2014 is regarded as the “first year of short video”. However, in the first few years of the rise of short video, its user base often published works of “brutal bottom stories”. From the perspective of cultural criticism, as the presentation of social “spectacles”, the alienated, bizarre and exaggerated visual symbols created by short videos bring users extremely shocking sensory stimulation. Over time, short videos have become synonymous with inferior content on the Internet.
From the earthy videos at the beginning of the short video, to the professional and high-quality works in planning, scripting and shooting technology in recent years, at the content level, the short video tends to be broader from the “spectacle” display “Landscape” presentation. Guy Debord believed that, in a society where modern production conditions are omnipresent, life itself is presented as a vast accumulation of spectacles. The accumulation of landscapes is more concentrated in short videos in the form of visual culture, because people today need to understand the world through various landscapes rather than real life itself. Regarding the subtle difference between “spectacle” and “landscape”, some scholars believe that the spectacle has the characteristics of rarity and unfamiliarity. With the repetition and dailyization of the landscape, people’s experience of the spectacle will gradually attenuate, and the spectacle will be enriched in the conventional landscape. and cognitive system, become its component. This can explain that the spectacles of bloggers’ eyeballs, such as “vulgar”, “killing Matt” and “LOW”, which were initially labelled, were gradually submerged in short videos, while more diverse and extensive content was produced with vertically segmented Internet content. The pattern is known to the majority of users. In addition, with the standardized management of short video content, themes, forms, etc. by national regulatory forces, the successive introduction of policies and regulations, and the entry of more and more professional media into the blue ocean of short videos, the content of short videos is superficial and vulgar, excessive consumerism, etc. The mixed situation has improved.
On the short video platform, the trend of art sinking is obvious, which has provided assistance to the public’s aesthetic edification and popularization of aesthetic education. For example, “Shanghai Opera 416 Women’s Group” became popular because 5 girls in the same dormitory performed different performances of Lao Dan, Cheng Pai Tsing Yi, Mei Pai Tsing Yi, Xun Pai Hua Dan, and Hua Dan to perform classic drama excerpts and popular ancient songs. The short video In a more intuitive and low-threshold way, popularize the differences between different opera genres and different roles, and achieve the objective effect of popularizing education in traditional drama. Whether it is cover singing of niche operas, or using cucurbit flute, pipa, suona, banhu, matouqin, dulcimer, konghou, shakuhachi and many other types of folk music, it often gets a lot of likes and fans.
The “2021 Short Video User Value Report” shows that the diversification of short video content not only enhances the user’s sense of companionship and spends fragmented time, but also provides a window to explore and understand the world. From the perspective of content type, the demand for short videos of pan-knowledge and pan-life is still strong, and the reasons for users such as “affordable and useful”, “deep and connotative” exceed “interesting and fun” for the first time. The “Knowledge Inclusive Report 2.0 – Research Report on Short Video and Knowledge Dissemination” also pointed out that short video has lowered the threshold for the public to access knowledge, enriched the form of knowledge expression in a vivid form, and made the creation and dissemination of knowledge easier. Convenience, diversified, all-round and high-level demands for knowledge have become an integral part of the growing public demand for a better life. With the development of Internet technology in recent years, the change of content and the improvement of innovation, the local culture in the public cognitive bias such as killing Matt and Kuangdakuku in the short video world has been reduced to a very small part. Pan-culture and sub-culture exist in their own way, and through the ultra-high-speed dissemination of popular culture, they together constitute a “image China” in the 5G era of the Internet.