Taking "The Debaters" as an example, how can content products become anxiety decoders for Internet natives?

A content product should be consumed by users and achieve certain satisfaction: cognitive needs (obtaining information, knowledge and understanding), emotional needs (emotional, pleasant or aesthetic experiences), personal integration needs (enhancing credibility, confidence, stability and social status), social integration needs (enhancing contact with family, friends, etc.), and stress relief needs (escaping and diverting attention).

Ma Dong may be the uncle born in the 60s who understands those born in the 90s and 00s the best, and he has always boasted about this. This is also the reason why " The Debaters " has been able to make this generation of Internet natives feel a sense of identity and form a sense of "generational" superiority since its inception.

In the first season of "The Debaters", the animation at the beginning of each episode would emphasize: "People over the age of 40, please be accompanied by someone born after 1990." This kind of witty self-mockery determined the initial positioning of the program. "Post-90s Ma Dong" led the team, trying to break through the dullness and monotony of the previous generation and express the psychological demands of the new generation of young people for a sense of existence and voice, and then gathered a group of cultural and entertainment consumers who had a special understanding of the concept of "weird".

The word "weird" has undergone at least two rounds of genetic mutation. The original meaning of "qiba" refers to peculiar and beautiful flowers. It is often used to describe unusual and excellent literary and artistic works or outstanding people. It appears as a commendatory word in textbooks. The first minor mutation made it synonymous with "unworldly and unique". Now, it is more of a sarcastic term for those who are different. Although this meaning has not yet been included in the dictionary, it has long been widely used in the Internet environment.

"The Debaters" has changed the word "weird" again, and it has begun to become a "consumer symbol" that embraces diverse viewpoints. The rapid development of society has led to a huge generation gap and communication gap in various fields and circles. The fragmented social network has cut into the lives of young people in China. They do not seem to be happy about enjoying the benefits. Instead, they are increasingly anxious. The older generation is anxious because they understand the young people less and less.

Since they are rooted in China's cultural background and social structure, with the changes in society, "workplace relationships", "partnerships", "relationships between men and women", "family relationships", etc. have also gradually changed. In a society based on human relationships, these changes, whether due to external or internal factors, are inseparable from the word "emotion" - the emotional bonds of family, love, friendship, etc.

But such a summary is too simplistic. The classic summary of Chinese relationships is Fei Xiaotong's theory of differential pattern , which was originally used to describe the concept of rural society. "Our pattern is not a bundle of firewood tied neatly together, but like the ripples that occur when a stone is thrown into the water. Everyone is the center of the circle of his social influence. Those who are pushed by the ripples of the circle will be connected. The circle used by each person at a certain time and place is not necessarily the same."

Although it already includes blood relations, geographical relationships, etc., to be honest, Fei Xiaotong's theory is quite vague. It is precisely this ambiguity that illustrates the rigor and restraint of scholars, as well as the complexity and diversity of Chinese relationships.

Just like "The Debaters", which has debated for four seasons and nearly a hundred topics, except for a few brain-opening questions, most of them actually revolve around various emotions and "Chinese-style relationships". While adhering to the bottom line, the program has value tendencies, but there are never standard answers.

Along with the iteration of the meaning of the word "奇帕", "奇帕说" itself is also being upgraded, and what we are seeing now is its 4.0 version. Compared with the previous three seasons, under the surface of unbridled expression, the fourth season of "The Debaters" focuses more on exploring the real ideological dilemmas of young people. There are fewer golden sentences, and it is more intended to provide less aggressive solution references for those born in the 1990s and 2000s.

2

We often say that this era is an era of visual culture dominated by sensualism. Pictures, sounds and images are all baits, especially images, which dominate the audience. Viewed from this dimension, "The Rap of China" is a rational carnival on the Internet dominated by sensualism. Regarding the carnival, I have previously written an article specifically to interpret it: With its heart and soul, and serious debate, "The Rap of China" is actually a narrative carnival for the urban middle class.

Here, I would like to talk about how "The Rap of China" deconstructs Chinese relationships from the audience's perspective, allowing the audience to achieve virtual participation and arouse the individual's own complex opinions and behaviors.

I quite agree with Kong Yuqin from the School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University who started his analysis from Freud's psychoanalytic theory. She said that when debaters, hosts or guests use their own experiences to express their views, they are actually using the presentation of "stories" to influence the audience's choices and judgments to a certain extent. Different stories may have different conscious and unconscious impacts on the audience, resulting in a wide variety of opinions, perspectives and positions. In this field of diverse opinions, the audience will find the shadow of themselves.

The audience's conscious participation and unconscious fictional participation will be greater and stronger. For example, when the audience is watching "The Debaters" and choosing their stance to vote in real time, the change or sway of their stance, which is the form of "voting away" in the program, is, to some extent, the concretization of "contradictions" in the personality structure. Fictional participation at the psychological level leads to conscious participation in voting and commenting interactions at the behavioral level.

The special identities of the guests and contestants further stimulated the audience's participation. In the June 9th episode, Gao Xiaosong returned, and Cai Kangyong said this would inspire his fighting spirit. If Cai Kangyong represents emotional humanistic concern, then Gao Xiaosong represents the opposite rational concern.

In "Xiao Shuo" and "Xiaosong Qi Tan", Gao Xiaosong mainly comments on history, but as the captain and guest of the debate team, Gao Xiaosong can comment on the contestants mercilessly and express his praise for Xiao Xiao's growth from a snake-faced man to a debater without reservation, thus showing his passionate side. For Xiao Xiao, his experience on "The Rap of China" surpassed his four years in college. For Gao Xiaosong, on his way to becoming an internet celebrity , "The Rap of China" has assumed a completely different function from "Xiao Shuo".

The first debate topic of the fourth season in which Gao Xiaosong participated as a guest was "Relatives always don't treat themselves as outsiders. Should I judge them (in northern dialect, it means not giving them face and rejecting them coldly)?" Looking back at the entire four seasons of "The Debaters", other family relationship topics included "Is urging marriage love or perversion?" and "Is a wedding really necessary?" etc.

Some of my friends started watching “The Debaters” from the fourth season, and recently they started to catch up and watched the first three seasons. They told me that every topic seemed to be able to touch upon the confusion that they are having now or in the past.

For example, in terms of friendships, "Should you tell your best friend if his or her lover cheated on you?", "Are you stupid if you make friends with stupid people?"; the most difficult relationship between the sexes, "Should you break up in person?", "Should you settle for a similar partner regardless of whether you have a boy or a girl?", "Should girls take the initiative to pursue boys?"; in terms of self-confrontation but seemingly never having an answer, "Is it wrong that I don't have ambition?", "Are the critical hits in life worth being grateful for?", all of these have been discussed in "U Can U Bibi".

Does "The Rap of China" have any answers to their confusion? The answer is no. There are always loopholes in individual logic, and the sharpness of debate and the rise of values ​​ultimately provide a "fuzzy" balance. This also confirms the contradiction and conflict between the id, ego and superego in the personality structure proposed by Freud. But what is certain is that if you are willing to share your perspective with the other party in the conflict you are in, your world will be less chaotic and violent.

3

Popular culture theorist John Fiske once proposed that "popular texts should be 'producer-like'."

The so-called "producer-like" text means that it can be easily interpreted by readers, while being open to readers to independently produce meaning. One of the characteristics of a "producer text" is that it already contains voices that are contrary to its preferences, even though it tries to suppress them.

One of the debate topics in the fourth season was "The air quality in the city where I work is getting worse and worse, should I leave it?" Zang Hongfei said that we are lost in our obsession with desires... "The premise of happiness is health, and I must be healthy." Xiao Xiao said that many times we are oppressed by an uncomfortable environment, and it is precisely because of this discomfort that we have developed a set of armor.

It is precisely "producer-style texts" like the one mentioned above, with their diversity and relativity of viewpoints, that allow the audience to experience the joy of participating in and interpreting the meaning of the program. The clever thing about "The Debaters" is the rules for determining victory or defeat - it is not determined by which side has more votes but by the number of changes in votes, thus maintaining the contradictions and ambiguity of the program to the greatest extent possible.

A content product should be consumed by users and achieve certain satisfaction: cognitive needs (obtaining information, knowledge and understanding), emotional needs (emotional, pleasant or aesthetic experiences), personal integration needs (enhancing credibility, confidence, stability and social status), social integration needs (enhancing contact with family, friends, etc.), and stress relief needs (escaping and diverting attention).

The choice of debate style and the setting of social issues in "The Debaters" meet most of the above needs and also avoid the emptiness brought about by some entertainment programs that simply entertain.

For a generation of Internet natives who are experiencing relationship anxiety, "The Debaters" is like the metaphor used by American journalist Pulitzer to interpret the social significance of journalists: if a country is a ship sailing on the sea, then journalists are the lookouts on the bow. He had to observe everything on the vast sea, examine the unexpected storms and shoals and reefs at sea, and issue warnings in time. ”

"The Debaters" explains the complexity of information, the flexibility of viewpoints and the diversity of the world, but the choice and action still lie with you.

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This article was compiled and published by @吴怼怼(Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map