The author | Guo Ji'an
"Those who win the world for young people" has always been the common understanding of content platforms.
Young users mean higher spending power, a trend attitude that is more recognized by brand owners, stronger public opinion communication and a social storm that is easier to set off around good content.
For the majority of young people, today's video content has more than the value of entertainment consumption: satisfying curiosity, finding companions, acquiring knowledge, pinning emotions... Like a mirror that projects a variety of forms, it has become the key word of the new cultural generation.
Yesterday, Tencent Video, together with DT Finance and CBN Data Center (CBNData), released the "Good Times Hidden in the 2021 Progress Bar - Tencent Video Annual" report. According to the report, 80% of the 1,600 young people surveyed cite relaxation and leisure as the main reason for watching videos. At the same time, more than 50% of the audience believe that they can use video to complete their self-construction. In addition, expressing attitudes and seeking tribes is also what young people hope to achieve with the help of video.
At the same time, young people's video viewing habits are also subtly changing: from simple viewing behavior to participating in content co-creation to creating buzzwords. The cultural biases, moods of the times and lifestyles in the video content are paid more and more attention by young users, who actively participate in commenting and consuming around these elements, leaving more traces of thinking and expression.
With this report, you can get a glimpse of the "good times" that young people love.
New aesthetics: cultural self-confidence, fireworks in the world, young people love ordinary and beautiful
The new aesthetic of this young man can be described as "unexpected and reasonable". Compared with the previous generation, they highly identify with the main theme and traditional culture.
According to the data in the "Annual Observation", the proportion of young viewers under the age of 25 in Tencent Video's main theme TV series in 2021 reached 36%, an increase of 3% compared with 2019. During the Olympic Games, the total number of Tencent video-related content played reached 1.34 billion, and the proportion of young audiences under the age of 25 reached 40%. On the day of the launch of Shenzhou 13, the users who watched the rocket liftoff accounted for 95% of the users who watched the live broadcast of Tencent Video on the same day.
The revival of traditional culture has also become a popular keyword among young users.
Following the Spring Festival Gala, Henan Satellite TV swept the Internet with the help of the "Wonderful Tour" series of galas full of traditional cultural meanings, and also became a "trend culture" platform in the hearts of contemporary young people. The report shows that this year, in tencent video stations, netizens searched for the marvellous tour series evening party reached 760,000 times, and the number of plays of "Dragon Boat Wonderful Tour" reached 15.63 million. In 2021, the number of major historical documentaries on Tencent Video's website also reached 130 million times, and young audiences under the age of 25 accounted for nearly 30%.
This admiration for mainstream culture is also reflected in the young users' love for grassroots practitioners such as astronauts and firefighters. Tencent Video's hit drama "You Are My Glory" received 83,000 "aerospace" and other related bullet screens, and the popularity index of aerospace-related hot clips exceeded 10,000. Obviously, in addition to love, many users have deep respect for ordinary and great aerospace workers.
Behind these data cuts is the return of young people's national cultural self-confidence and the growing sense of ownership. In the era of the rise of great powers, young users who grew up at this stage have a strong sense of pride in the main theme and traditional culture, so they have a high acceptance of related content. At the same time, under the attraction of high-quality content, community culture has also amplified the social attributes of patriotic and inherited content, promoting the stickiness of this group to continue to increase.
This also means that once the platform can present high-quality main theme content, it will harvest a lot of tap water dissemination. Typically like the "Age of Awakening" at the beginning of the year and the "Sweeping Black Storm" in the middle of the year, as two different types of dramas with the main theme content, both of which have been praised by a large number of netizens for their sophisticated production, high-quality character shaping and wonderful interpretation of the actors.
During the hit "Sweeping The Black Storm", 7 million bullet screens analyzed the plot, and the "Green Vine Masses" pendant was used more than 5.06 million times. It can be seen that with a good content foundation, young users will automatically participate in the word-of-mouth fermentation of high-quality works and help them complete the layers of dissemination.
The new aesthetic of young people is also reflected in the strong emotion of classic works.
Chasing old dramas, watching new national comics adapted from childhood memories IP, and new dramas adapted from classic games are quite popular. Along with the brushed "Ye Qing Hui" bullet screen, many young people "began to be enthusiastic about nostalgia before they were old."
According to the report, in 2021 alone, the total playback of the "Family with Children" series on Tencent Video Station will reach 360 million, and the playback of "New Three Kingdoms" will be as high as 540 million. And 45% of the viewers of these classic TV series are young people under the age of 25.
At the same time, in the field of national comics, 6 of the 10 most popular national comic works by the audience are adapted from the classic novel IP, "Douluo Continent", "Fighting Broken Sky", and "Perfect World" are sitting firmly in the top 3, which shows the long love of the post-95 and post-00s.
Obviously, whether it is the interest lit by the childhood memory filter, or the social topic appeal to the new words of the old drama, or the emotional blessing of the classic IP, it has promoted the young people's love for the classic. This also requires the platform to diversify the development of IP, on the basis of old raw materials, to carry out high-quality adaptations, and promote the birth of a feast with full color and flavor.
In this regard, this year's Tencent Video hit "League of Legends: Battle of Two Cities" can be described as one of the leaders. As a classic game of a generation's youth memories, League of Legends, the first animated series gives a high-quality adaptation of the answer sheet. The design of the prehistory of the game characters is reasonable and moving, and the high-level presentation of the characters, stories, production and other aspects is even more surprising. Such a high-quality adaptation is not only a respect for old players and young animation enthusiasts, but also provides a high-quality reference for the industry.
Of course, the new aesthetic of young users also reflects the unique "casual" temperament of this generation, who have a strong demand for relaxing content, and comedy, urban life and food programs are especially popular with young people.
The report shows that more than 70% of Tencent Video's popular variety shows this year belong to the comedy and leisure genres. Among them, "Talk Show Conference" is from the fire inside the station to the outside of the station, contributing countless annual hot golden sentences and the top stream of new comedies. On the other hand, the food documentary "Flavor of the World" has been played more than 1 billion times in seasons 1 and 2, especially at night, and it has reached the peak of broadcasting.
It can be seen that the tired daily fast-paced life makes this young person need to decompress, they hate hard preaching, and pursue light entertainment and relaxation. This also requires the platform to constantly innovate the form of programs and content product models to create small surprises that meet the tastes of young people.
At the end of this year, the popular small fresh variety show "Mao Xuewang" and the high-profile urban drama "Love is Delicious" are typical of the next rice roundup and the next rice drama. Both have grasped the keywords of food + friends + daily life, and completed the high-level output of leisure content in an innovative form, and also presented an innovative answer sheet to the industry.
New interactions: Golden SentenceStems, Bullet Curtain Alliances, young people turn good content into social trends
In addition to the new aesthetic, the new interaction habits presented by young people are also worthy of attention.
The report shows that at present, the secondary creation of various types of graphics, videos, songs, memes and other types of good content is popular among young user groups.
Hao Yan, the deputy cp of "Long Song Line", has more than 7900 second creations on lofter, with more than 6.49 million views, of which the author Windy has serialized 74 articles with the same humanities, and is still constantly updating the creation after the end of the series. Not long ago, the "Lady Hu Zhu" just finished, because the haishi played by Yang Mi in the finale came up with the concept of "parallel time and space", and the bridge reversed by the scissor hand carried out the modern version of the story of the male and female protagonists, and the mv even directly appeared on the hot search. The popular variety show "Youth Travels", each issue has also created a large number of memes and spread widely.
Obviously, today's young users are not satisfied with simply watching good content, but want to participate in the creation of good content. They will have a deep affection for the actors, guests and content because of the characters and story, and have a resonance effect in the common group. Therefore, although sometimes the content itself is finished, young users will still use common enthusiasts, fan creation, and IP derivation to find more emotional sustenance, resulting in a strong afterglow effect.
Young people's love of interaction is also reflected in the depth of bullet screen interaction. More and more young users are accustomed to using the bullet screen to start a carnival with their friends thousands of miles away.
The report shows that in "You Are My Glory", the chaser incarnated as a poet, and there were more than 100,000 ancient poems in the bullet screen. In the barrage of "Talk Show Conference 4", everyone is transformed into a satin hand and becomes a one-sentence talk show actor.
This also illustrates the significant entertainment and social attributes of young users. They are good at finding social resonance in the process of content consumption, using the bullet screen to complete the drama watching with the accompaniment of the air, and digging up topics of interest for independent dissemination and fermentation.
This also puts forward higher requirements for the platform side: to complete the real-time excavation of high-quality bullet screens and effective dissemination boosts.
For example, in the ongoing broadcast of "Hummer Knife Line in the Snow", Tencent Video Chasing Drama Little Milk Goose simultaneously launched the Weibo activity of "Hummer Knife Line Bullet Curtain Line", which amplifies and spreads the interesting bullet screen in each episode, and thus gives birth to a large number of interesting derivative stems, which amplifies the happiness and comedy of chasing drama.
On the whole, the pursuit of strong interaction has become a collective habit of contemporary users watching dramas. High-quality interaction and a secondary environment can not only make good content achieve good word-of-mouth fermentation, but also obtain small and broad effects.
In the first half of this year, the high-quality word-of-mouth drama "Royal Gifts of Small Servants" was achieved step by step by the help of user interaction. From the initial "daughter and son-in-law" meme, to the later group portrait CP two creation, to the bullet screen discussion of the plot development, to the full tap water milk drama, the deep participation of the chasing drama users is an indispensable part of the completion of the popularity fermentation and social media reputation fission of this small-cost drama, and also shows the public that the high interaction of contemporary young users has a strong potential to create stars in the drama.
New knowledge: workplace financial management, humanistic science, young people always want to "learn something"
What is more noteworthy is that the report also reveals another need for video content among young people – access to knowledge.
The report shows that young users have a high degree of enthusiasm for workplace survival knowledge. From January to November this year, Tencent Video's workplace content averaged 24 million times per month. Among them, PS and office teaching workplace skills content is the most popular, followed by emotional intelligence and expression self-improvement content, and interview skills and industry insights are also quite popular.
Obviously, this generation of young people has established a clear view of the workplace one step earlier: they are eager to find their own sense of value and acquisition of work, and they are also keen to improve their workplace skills and learn the survival skills of the old birds as soon as possible.
Therefore, as can be seen by the naked eye, "Heartwarming Offer" has entered the third season this year, and the discussion topics of a large number of viewers are more inclined to reality and the workplace. The content of the program is also more inclined to survive in the workplace, reducing the scene of dreaming and showing more cruel truth.
Outside the workplace, young people have also exploded with great enthusiasm for financial management. The report shows that the top 5 financial content of Tencent Video's popularity in 2021 includes funds, stocks, and gold, and has a significant tendency to personal financial investment. Detailed videos on employment and social security, fund investment and stock speculation have won the top 3 places in the financial content broadcast list.
This enthusiasm is also highly in line with the financial management concept of contemporary young people. Compared with the relatively conservative savings and insurance of the older generation, this young person is much bolder in financial management. The funds that are popular with young office workers can stir up a wave of discussion every time they rise and fall; when it comes to stocks and foreign exchange, many people can talk about it. For them, it is not only necessary to be able to make money through the workplace, but also to be able to create current assets with the help of investment and achieve "money makes money".
Of course, while pursuing pockets is very drummed, many young people also have a strong demand for enrichment.
They generally have stronger intellectual anxiety, and have a strong curiosity and desire to explore the world, society and culture. According to the report, users in Tencent Video watch popular science videos 200 million times a month, and the average monthly playback of culture, history and reading content has reached 72 million, 52 million and 45 million, respectively.
For this knowledge, they also have the sincerity to pay. This year, Tencent Video's knowledge paid channel has been viewed by more than 35 million people, an increase of 120% compared with last year. Among them, poetry, history, philosophy and politics are the most popular.
It can be seen that young users have a stronger purpose of enriching themselves, they have learning requirements for video content, and they are willing to pay for it. Such a strong desire for knowledge and good content consumption habits also provide a new development idea for the entire content industry.
On the whole, the current young users are in a rapid stage of evolution, their aesthetic, interactive needs and knowledge acquisition demands are changing rapidly, and they also show stronger promotion energy for good content that meets the demands.
The integrated video platform represented by Tencent Video is also trying to interact with such changes, with the help of more high-quality content creation, the development of new categories and the continuous optimization of user experience, to achieve the same frequency resonance with young users, and explore the more far-reaching value of the platform.
That's the beauty of video.