for many songs that were originally tepid or even little-known.

For example, the song "Answer" sung by Amber Kuo and Yang Kun was performed on the 2014 Spring Festival Gala four years ago. It was not very popular in itself. Even though Yang Kun held 32 concerts in a year, no one knew that he was the one who sang "321 Love is Like the Blue Sky and White Clouds". But after being covered by young idol Fang Yujie on Tik Tok, the song quickly soared to the top of the list and even dominated the list for several months, even turning free singing into paid singing. Another example is "Wish Post-it Notes", which was released 10 years ago, and the cover version has been listened to by many more people than the original version. The "Gemini meteor shower that can't be waited for" not only "filled the sky", but also became a hit on the entire Internet.

Wang Xinyu

It can be said that Tik Tok’s promotional energy has surpassed traditional music programs and its momentum is fierce, and this power has even extended overseas. Someone once posted a video of a duty-free shop in Akihabara, Japan. The video was bustling with people, but the background music was "Let's learn to meow together, meow meow meow meow." The song "Learn to Meow" was even developed into Japanese and Korean versions to suit local conditions and has become widely sung.

Of course, the popularity of the divine song overseas is naturally related to Tik Tok’s overseas strategy. Tik Tok, the overseas version of Douyin, focuses on the Southeast Asian and Japanese and Korean markets, with remarkable results. It has also topped the Japanese App Store free list . In the overseas version, in addition to the familiar hand gesture dance and C哩C哩, there are also familiar Chinese background music such as "Buddha Girl", "Hug My Husband", and "Sorrow of Separation". These videos, which are already very popular in China, have been introduced overseas as mature video cases. Foreigners also have a lot of fun with them. This can be seen as a successful case of cultural overseas export.

Judging from Tik Tok’s actions in the music field in recent years, its ambitions in music operations seem to go beyond this. Not long ago, Douyin has reached cooperation with many record and music copyright companies, including Universal Music, Warner Music, Universal Music, Taihe Music, Warner Shengshi, Dashi Copyright and other companies, and Douyin has obtained the right to use their entire music library.

On the other hand, Tik Tok is also actively supporting original music. According to statistics, Douyin's "See the Music Plan" aimed at discovering and supporting original and independent musicians has produced more than 80,000 original works and attracted 14,000 musicians to participate. In Douyin's music plan with an ever-expanding industrial chain and a broader territory, these original music will also be packaged and promoted through new channels through Douyin.

Although Tik Tok has been working hard for the music on its platform, we have to admit that this short-term, fast-growing song popularity model has also had a negative impact on song creation and the market, and even sparked discussions about "Tik Tok is ruining music."

The highly profitable routine has created a shortcut to fame, leading to more and more brainwashing songs that follow the trend. The melodies are familiar, the lyrics are incomprehensible, the content is shallow and vulgar, and all aspects have been criticized, even contributing to the emergence of plagiarism. The market has also developed immunity to or even an aversion to so-called divine songs through rounds of large-scale brainwashing of the public. Comments have also changed from the initial "What a magical song" to covering one's ears and avoiding songs as soon as one hears them.

In general, now that Douyin operations have become a part of a company's brand strategy, various brands and manufacturers have targeted Douyin as a new marketing tool. Music and TikTok have a natural close connection, and using TikTok's positive routines to promote music marketing is a new idea.

How to promote the improvement of music quality while maintaining the existing marketing power, allowing routines and quality to interact positively, generate more long-term value, and extend the vitality of Douyin's divine songs. This is also a problem that Douyin must face if it wants to go further on the road of music layout.

Source: Music Pioneer