The ice pier was on fire.
These simple five words mean that on the night of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, more than one million netizens poured into the official flagship store of the Tmall Winter Olympics, but found that the ice piers and their surrounding goods were all sold out; the Beijing offline franchise stores began to queue up, and the frozen ice piers could not be grabbed; people's most urgent New Year's wishes were no longer to make money, but "one household and one pier"...
Even Wang Shanshan, the MVP of the Asian Cup, who won the Asian Cup, said bluntly in an interview: The whole team likes the ice pier, can you arrange it?
Of course, the women's football players have now been arranged. Image source CCTV Network
In contrast to the ice piers is the melting of snow.
Also as a mascot, Xue Rongrong is somewhat deserted, whether it is heat or surrounding sales, it is far less than the ice pier, some netizens even joked: both shengrong, what sheng dun? [Note: The ice pier is the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and Xue Rongrong is the mascot of the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games. Now the snow rongrong is also sold out. 】
The question is, why is the ice pier so hot, and how can the snow melt?
Text | Meter Squeak
This article is reproduced from China News Weekly's public account "One Reading" (ID: yiduiread), the original article was first published on February 9, 2022, the original title is "Why the ice pier is so hot, the snow melts is not OK", does not represent the view of the Lookout Think Tank.
1 People are not chasing ice piers
It's the Winter Olympics
The ice piers are sold so tightly, are people really impressed by their appearance?
The answer is not necessarily.
As early as September 17, 2019, the ice pier was officially released to the public, and on November 2 of the same year, the ice pier toy category licensed products were first released. However, at that time, very few people bought ice piers, and many people had not even heard of this thing. The shift came on February 4, 2022, when the well-made, emotionally charged opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics pushed emotions to the top.
Also accompanied by the opening ceremony, this red panda wearing an ice crystal shell suddenly became popular all over the country.
The Baidu Index keyword search trend over the past six months also illustrates this point. Before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the search frequency of the ice piers was as low as almost nothing, and after the opening ceremony, the search frequency of the ice piers directly soared to nearly 500,000.
It can be said that what people are chasing is not the ice pier, but the Beijing Winter Olympics, which is the touch and pride brought by the Winter Olympics to themselves.
After all, it is too difficult to become Gu Ailing or Su Yiming to participate in the Winter Olympics to win glory for the country, but it is still possible to buy an ice pier.
So how did the snow melt out of the cold?
One reason is that, as mentioned above, Xue Rongrong is the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, and the opening time of the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games is March 4, 2022.
Another reason is that the image carrier of the ice pier is a panda.
One of the advantages of panda design is that the design prototype of the ice pier is a living animal, which makes the ice pier more vivid and more inspiring. The design prototype of the snow rongrong is a lantern, which is slightly inferior to the ice pier in terms of vividness. Looking at the gif below, is it easier and more vivid to imagine what the ice pier ski looks like?
But the design concept of Snow Rongrong is very warm and heartwarming! The luminous attribute of the lantern shape symbolizes lighting up dreams and warming the world, representing fraternity, courage and strength, embodying the fighting spirit of winter Paralympic athletes and the concept of the Winter Paralympic Games that inspire the world.
The second advantage is more obvious, the ice pier is a panda! Who can not love giant pandas! The cute appearance perfectly fits the baby pattern proposed by Nobel Laureates In Physiology or Medicine Conrad Lorenz and Niko Timberham: round eyes, fat cheeks, high brow bones, short chins, and large heads and small bodies.
To say that the ice pier is super cute, no one should refute it, right?
Moreover, as long as a few items conform to the baby schema, there can be a "cute" feeling. Keep the rest, p off the black circles of the ice pier, shrink its eyes, all just as cute (just the red dot is scary)
Even more coincidentally, cuteness can open up the brain's higher emotions. The Klingerbach team at the University of Oxford found that the brain responded less than 1/7 of a second after seeing the "cute thing". "Cuteness" is the first key to activating the brain's rapid attention resources, after which the brain network of empathy and empathy abilities comes into play.
That is to say, people are emotionally up because of the Winter Olympics, and the ice pier makes people even more up.
And it's fun to rush to buy it. The more out of stock, the more you want to buy, do we show the ice pier in the circle of friends?
It is an excellent vision, strength and "connections"!
2 Why ice piers are pandas
The snow melts but it is a lantern
Sales aside, the design of the ice piers is also very powerful.
In general, in order to show the unique geographical features, history and culture of the host city of the Olympic Games, the Olympic mascot is usually a local animal or a personage that can represent the local cultural characteristics.
From this point of view, it is most appropriate to choose a friendly and cute panda as the design prototype of the ice pier, and the lantern with traditional Chinese characteristics as the design prototype of the snow rongrong.
Not only are the ice piers and snow melting, but most of the design of the previous Winter Olympics has followed this concept.
For example, the mascots of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics: Mega and Quidge. Mega's image comes from a white bear unique to British Columbia, Canada, and Quidge is a legendary North American savage with a long brown beard, blue earmuffs, and a love of ice hockey.
It can be said that the image prototypes of both have strong local characteristics.
Mascot for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Source: China News Service
So why can't the ice pier be a lantern and the snow rongrong be a panda?
This brings us to another requirement for the Olympic mascot: to convey the Olympic spirit.
As the mascot of the Winter Paralympic Games, Xue Rongrong's body shines, symbolizing the lighting up of dreams and warming the world (which is especially in line with the Winter Paralympic Games), representing fraternity, courage and strength, embodying the fighting spirit of winter Paralympic athletes and the concept of the Winter Paralympic Games that inspire the world.
The ice pier focuses on creation and the future (our opening ceremony is also very technological and futuristic). The official introduction to the ice pier also illustrates this point: This is a space panda from the future, on a space exploration mission, watching with great interest from the moon the wonderful competition at the Beijing 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics National Speed Skating Hall on Earth.
Another example is the mascot of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, which is three different animal images: the snow rabbit, the North American steppe wolf and the American black bear, which represent the motto of the Olympic Games at that time: "faster, higher, stronger".
Mascot for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Source: China News Service
Not only the image, but also the name of the mascot is also very exquisite.
First of all, the snow is melting, "tolerance" means tolerance, tolerance, exchange and mutual learning; "melting" means integration, warmth, and mutual understanding. Rong Rong expresses the concept of exchanges, mutual learning and harmonious development of world civilizations, and embodies the beautiful vision of creating a more inclusive world and building a community with a shared future for mankind through the Paralympic Movement.
Speaking of ice piers, "piers" means solid and cute, which not only fits the overall image of pandas, but also symbolizes the strong and powerful bodies, tenacious wills and inspiring Olympic spirit of Winter Olympic athletes.
The words "ice" and "snow" are not much to say, but they are about the characteristics of ice and snow sports.
Speaking of names, one of the most interesting Winter Olympic mascots is the four little owls of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, the names of the four small ones are Sukki, Nokki, Lekki, and Tsukki, and the four names collectively mean "snow elves".
Mascot of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Source: China News Service
Finally, send two pictures to everyone. Can't buy the real ice pier snow melting, change the avatar can also be ~
Source: Weibo @ Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
Resources:
[1] The creation process of the mascot "Xue Rongrong" of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games[J]. Journal of Jilin Academy of Arts, 2019(06): 106-107.
[2] Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games mascot interpretation . Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee
[3] The Beijing Winter Olympics https://www.beijing2022.cn/a/20190917/007393.htm
[4] Kringelbach, Morten, L. , Stark, Eloise, A. , Alexander, & Catherine, et al. On Cuteness: Unlocking the Parental Brain and Beyond.
[5] Van Duuren, M. , Kendell-Scott, L. , & Stark, N. . (2003). Early aesthetic choices: infant preferences for attractive premature infant faces. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27(3), 212-219.
[6]https://en.jinzhao.wiki/wiki/Cuteness#cite_note-7
Uncle Ku welfare
Uncle Ku's book donation activity has always been there! True Books provides Uncle Ku with 25 copies of "Living is Shouting" to enthusiastic readers. Miner poet Chen Nianxi's first collection of non-fiction stories was listed in the New York Times and was selected as the Sina Annual Good Book List, the Chinese Good Book List, the Literature Newspaper Good Book List, and the China Reading Newspaper Good Book List. This book revives the folk narrative tradition of the Book of Poetry, presenting the sad desolation of Chinese fate. The book is accompanied by the author's latest collection of poems. Please comment under the article, the top 3 likes (more than 50 numbers) will receive a book donation.