In recent years, with the popularity of smart phones and 5G networks, the audiovisual methods of mobile Internet content have been continuously renovated, and micro-short dramas with one episode in a few minutes have become the "traffic upstart" of many video platforms. Especially in 2021, the domestic micro-short drama market showed an explosive trend, and major short video platforms, video websites, film and television companies and other forces have joined the micro-short drama battlefield, which profoundly reflects the "inner volume" status quo between the domestic film and television industry and network platforms.
Massive network content "changes in the city", why will micro-short dramas be "quite graced"? What are the outstanding problems in content production or value dissemination of micro-short dramas that are closely linked to commercial monetization from the beginning? The network products in "accelerating society" will be fast, short, and new as the guideline, how should we view the new relationship between the individual and the network of micro-short dramas? These are questions worth pondering.
1
The micro-short drama quickly "spread its wings", and after some testing of the water, it entered the "soaring" state
According to the data, in 2020, the industry status of mainland short video platforms exceeded that of integrated video platforms for the first time, and by June 2021, the scale of short video users reached 888 million. The usage rate of netizen short video platforms continued to rise, approaching 90%. What's more, short videos are quite powerful in seizing user attention: the average daily use time per capita is more than two hours, and user loyalty is higher than other content. Under the synergy of capital and users, micro-short dramas have gradually emerged from many short video content, leapt into the existence of "head", and at the same time ranked among the key cultivation objects for the future development of short video platforms.
In fact, micro-short dramas are not a new form that has appeared in the past two years. As early as the early days of the development of video websites, micro-short dramas have existed. Small series with certain influence such as "Hip Hop Quartet" in 2009 and "Never Expected" in 2013 can be regarded as the earliest micro-short dramas in mainland China. The above works are remarkable, but in the era of the popularity of long series, they failed to form a trend. With the formation of the viewing habits of mobile phone users' short video platforms, the micro-short drama market has begun to take root. In 2018, the emergence of several explosive vertical screen dramas proved the vitality of micro-short dramas in the era of mobile Internet. In 2020, the relevant departments clarified the standards for "network micro-short dramas" and defined them as: with the morphological characteristics of film and television drama programs, plots, performances and other elements; with relatively clear themes, a series of network original audition programs filmed in a more professional way. The guidance of policies and the pursuit of the market have brought unprecedented development opportunities for micro-short dramas, and micro-short dramas have quickly "spread their wings" and entered a "soaring" state in 2021 after some testing.
Most of the early micro-short dramas were produced by ordinary content providers, but with the continuous upgrading of the short video platform's sub-accounting mechanism and the large-scale investment game of the "leading" platform, the micro-short drama has formed a development pattern of multi-platform strong wrestling. Driven by such a trend, the development of micro-short drama forms is changing with each passing day, from the simple interpretation of funny paragraphs at the beginning to the relative diversity, maturity and refinement of today's genres. In the era of mobile Internet stock, micro-short dramas are not only a new growth point for the stickiness of users of short video platforms, but also the outlet of the short video industry in the future.
2
"Short time", "cool content", "story is earthy and sweet": the characteristics of micro-short dramas make it an emotional outlet
British scholar Judy Wiggierman profoundly pointed out in her book "Time-Reduced Society" that human beings' pursuit of speed never stops, "modern people are almost as tense and busy as fast-turning into twenty-four hours in two and a half minutes, and we are in an accelerated 'time-shrinking society', almost stalling and running wildly." From the perspective of historical materialism, the German scholar Rosa took the time dimension as the theoretical incision to diagnose the increasingly significant "acceleration" characteristics of modern society, and summarized the three dimensions of social acceleration: the acceleration of science and technology, the acceleration of social change, and the acceleration of the pace of life. The scarcity and irreproducability of time resources, and the acceleration of the pace of life that follows, calls for the acceleration of science and technology, and the direct consequence of the acceleration of science and technology is the acceleration of social change, which in turn stimulates the acceleration of the pace of life under the lack of time. It can be seen that the acceleration of modern society is a self-propelled process. People feel empathy for this acceleration in their daily lives, and are wrapped up by its strength, from the era of "step-by-step" to the era of "star running electric".
The emergence and popularity of micro-short dramas is the epitome of the acceleration of modern society, and the acceleration of the production and consumption of audiovisual content is both the result of time anxiety and its origin. With the popularity of smart phones and 5G networks, the change of urban life adjustment media is presented as "TV-computer-mobile phone", and some rural areas have directly completed the transition of "TV-mobile phone". The media forms of the digital era, such as vertical screen playback and up-and-down screen, are all specific details of technology accelerating the shaping of contemporary time experience. The attributes of micro-short dramas such as "short, flat and fast" just fit the cultural and psychological needs of the "time-shrinking society" network audience, and have become "digital pickles".
How to understand the "digital pickles" of the micro-short drama? The first is "short time". Micro-short dramas generally have only one or two minutes per episode, with small body, simple plot and compact content, suitable for mobile phone users to use fragmented time such as commuting and eating to watch. The time to be fully and deeply involved by various communication media is fragmented, atomized, dot-like time: a 30-episode micro-short drama, less than a movie. You can brush up on several episodes with a meal, and you can watch an entire movie in one night. For viewers suffering from "time anxiety disorder", watching micro-short dramas will not have so much mental pressure, it is taking the attention of traditional TV series, so that the public "smack" to enjoy and enjoy it.
The second is "cool content". The reason why it is easy to "get on the head" of watching micro-short dramas is that the storytelling is full of excitement and addictive. In order to code out the audiovisual "next meal" in the shortest possible time, the micro-short drama must constantly transfer in the "material" and strive to poke the audience's "taste buds". Therefore, its plot is rarely laid and brewed, the plot reversal is sudden, the "cool point" is dense, it feels that each episode is a narrative climax, and the ending does not forget to hang the "hook" (suspense) tightly, attracting the audience to continue to brush. The micro-short drama inherits and carries forward the cool point strategy of online text and web drama, and makes full use of the projection and touch of the cool feeling, which is refreshing and delicious and direct to the hearts of the people.
Then there is the "story is earthy and sweet". Micro-short dramas widely cover genres such as costumes, youth, idols, inspirational, workplace, suspense, women, fantasy, and two-dimensional, but in terms of character story mode, these themes can actually be classified as "hegemony", "counterattack" and "rebirth". Most of them are simple to produce and have a strong earthy flavor, and people do not have a pilgrimage mentality of looking up to art when watching the play, but feel superior and relaxed. The micro-short drama that does not have to be brainy and lets emotions find an outlet is salty and sweet and evocative.
3
Improve the "digital menu" in the Internet era and cultivate a richer "cultural taste" for a wide audience
As we all know, pickles are vegetables marinated with salt, mostly with porridge, staple foods to eat, the taste is salty or spicy, compared to the rice. However, pickles generally contain nitrites and should not be eaten more, otherwise it will become a health burden. The same is true of "digital pickles", which will make the audience's "taste dependence" on micro-short dramas high, and also let producers dare to "cut out", which will prevent micro-short dramas from truly becoming "a series of network original audio-visual programs filmed in a more professional way".
Since micro-short dramas are an important traffic gate in the short video industry at present, they will inevitably cater to the behavior and psychology of urban men and women to "accelerate their lives", and in order to maintain user stickiness, it regards the universal emotional needs of young and middle-aged users as the greatest common denominator. Therefore, the content production strategy of "cool words" and "sweet pet counterattack" has become the wind direction of the industry.
It must be vigilant that micro-short dramas, as "digital pickles", are in a sense a series of gluttonous fantasies created by the new media industry for users to add too much "industrial saccharin". In it, the viewer can escape from everyday life for a short time, obtain a moment of self-exile, and satisfy dreams that transcend reality. Micro-short dramas show a high degree of homogeneity in character design, plot development and audiovisual elements. It uses this stereotyped content structure to concoct the illusion of "efficiency" in people's schedules that "free time is fully utilized by me". As everyone knows, people through a kind of compression of time use leads to the compression of some kind of mental space. The process-oriented and single-based micro-short drama simplifies the complexity of real life and compresses people's rich experience and bold imagination. It acknowledges the universal emotional needs of human beings to be loved or recognized, but allows people to indulge in simple and crude instant gratification. The reason for this is that people in today's society are constantly falling into panic about delayed gratification. Behind this panic, including the surge and expansion of emotional possessiveness and resource possessiveness, this process is not only manifested in the efficiency theory of the time dimension, but also in the immediacy of the psychological dimension.
Can "digital pickles" replace the "cultural staple" as an effective and secure way to "feast"? Do we have the capacity to raise reasonable questions and a better "menu" of this compensatory choice? It must be recognized that "digital pickles" have harmful substances that are difficult to avoid. Whether the "micro" or "short" of a micro-short drama cannot become a broken plot and a lack of logic, nor can it become an excuse for shallow thinking and compelling connotations. We can't eat the "digital pickles" that are both convenient and appetizing, and the more nutritious audiovisual entertainment is free to talk about. We must incorporate the constructive and creative value of art into the production standards, and pursue the aesthetic taste and ideological value of literature and art.
The blindness of "cool" and "sweet" shows that the literary and artistic form of micro-short dramas lacks examination and consideration of the real lives of the broad masses of the people. The protagonist of the mini-drama is not a person who lives in real life, not a person who "has flesh and blood, emotions, love and hate, dreams, and inner conflicts and struggles". From a certain point of view, micro-short dramas only replace capitalized social relations with "parallel community relations", decorate the paralysis of reality with "cool points" and "sweet pets", obsess over once and for all, and avoid ideal practice.
The popularity of micro-short dramas is also related to the lack of emotions of contemporary youth, and the increasingly heavy taste of media industry products temporarily bridges their mental schemas that are eager to repair, reflecting the real state of the younger generation that has not yet found an exit to the real dilemma and is forced to linger in the illusory perfection. The extreme homogenization of micro-short dramas is also the consequence of vicious competition among content producers, imagination condensation or abuse of empathy. Along with the "digital pickles" swallowed is the "digital nitrite" such as traffic first, anti-intellectualism, shoddy manufacturing, and follow-the-trend plagiarism. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts and efforts to observe, study and diagnose micro-short dramas.
At this stage of micro-short drama creation, the theme should be truly diversified, the quality should be effectively improved, not only to respect the law of network communication, but also to follow the law of audiovisual art creation, not only to implement the platform responsibility laws and regulations, resolutely crack down on vulgar and inferior content, and strive to purify the content industry ecology, but also to play a guiding role of professional forces and media resources. Specifically, it is necessary to carry forward the main theme, show the main line of development that is uplifting and upward, and reflect the social essence of bright progress; we must tell the story of China, spread good people and good deeds, and guide society to good; we must stir up turbulence and promote purity, and pass on correct values. Only in this way can we improve the "digital menu" in the Internet era and cultivate a richer "cultural taste" for a wider audience.
(Author: Huang Zhongjun, Professor, School of Culture, Creativity and Communication, Zhejiang Normal University)
Tell us your thoughts:
Is a mini-drama your "next meal"? In what scenarios would you watch a mini-drama? Why do micro-short dramas make people "on top"? Have you ever brushed up when you can't stop brushing, what kind of mentality is that? Do you feel like your fragmented time is being put to good use? In addition to "hegemony", "counterattack" and "rebirth", have you seen micro-short dramas with good form and content?
Please leave us a message to talk about the good and bad of this plate of "digital pickles".
Source: Guangming Daily, February 23, 2022, 16th edition
Coordinator: Li Xiaomeng
Editor-in-charge: Wang Zimo
Editors: Sun Xiaoting, Zhu Xiaofan, Chang Ying