Douban's ten years: 100 million young artists come together to form a style

Over the past decade, China's impetuous Internet environment has witnessed the rise and fall of one website after another.

While various websites imitated each other, expanded rapidly, and fought tooth and nail for users, Douban seemed so calm. In the past ten years, Douban, as the only original website in China, has never been popular and has been growing steadily. In the past ten years, Douban has influenced the spiritual life of countless people and cultivated and discovered batches of young artists. It challenged the authoritative rankings and popular trends in the literary and artistic circles, and built a collective spiritual home in a bottom-up way, allowing countless people who are looking for spiritual life to find support. It broke the rules of the game of traditional professional creation, and the encouragement mechanism for creation allows independent creators in various fields to freely explore and discover their own style here.

In recent years, Douban has become more and more popular, and "literary youth" no longer seems to be a good word. With the abuse of words such as "travel" and "dream", it has gradually become a symbol. The older generation of users who once had a high sense of identity with Douban are facing the loss of cultural identity in the process of its popularization. Every time Douban is revised, it is almost always complained about, and some users even commit suicide by logging out. The old "literary youth" group seems to have been invaded, and the former "elite" atmosphere seems to have been gradually diluted due to the expansion of the user base.

As the user base expands, more people come to Douban to define their own identities. People get what they need here, and each user's own characteristics define Douban. Douban is becoming more and more like a mirror of people's spiritual life in this society. There are a thousand Doubans for a thousand people.

One person's Douban

"From everyone, to everyone: Thank you for being with us. Happy birthday!" Abei said in Douban Broadcast on March 6, 2015. Douban has been around for ten years in the blink of an eye.

March 6, 2005 was a special day for Yang Bo. On this day, he launched Douban, and his name on Douban was Abei.

There is a "Douban Hutong" near Chaoyangmen, where Abei used to live. Ten years ago, this young man in his thirties wrote source code in a Starbucks near Douban Hutong. That's how Douban got its name.

It was not until 2006, almost a year after Douban went online, that the first official employee was hired.

"Virgo", "idealist", "all-rounder". These are how the Douban veterans who accompanied Abei in his career described him. Abei has a PhD in physics, and computer science is not his major, but he has been interested in programming since high school. He is also an old Internet addict, having been surfing the Internet since 1992, and has been working on it for many years.

Because of his passion for reading, Abei wanted to build a circle of people who share similar interests. "At that time, I had an idea. I read a lot of books, but after talking to colleagues and friends, I felt that I had learned very little. Others had read some good books and had some good things. Can we share our experience with others? What better way can we share with others?" Abei talked about the original intention of creating this website in an interview in 2006.

After returning from the United States in 2000, Abei invested in the Internet industry. The Web 2.0 era had just begun, and blogs where users generated content were becoming increasingly popular. Douban’s original core function was “reading”, which later evolved into “books, movies, and music” items, along with book reviews, movie reviews, and music reviews, as well as a community sharing and discussion platform built on these interests.

When Douban was launched a month ago, it had less than 1,000 users. Today, it has more than 100 million registered users. In the ever-changing world of the Internet, Douban has almost never experienced major ups and downs, and its user base has been growing steadily. This seemingly "slow" tone is said to be related to the style of its founder, Abei.

"Douban received a $2 million angel investment from Lianchuang Ceyuan in 2006," recalled Xu Wei, Douban's first PR. "In the Internet environment, companies that receive large investments usually expand immediately, but Abei didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. He didn't expand the scale of the company and stayed with the same people."

Ye Fei, the former advertising planning director who resigned in 2014, believes that Abei is not an entrepreneur in the secular sense. "Abei does not want the company to be dominated by business," Ye Fei recalled. "He has always been obsessed with users, products and technology, rather than focusing on business. In the early days, he was very cautious in accepting advertisements and was very selective about advertisers. The first advertisement he accepted was Converse because it was consistent with Douban's tone. To this day, advertisements on Douban are like content. The pictures must be good-looking and the copy must be interesting, in line with Douban's style."

Their Douban

As a website with high originality from framework to product, Douban has an absolute advantage in the competition of the Internet industry. But at the same time, the original model also brought great challenges to Douban employees - because there was no reference, the road could only be explored internally. There were also many failed attempts, such as the early travel channel, the later Alpha City, and the later movie ticketing business.

Xu Wei still misses the early days when she worked at Douban and explored the way together. "Every time there is a revision, internal employees test it together. Douban and users are very close. Those revisions will set off a 'war' among the user group, but those 'wars' also touched internal employees. Users really treat this place as their home. When the interface is changed, everyone will express various opinions." Brant also mentioned everyone's enthusiasm for exploration and innovation. "After the launch, we track user feedback, and then continue to iterate and adjust. Everyone can put forward their own views, opinions and solutions throughout the process."

Abei worships Apple and Google , and Douban's management model is similar to them: flat structure, weakened hierarchy, advocating openness and humanity, and very few restrictions on employees. High efficiency comes from the fact that employees have a high degree of autonomy, work independently, and are willing to communicate and share with each other. Also, because employees have certain commonalities in temperament, there are many daily exchanges outside of work. Many of the employees or former employees interviewed were Douban fans before they joined Douban. In the words of Douban employee Sophie, "People who join Douban are not just due to coincidence, but everyone carries Douban's DNA."

Douban has a long paid vacation. Ye Fei, the former advertising planning director, recalled that during the four years he worked at Douban, he took four vacations every year to travel. Employees can bring their pets to work on Fridays, and there are always cats and dogs in the company on Fridays. Employees can find various courses in the company, such as guitar class, painting class, and Go class. Douban also has a D9 movie theater. Movies used to be shown every Friday night, but later it was adjusted to Thursday, and everyone sat on the steps to watch movies.

Douban employees all have distinct personalities, some are hippies, some are rockers, and some are punks. As an Internet company, the programmers here are also very special. Former UI designer Tony recalled, "Engineers always talk about changing the world. In the early years, everyone loved the Lord of the Rings, and Douban's servers were named after people in the Lord of the Rings. But now those names should no longer be enough." Programmer Su27 wrote in his Douban recruitment diary in 2012, "In addition to biodiversity , every Douban programmer will have some iconic Douban temperament... In short, this temperament is closely related to the temperament of Douban itself, just like the waitresses in bookstores will have a little smell of ink, just like the uncles selling meat in the butcher shop will have a little fresh smell of ribs."

Everyone's Douban

Abei said that he always believed that as a UGC (user-generated content) website, Douban is everyone's Douban.

Many people found friends here, had their writings published, and became writers, photographers, painters, book reviewers, and film critics. One after another, people who are remembered by everyone were born on Douban.

They defined Douban's past ten years; they are Douban's past ten years.

“A spiritual home built from the bottom up”

Douban has very few editors, and the few editors who do not provide content are only responsible for selecting the best content from the content pushed to the library and placing it on various Douban platforms. As a pioneer of Web 2.0, Douban advocates the wisdom of the masses. By the end of 2014, Douban had 17 million book entries, 440,000 movie entries, and 1.14 million music entries, all created by users.

Since Douban Reading was launched in 2012, it has become the first starting point for many young authors to start their writing careers. "The discussion atmosphere of Douban Reading has attracted a large number of writers. After Douban Reading was launched as a self-publishing platform, more than 5,000 authors created works here and directly published them as digital works for sale." Scallet, senior director of Douban Reading, said when talking about the impact of Douban on public reading in the past ten years.

Nanqiao is a Chinese writer living in the United States. He has more than 40,000 followers on Douban and is listed very high on the Douban celebrity list. "Douban lets people know that there are many ways to play games." Nanqiao said, "Some writers are sought after on it, either because they break certain conventions or because they lead people to find new ways of writing and new perspectives." In Nanqiao's view, Douban can almost be said to have saved the reading culture in the past decade. "Chinese people don't read much, and the cheap sharing on the Internet and the lack of intellectual property protection have made the publishing and sales of paper books even worse. Readers, writers, and translators on Douban huddle together for warmth, using the accumulated heat to fight the cold wave facing the book industry, making people find that reading is respectable and even cool."

Ding Xiaoyun, a best-selling author on Douban Reading, seems to have benefited from the popularity of Douban. In 2006 and 2007, he posted manuscripts on Douban that had not been published due to sensitive content. Some of the articles became popular articles on Douban. Since then, editors from newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses have been constantly asking for articles. This made him realize that the power of free sharing in the web2.0 era is really great. "Many people are willing to share valuable things for free on the Douban platform, which may be the greatest value of Douban." Ding Xiaoyun said. In 2010, he published a book for the first time using the Douban username "Ding Xiaoyun".

Amateur film critic Ai Xiaoke has gathered nearly 100,000 followers on Douban. For Chinese writers living in Australia, Douban is a place that plays a decisive role in spiritual life and creative path. In 2006, she began to write film reviews on Douban and posted them under the film entries. Magazines have been asking for articles one after another. "At least 80% of the editors found me through Douban. For someone who treats writing as a hobby, this is quite encouraging. At least I know that there are people in the world who are interested in what I am interested in, and are even willing to take the initiative to publish my opinions." Ai Xiaoke said. A film review titled "Snow in the North" made Ai Xiaoke suddenly popular on Douban.

"That was the first time I realized the influence of my film reviews on Douban, and the first time I really felt the humanistic atmosphere of intellectuals on Douban." In addition to the creative path of amateur writers, Douban also played a decisive role in Ai Xiaoke's spiritual life. She got to know some writers she didn't know before on Douban, and also met many serious writers through Douban, and everyone shared and communicated with each other. "It's simply the 'non-existent small circle' of a wanderer like me." Ai Xiaoke was also discovered by an editor on Douban and published her first book, "Nostalgia for Wanderers".

"Friends, Opportunities, Vision"

In addition to helping potential creators embark on a writing career, Douban provides more than just friends, opportunities, and perspectives.

For young writer Zhang Jiawei, whose reading interests were almost established before Douban appeared, Douban did not affect his aesthetic interests much. "Before Douban appeared, a lot of information was on some unpopular websites, and enthusiasts exchanged information with each other secretly, like underground party members passing on intelligence. Douban provides a place to enrich a large amount of resources according to interests. It is not an exaggeration to say that Douban has opened the door to one's horizons," said Zhang Jiawei.

Bonnie Bai had also published a large number of works in print media before Douban appeared. She registered Douban in 2006, and she was most active on Douban around 2008. Recalling that time, Bonnie Bai spoke with some sadness, "In the early years, Douban was like an isolated island, it was really a spiritual paradise, everyone read and wrote things very seriously. Douban's shaping of the so-called 'literary and artistic' is really powerful. For the first time, it made literary and artistic youth a group, gathering people based on spiritual needs. Because Douban has the 'infinite merging of similar items' function in social networking, I met a lot of cool literary and artistic youth with similar interests, and we would always get together offline to chat. The quality of the friends I met on Douban is always very high."

Douban celebrity Du Biansheng has gained enough attention by doing cosmetics business on Douban. Between 2009 and 2013, his life was almost entirely filled with people from Douban, from work partners to friends to girlfriend. "I sell perfume on Douban. At the same time, because of my personal interest in reading and writing, I also do a lot of research on different spices and translate fragrance tables. This attracts a lot of buyers with aesthetic tastes. They identify with me very much and have a high degree of stickiness. All my projects come from Douban, and so do most of my friends. I identify with it very much. It can be said that it has changed my life."

“From a niche to the mainstream, loss and relief”

From the founder to the Douban team, no one thinks that Douban is positioned as a niche. The impression of "niche" in the past was only because Douban's early attention and spread were relatively small. For the team, popularization means that Douban has become diversified and entered a golden age.

It is like a law that when any small circle with a strong sense of cultural identity goes through the process of popularization, it is always accompanied by the loss of earlier identity. Douban - or the literary youth group - is no exception. So, for the literary youth who had a strong sense of identity with Douban in the early years, has Douban's golden age passed?

Wu Zeyuan, a film critic who used to rely heavily on Douban, logged out of Douban a few months ago. Douban had a profound influence on his film literacy. He often shared unpopular resources, watched movies, and had offline gatherings with many like-minded film lovers on Douban.

But now he feels that Douban has less and less valuable information, and it has become fragmented and frivolous, and people are no longer expressing and communicating seriously like before. So he is unwilling to waste too much time on it anymore.

Bai Bangni, a former Douban celebrity, no longer logs in to Douban so frequently, and only comes here occasionally to check books and movies. What makes Bai Bangni most sad is an online event on Douban in the past two years - voting for the ugliest female writer, and she was also listed on the voting list. This makes her feel that Douban's tone is no longer pointing to the spiritual dimension. "I feel that the previous trend of judging people by their books and movies is getting weaker and weaker. In the past, people who came to me would talk about literature and art, but later people who came to me started to talk about business cooperation, and the business atmosphere became stronger and stronger. The credibility of film reviews and book reviews is also lower than before. Some film reviews just use alarmist titles, and they are all about emotions. I don't have the patience to read them, and I don't want to write them to share."

Ai Xiaoke also feels that the sense of social center where people of the same kind gathered together in Douban's early days has disappeared. As the mixed crowd on Douban increases, the feeling of finding like-minded friends becomes weaker and weaker. More and more friends are starting to log out of Douban, and the small groups with the same interests feel smaller and smaller. However, this does not affect Ai Xiaoke's dependence on Douban. "I think the mechanism of Douban is ultimately a personal mechanism, and everyone's Douban experience is determined by the people and things he pays attention to. In this regard, despite the influence of socialization and popularization, I believe that as long as you are willing, you can still create and maintain your own small circle on a "popular" platform."

Zhang Jiawei also believes that the literary trend is still there in many spaces on Douban. If you want to maintain a certain identity, you can still find your own stage in the small circles on Douban that are very finely classified. "The transformation process from niche to mainstream is the same for all forums, communities and even social networking sites. Douban is just one of the few websites that truly establish the word "literary" as a label. Douban is relatively speaking a good transition: because books, movies, group discussions, diaries and photo albums are still classified, just like villages have their own theme gatherings, not just a big square. There are many small circles that retain a very pure literary atmosphere. For example, some exclusive groups for unpopular foreign writers, some old movie collection groups and so on. It's just that in the eyes of most users who just want to watch the fun, Douban has become so popular that it is unrecognizable - in fact, it's not that exaggerated."

"There's nothing wrong with the trend of popularizing literature and art," said Ding Xiaoyun, a best-selling author who is becoming increasingly popular on Douban. He believes that niche interests and popular aesthetics are not in conflict. "This is the general trend of the times, and there will always be people who continue to create niche literature and art on Douban. In my opinion, the diverse and colorful Douban is actually more fun and more vital. If we are always confined to a small circle of highly homogenized literature and art, admiring ourselves and flattering each other, we will inevitably become very sour and pedantic."

At the end of the interview, Nanqiao said with some regret, "Douban was the most outstanding space in the past ten years. It was public yet had personal space. Douban did it in the past, but I don't know who will be able to do it in the future?"

Or, to continue with Nanqiao’s question, can Douban still do this in the next ten years?

As a UGC (user-generated content) website, Douban is everyone's Douban.

Many people found friends here, had their writings published, and became writers, photographers, painters, book reviewers, and film critics. One after another, people who are remembered by everyone were born on Douban.

They defined Douban's past ten years; they are Douban's past ten years.

【Douban Chronicle】

1. March 2005

Douban was born, and at that time it was called "Douban Review", with books and groups.

2. May 2005

Douban has movies, and in the same month, Douban Guess was born.

3. July 2005

Douban has music. So far, the early Douban has taken shape.

4. June 2006

Douban obtained its first round of financing and began to operate as a company.

5. January 2008

Douban Local is online.

6. February 2010

Douban FM mobile app is launched, which is Douban’s first mobile product.

7. March 2010

Douban is divided into community, reading, movies, and music.

8. May 2012

Douban Movies now allows you to select seats and purchase tickets online.

9. October 2012

Douban Reading mobile app is launched.

10. May 2013

The community e-commerce product - Dongxi, was launched for internal testing.

11. August 2014

Douban App Android and App iOS versions were launched one after another.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.