"Back wave" will always become the "main tide" 丨 new force

Wang Wenjing, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shijiazhuang Literary and Art Critics Association, senior visiting scholar of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published the monograph "Hello, Lens".

The connotation of the concept of "Generation Z" has changed, and it was used to refer to the last batch of "post-80s" young people at the end of the last century, but it really appeared on the literary scene in the current common sense, which is the 2018 "Report on the Development of Chinese Internet Literature". At that time, the highest growth rate of online literature users was them — people born between 1995 and 2010. On May Fourth Youth Day in 2020, actor He Bing played "call" for "Generation Z" with a passionate speech entitled "After the Wave" at Station B, completing a sketch focusing on youth from the perspective of "Generation Y", and also boosting "Generation Z" into the public context. Not long ago, the "2021 Portrait of Online Literary Writers" released by Reading Group showed that 80% of the annual new writers on the group's websites were "post-95", and online literary creation ushered in a veritable "post-95" era, and "Generation Z" walked from emerging to the center of the stage with strength and speed, entering their own year of beating.

In recent years, the writer group and reader users of online literature have shown obvious iterations, rejuvenation has become a new trend in the world of online literature, and "Generation Z" has become the main force of online literature at the two levels of creation and consumption, changing and shaping the era of online literature. In the "2020 China Internet Literature Influence List" released by the China Writers Association in September 2021, I will repair a large number of "post-90s" and "post-95" writers such as Air Conditioner, Ku Xuan, And Lemon Yuyan shortlisted for the "Newcomer New Works List"; in the 2020 China Internet Literature Male (Female) Frequency Writers Influence List of Ai Media Data, Qi Peijia, Dark Night, Rong Xiaorong and many other "post-95" writers are on the list; I will repair the air conditioner "I Have an Adventure House" and "I Am Really Not a Child of Luck" to help them" A book to seal the king" rushed out of the "great god hegemony list" siege.

In addition to the advent of phenomenal online literary works and the birth of "big god" writers, "Generation Z" shows the overall trend of beginning to dominate online literary users. They are good at communication and interaction, have good payment habits, and are willing to carry out derivative creations in the form of "same humanities", which has marked a distinct subjectivity mark on the theme, topic and influence. Today, from the initial basic genres of fantasy, crossing, military, and campus, online literature has developed more than 20 major categories and more than 200 sub-categories that almost cover all the content of youth life, such as science fiction, sports, e-sports, workplace, traditional culture, and entertainment; new genres such as "dimensional system", "majiawen", "system flow" and "infinite stream" continue to optimize and refresh the content ecology of online literature. The "Z generation" has shown a more cutting-edge cultural sense of smell and a wider life experience in the field of online text, which has also gained more user attention.

It is not difficult to find that under the appearance of the "Generation Z" reconstructing the contemporary landscape of online literature, they are constantly updating the internal structure of social popular culture interests and youth subcultures. As Internet natives, they no longer understand the Internet as a communication tool like the "pioneer generation" of online literature. What Generation Z has is the pattern of life in the Internet age, and as McLuhan said, the new media is no longer a bridge between people and nature, they are nature.

In 1995, China began to gradually access the Internet with full-featured functions, and in the same year, China established its first Internet company. As a peer of China's Internet development, from the "Z generation" to remember, "Internet access" is a common thing. Technological revolution and media iteration have infiltrated their daily lives, making them a "netizen generation" with Internet thinking. Under the joint shaping of the media attributes and industrial attributes of the Internet, the "Generation Z", known as the indigenous digital media, has a distinct personality, a wide range of hobbies, pays attention to spiritual experience, is easily driven by interests, and is a "slash youth" with strong self-expression ability and strong interaction and willingness to consume.

In the view of "Generation Z", the acquisition of knowledge and meaning is not the only purpose of literary reading, especially when the subjects, objects, contents and methods of literary reading are all combined with the infinite media space of the Internet, experience and interaction become the basic literary interests of "Generation Z". On the one hand, the sense of networking and coolness that they entered quickly escalated after they stepped on the stage of online text. If the "post-70s" and "post-80s" are still more or less influenced by martial arts and romance novels, retaining the traditional understanding of the rhythm of the story and the logic of emotion, then what supports the "Generation Z" online worldview is the game logic that accompanies them. The procedural laws of computers teach them how to play games at the same time, but also teach them how to turn readers into players, so the "Generation Z" knows better than the previous generation how to "bury the stem" and "circle the fans", and create a story that connects the experience of both the writer and the reader. The protagonist Shen Tian in "I Am Really Not a Child of Luck" crosses into the prince of bad luck, and the author Yunzhong Temple's anti-routine counterattack to the protagonist of waste wood has caused a large number of fans of the book.

On the other hand, multi-form interaction is a behavioral representation of "Generation Z" in the online world. The instant interactivity of the Internet determines the community-based characteristics of online literature, and its commerciality stimulates the vitality of the virtual community of online literature. Generation Z is willing to buy their favorite works, and the payment itself is a positive feedback on the text of the web text. According to the "2020 China Internet Literature Development Report", the phenomenon-level online novel "The Lord of Mystery" has received hundreds of millions of subscriptions, tens of millions of recommendations, and millions of tips, breaking the record of online literature for 20 years; "The Robbery of Ten Thousand Tribes", as the work with the highest amount of readers in 2020, has 827 "allies" on the platform (readers who tip works more than 1,000 yuan). Of course, buying is not the end, because reading itself is not the end. As readers, they will also take the initiative to participate in the comments with great enthusiasm, spit on the plot of the plot, while the author sees the reaction of the book fans, the book friends have also had a close interaction, they sign in, collect, recommend, forward, and even set up groups / groups, in addition to the comment area of the literary website, the "Z generation" for the exchange of writers' works throughout Baidu Tieba, Weibo, B station, Douban, Zhihu and other social platforms. The Talking Elbow's "The King Spares His Life" is the first work in the history of online literature to have 1.5 million reviews, and its single chapter has more than 15,000 reviews, which was unimaginable before the birth of online literature.

Of course, the significance of "Generation Z" to online literature is far more than this, compared with paid tips and spit reviews, derivative creations can best reflect their impact on the literary ecology. Because this means that the single model of "you write and I read" in the field of literature has been broken, the "Z generation" has not only changed from readers to users and fans, but also further from fans to authors, and "interactivity" has penetrated into the most basic supply and demand structure of online literature, and realized identity conversion. Whether it is the derivative paintings of "Lord of Mystery" or the fan fiction of popular online texts such as "Qing Yu Nian" and "Son-in-law", the identity exchange from readers to authors proves that online social networking is the just need of "Generation Z", and its performance in online literature is a higher degree of participation in creation, and its value is that high participation is providing more possibilities for the literary transition in the Internet age.

As a representative group of young subcultures, "Generation Z" was born in the market economy and grew up in the Internet, and their trust in science and technology and emerging media is the ideological basis for this generation to break the authority and decentralize. Through about 10 years of efforts, they have gained the ability to break the circle in a more open and fair online literature ecology, behind the recognition of those "real money and silver" is their "real knife and real gun" creative ability and real talent and practical knowledge accumulation, all the flowers and applause obtained by the head writer are from their works, and have nothing to do with identity, position, education, and social relations. All identity authority has been deconstructed in the face of "Generation Z", "well-written" is the only way to "become a god", and their bravery and honesty in the face of literature deserve everyone's respect. People's perception of "Generation Z" may still be superficial, and their fashion-forward pursuit and enthusiastic subjective emotions are often labeled as immature, irrational and overly self-negative evaluations. But believing that all this will pass, the "Generation Z" proves with actions that "indulgence and love freedom" are also greeting their own sea and sky.