Short video has become the core content of current Internet life. According to the 49th “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China”, as of December 2021, the number of Internet users in China reached 1.032 billion, of which the number of short video users was 934 million, accounting for 90.5% of the total Internet users in China. For short video users, short video is not only a social way of life, but also constitutes a rich landscape world. People not only participate in this vast video practice as a creative subject, but also passively suffer as an object. The influence of media on people’s cognitive abilities, thinking abilities and emotional patterns. It can be said that with the help of the “acceleration” of the 5G era, short videos based on the new media form of the Internet industry platform constitute a rich new media narrative style and construct a holistic cultural landscape.

Short videos combine languages, symbols, pictures, images, sounds and other codes in a more personalized, randomized, and pop-like collage. Therefore, on the basis of a huge user group and massive data, it can be It is regarded as a kind of flowing mass culture visual log form. In recent years, the constantly updated digital media has made it possible to record a wide range of daily life practices in ultra-large-scale digital records. It contains the collective expression of social creativity, the activation and release of individual creativity, and reflects the interaction between the overall social creativity, public life, and extensive social participation.

A fluid visual journal of popular culture

Based on the typical UGC (User Generated Content) model, short videos are used by Internet users to record all aspects of their lives. Short videos combine languages, symbols, pictures, images, sounds and other codes for a more personalized, randomized, and pop-like collage. Therefore, on the basis of a huge user group and massive data, it can Seen as a fluid form of mass culture visual journaling. In recent years, the constantly updated digital media has made it possible to record a wide range of daily life practices on a large scale. It contains the collective expression of social creativity, the activation and release of individual creativity, and reflects the interactive relationship between the overall creativity of society, public life and extensive social participation.

Although Benjamin’s criticism of reproducible art in “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is widely known, in fact, Benjamin’s other meaning is often overlooked: although the cultural products produced by reproduction technology have lost their uniqueness, they are “all things are The equal way gives the copied object a realistic dynamism”. In the late 1990s, Nicola Negroponte predicted in “Digital Survival” that the fundamental feature of the post-information age is personalization, “the individual is not buried in the universal, or as a demographic Subset, what the development of cyberspace seeks is to give ordinary people the opportunity to express their needs and hopes.” Peng Lan, a communication researcher, believes that the rise of short video image expression has a revolutionary change, and its birth is a subversive On the other hand, the “New Culture Movement” presents the power of novelty and wildness from the folk, the bottom and the fringes, infiltrating the rich life background, and showing a more open and diverse social life.

In the era of short videos, users can enjoy the great rivers and mountains from all over the country, Internet celebrities or niche people, and understand the details of daily life in different cultural units and different ethnic areas without leaving home. For example, the short video blogger “Ajing” is rooted in the rural town of Guangxi with karst landforms, and draws materials from authentic rural life, completes contrasting costumes, and inspires the public to reflect on the beauty of the rural world from a modern aesthetic perspective; travel bloggers ” “Fang Qi” combines the beautiful scenery of heaven and earth, the insights of life in different moods, and the golden sentences and quotations with an average length of three or four minutes. The audience can not only enjoy the beautiful scenery of the mountains and rivers, but also feel the language Brings comfort to the soul. Niche local operas such as Guizhou Nuo Opera and Anhui Lu Opera have also received more attention in the short video media, giving off new vitality.

In addition to daily expressions such as “seven things to open the door, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea”, daily life themes such as the change of seasonal solar terms, the presentation of local scenery, and the transformation of labor scenes are also the core of the short video content. In recent years, with the popularity of Li Ziqi, Ding Zhen, etc., under the encouragement of the platform’s traffic support mechanism, a large number of short video bloggers focusing on immersive rural life have emerged. become the carrier of their daily life. The rural family life of “Sister Taozi in Shuzhong” shows a strong local color, Sichuan dialect with Zigong accent, a series of typical Sichuan home-cooked dishes such as Bobo chicken and Mala Tang, as well as killing pigs to sell meat, and raking the ground to grow buds. , dig sweet potatoes to make jelly and other particularly real and down-to-earth agricultural presentations, attracting a large number of users to watch and interact.

With the help of Douyin’s(Chinese ticktok) “New Farmer Plan”, “Classmate Zhang”, who became popular, showed the simple and simple life of a bachelor in the northeast countryside from a first perspective, which triggered a wave of collective memories and spoofs; “Shan Village Xiaojie” in his hometown In the quaint villages in southern Fujian, traditional skills are presented with ancient methods, such as traditional food production, iron farming tools, bamboo rafts, waterwheel construction, and even the renovation of ancient villages. At the same time, grand narrative themes such as family and country feelings, heroism, poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, new rural construction, technological rejuvenation, and non-genetic inheritance have become important themes in the creation and production of short videos. The above themes are related to present their understanding of grand and simple emotions from a detailed, personal, and life-like perspective.

All in all, a large number of related topics are presented in the short video field, and because of the diversity and richness far beyond the text and audio carriers, they constitute a “non-archival” visual log of popular culture, and daily life in popular aesthetics is also Presentations are elevated to new interpretive contexts. It can be said that short video, as a new type of image dissemination carrier and social and cultural landscape, is shining brightly at the moment.