"I recently did a video about tomb robbery, set up a bullet screen pk, ask everyone whether archaeology and tomb robbery are the same thing? There are still many viewers who choose the option of both. As a doctor of archaeology, Mercury has been doing archaeology and history related science content for more than a year in the watermelon video, and still feels that there is a long way to go. In her previous video messages, some netizens have said that archaeology and tomb robbery are just the difference between having a certificate and not having a certificate.
Mercury is a PhD candidate in archaeology at Zhejiang University. In September 2020, she registered the watermelon video account "Mercury Visiting the Museum" after class, and popularized archaeology, history and culture related knowledge to netizens through videos, and has now received the attention of 870,000 netizens, and the maximum number of single videos played has reached more than 4 million times. The video in production is an exploration of her research direction of "exhibition display planning and public archaeology", and it is also an entrepreneurial attempt as a student.
"Mercury, though it has water in its name, is the driest of all the planets, without a single drop of water. Naming my account Mercury is also to tell you that my video is full of dry goods and no moisture. Mercury said.
"Disseminating archaeological results to the public in the most effective way"
When filling in the college entrance examination, Mercury chose the more unpopular archaeology major. At that time, people's awareness of archaeology was not very high. In recent years, the state has vigorously promoted it several times, and the public's awareness of archaeology has gradually increased.
But in her opinion, archaeology is interesting. Studying unearthed artifacts or tracing historical clues is a process of deciphering. Once the results of the research are obtained, they will "be like detectives, discovering historical truths that may only be known to ancient people and that modern times have not known."
Mercury holds a Ph.D. in archaeology from Zhejiang University, and his research interests are exhibition planning and public archaeology.
"Archaeology has a different division of labor. The first step is field archaeology, the second step is the collation of cultural relics, the third step is cultural relics research, and then the next step is to display and disseminate the cultural relics we have done to the public. Mercury said.
In the "industrial chain" of archaeology, Mercury's research direction is the closest to the public. What she studied and studied was how to use the most effective way to disseminate the archaeological data and archaeological results found by archaeologists to the public in the most acceptable way.
"In terms of cultural relics display, our country started relatively late, and it may also be a place where foreign countries need to learn from doing better." Mercury is about to travel to the Netherlands as a visiting scholar to learn about his experience in the field abroad.
In addition to academic research, Mercury is also making another attempt to disseminate archaeological knowledge to the public. In September 2020, Mercury registered a watermelon video account and began her path of video creation in knowledge.
"Follow me and make a friend who knows museums." In the personal profile of the watermelon video, Mercury introduces himself this way. In fact, her popular science doesn't stop at museums. Archaeology, culture, history, and the knowledge related to her research field, she hopes to tell netizens through videos.
"Is archaeology the same as in tomb robbery novels?" Will you come across rice dumplings (zombies), mechanisms, and scary things when you go down to the construction site?" Hearing that Mercury is an archaeologist, many netizens will ask her such a question in the comment area of the video. Through the exchange with netizens, Mercury found that the public's understanding of archaeology is still not much, and the producers of popular science content have a long way to go and need to work harder.
In order to ensure the accuracy of popular science content, Mercury has come up with its own academic research attitude. Before making videos, she often has to consult books, papers, and a variety of materials, a few minutes of video, just to consult the materials and write the copy of the time to take two or three days: "I will use my professional knowledge to control the data, the data collection will also through a variety of channels, I hope to be as comprehensive as possible." 」
"Heavenly Soldier" on the road to entrepreneurship
For Mercury, doing popular science videos is a professional-related research attempt and the first time for young people to start a business.
"The threshold for Internet entrepreneurship is relatively low, and it does not require a lot of people, funds, and time investment, which is very suitable for students." The recommendation of watermelon video is very good, even if there is no novice with no fans, the resulting video will be continuously recommended to more people because the content is liked by everyone, and the number of plays and fans will increase. ”
Mercury's papers have reached the standard of doctoral graduation, and I want to try to start a business with my knowledge in my spare time.
Mercury's "entrepreneurship" process has not been smooth. When it first got started, Mercury had no idea about video production. She learned from scratch, studied the creative logic of others, and wanted to copy and learn video editing herself. During that time, she took a detour. At the beginning, Mercury wanted to introduce the exhibits in the museum to the audience, and each time he went to a long distance to shoot, which took a lot of time, but the netizens were not very interested.
"At the beginning, I didn't choose a topic that could interest the audience, and I also went into a misunderstanding in copywriting, only caring about beautiful words, but I didn't tell a good story."
Mercury insisted on making videos for more than three months, and the number of views has been maintained in the thousands to tens of thousands, and few videos can exceed 100,000 plays. Completing the main work such as topic selection, copywriting, appearance, and editing by himself, which consumes a lot of energy, coupled with the pressure of daily scientific research work, Mercury was once ready to give up.
At this time, she produced three videos introducing the female pharaoh Offiti of "Ancient Egyptian Wu Zetian", and one of them exceeded one million views, which boosted Mercury's confidence.
The support of netizens encouraged her to continue to do it. But the good times did not last long, and the pressure of creation made Mercury think of giving up again. At this time, watermelon video operation contacted her, and gave her professional guidance, traffic support, and gave her great help in the direction of creation and content.
At this time, the number of fans of Mercury in the watermelon video is less than 1800. She was surprised, and therefore insisted: "With professional guidance, the income has been very obviously improved compared with her previous blindness."
With the guidance of the operation staff and its own accumulation, Mercury gradually explored its own video style. Mercury feels that story thinking is what distinguishes literature and history popular science videos from science and technology videos. "There are a lot of genres that allow creators to tell compelling stories. Real and specific people and things can make the audience empathize and continue to attract the audience's attention. ”
She began to tell popular science knowledge through storytelling. In the video introducing the tomb of the Nanyue King of the Western Han Dynasty in Guangzhou, she integrated her archaeological knowledge into the storyline of the tomb owner and the tomb robber fighting wits and courage, and the watermelon video was played nearly 300,000 times.
Mercury regards the knowledge of literature and history through video popularization as a process of in-depth and simple understanding. First use interesting storylines or suspense to attract the attention of netizens, and then slowly talk about more in-depth views, it is easier for viewers to listen. If you tell a deep point from the beginning, it will be difficult for the viewer to accept.
Next, Mercury also plans to produce more in-depth and systematic series of videos for a certain theme to give netizens a richer knowledge learning experience.