Editor's introduction: "Listen to me say thank you, because of you, warm the four seasons", do you readers think that this is a lead with voice effects? "Thank you" swept the whole network, demonic and brainwashed, making people invincible. The author of this article analyzes this Internet phenomenon, let's take a look.
One fact: After March 2022, no one around you can say "Listen to me and thank you" in a normal tone.
Not only that, you will also be brushed by various related memes, cute kittens and puppies with their hands folded, next to them like mental pollution written "Listen to me say thank you, because of you, warm the four seasons ..."
Just when you are doubting, casually open a short video platform, brush up on the two, the magic melody of "listen to me say thank you" sounded again, accompanied by the innocent but somewhat brainwashed child's voice, all the kols danced, releasing "thanks" to you in bi's heart.
Open the circle of friends and Weibo, the comment area is also occupied by various "thank you", everyone seems to have an emoji level ten use certificate, in conjunction with the text out of the magic, this song successfully changed from brainwashing to spiritual pollution. What's more frightening is that it also has various foreign language versions, and netizens don't even want foreigners to let go.....
You think back to Crazy Thursday, "River of Love", "What Happened" and other hot memes, vowing to explore the end of "thank you", so you began to look for it on the internet, and finally, you opened this article and knew the ins and outs of the matter.
Of course, in order to thank you for clicking on this article, we also decided to sing a song called "Listen to Me Thank You".
First, "Listen to Me Thank You" began and ended in the circle
"Listen to Me Say Thank You" is a song by the post-10 singer Li Xinrong' children, before this song, she has released a full-network hit such as "You Laugh So Good". It can be said that she is a "new era children's song" professional household.
"Listen to Me Say Thank You" inherits her characteristics: simple melody, sweet children's voice, plus straightforward lyrics, although not so exquisite, but also catchy ears. Coupled with the simple but childlike dance in the MV, like "You Laugh So Good", this song is especially suitable for short video content.
However, no one could have imagined that such an ordinary song could become the "source of all evil" three years later.
"Listen to Me Thank You" quickly spread on the short video platform, especially by the majority of parents love, the simple "gratitude" contained in the song is suitable for various educational occasions, this song has also become one of the representatives of "positive energy songs", Mother's Day, Teacher's Day and other festivals, you can always brush to this song as bGM of various short videos.
This song is one of the common songs to express gratitude to the anti-epidemic personnel. As early as the early days of the epidemic, children who had appeared in home isolation danced "Listen to Me Say Thank You" for the anti-epidemic personnel who came to the door, the scene was cute and warm, and netizens also said that they were "warmed". At that time, many moments of "Listen to Me and Thank You" were warm moments in the shadow of the epidemic in the eyes of the public, but in 2022, the situation has completely changed.
After the Spring Festival in 2022, the domestic epidemic situation has risen one after another, Shanghai, Jilin and other places are facing a new round of outbreaks, the situation of anti-epidemic situation has changed sharply, many places have begun to be national nucleic acid, communities, campuses lined up, medical staff wearing white protective clothing for thousands of people to do nucleic acid, of which the hard work is unimaginable.
In this case, "Listen to Me Thank You" began to appear on the "stage", and since March, more and more short videos with this song as the background music have appeared on the Internet, and most of the content is mainly "dancing for medical staff when doing nucleic acid": children do not leave immediately after doing nucleic acid, parents take out their stereos or mobile phones, and dance a paragraph of "Listen to Me Thank You".
Graph source network
The gradual increase in similar videos, their common feature is that they all use "Listen to Me Thank You". This behavior of ignoring the feelings of the queuers and medical staff behind them has turned what should be a warm "thanks" into a show, and many people have said it bluntly: it is better to waste time dancing a meaningless dance than to donate some money and something.
Some anti-epidemic personnel and volunteers really can't watch it, and post short videos on the Internet to persuade parents not to let their children dance when they are nucleic acid, "Sometimes there are urgent tasks, and medical staff are not embarrassed to go."
The anti-epidemic scene has become a "literary and artistic performance", and the thanks must also be "rolled in", not to mention that the feelings of medical staff are not taken into account at all, with the antipathy to formalism and showmanship, the anger of netizens finally broke out, and "Listen to Me Thank You" has become the target of public criticism.
Some news media also published articles pointing out that this phenomenon of confusion "after doing nucleic acid, hemp slipping away, do not dance", netizens are even more critical of similar videos, the Internet is good at teasing, in the face of "confusing behavior", netizens' ability to create stems began to start. This kind of dancing acknowledgment has been described as "new-age torture", referring to the fact that medical staff are forced to watch the dance after a day of exertion, wasting time and meaningless, and watching other people's shows and "self-touching" is like torture.
"Imagine that you were just about to go home after a hard day of overtime and your boss suddenly stopped you and gave you a dance of 'Listen to me thank you...'"
"Listen to Me Thank You" is a new brainwashing divine comedy, as long as the melody sounds, netizens will remember the fear of being dominated by the posing, and their minds are full of those magical brainwashing actions. In this way, an ordinary Internet celebrity children's song has become spiritual pollution, and gratitude has also become "yin and yang weird".
Netizens have a strong desire to create, "Listen to Me Say Thank You" began to appear widely in a variety of ironic short videos, no matter what the situation, can come to a "listen to me say thank you, because there are you...", the second creation is also more and more, "Zhen Huan" in The An Lingrong, Asoul, all the Internet celebrities are dancing, and even some people have adapted it into jazz dance, street dance.
Nowadays surfing the Internet, if you are not careful, you will have to bear the "listen to me say thank you" that has been engraved in your DNA.
Who created "Listen to Me Thank You"
Many netizens first came into contact with this song "Listen to Me Say Thank You" during the epidemic period, coupled with the fact that the theme of the song is concentrated and direct, it is easy for the public to have a misunderstanding, that is, this song is a brainwashing "saliva song" created to cater to the positive energy of the fight against the epidemic.
However, this is not the case. Although this song has been widely used as background music in the battlefield scene and related content since 2020, it is actually a song of gratitude composed by veteran musician Li Kaichou and lyrics composed by Zhou Bing, and created and launched during Teachers' Day in 2019.
Combined with the quality of his works and the online singing that he later triggered, "Listen to Me Say Thank You" was successfully selected as the 2020 outstanding song of the Chinese Contemporary Song Creation Project "Hear China Hear You" sponsored by the Chinese Musicians Association.
Going back further, "Listen to Me Thank You" is not the first popular song created by Li Kaichou and Zhou Bing. Before "Listen to Me Say Thank You", a song called "You Laugh So Good" became a "phenomenon" song that became popular all over the Internet in 2019. Li Kaichou's daughter Li Xinrong is the original singer of these blockbusters. The composer Li Kaichou, his wife "Black Duck" group member Fan Tongzhou, and his daughter Li Xinrong are also regarded by many as a musical family of "new auspicious three treasures".
Li Kaichou's family image source network
Some netizens said: Li Xinrong is really powerful, in 2019, "You Laugh So Good" made everyone laugh for a year, and in 2020, "Listen to Me Thank You" made everyone cry for a long time. Music hits are often there, but in the era of popular music being flooded, it is not easy to make one original song after another be loved and spread by netizens.
So, how exactly do such songs accurately hit the listener's preferences, and why are listeners moved by these works?
These blockbuster songs by Li Kaichou show important commonalities. In terms of theme expression, they all present the characteristics of small case, simple and intuitive, and visualization. That is to say, the song is "small" in form, with simple words and less information, but the theme expressed focuses on universal values.
For example, the melody and lyrics of "Listen to Me Thank You" are catchy, the content is straightforward and easy to understand, and with gratitude as the theme, no specific praise object is set, which further expands the crowd and adaptation scene that the song can cover, and it is easy to break the circle and be accepted by the public.
This "small case large" creative mode is not the accidental result of Li Kaichou's unconsciousness, but the product of song positioning and creative thinking.
Li Kaichou once said in an interview: Now every song can be spread for a reason, and many songs that are widely sung are not big songs, they are very small. And this kind of lightweight music works are also known as the "micro-songs" of the new era, "Listen to Me Thank You" and "You Look So Good When You Laugh" are typical representatives of this type of "micro-songs".
First of all, Li Kaichou's starting point is to create children's favorite children's songs, and the inspiration for creation comes from his family life. For example, the inspiration for "You Look So Good When You Laugh" comes from a sentence that Li Kaichou said to coax his daughter after Li Xinrong fell and cried - you laugh so beautifully. Later, Li Kaichou found that no matter who said this sentence to, people would laugh involuntarily, so he decided to use it as the title of the song to create.
Similarly, although there are many classic songs about gratitude, the children's songs dedicated to gratitude are relatively blank. Expressing grand themes in children's language is one of the important reasons why "Listen to Me And Thank You" can be passed on by word of mouth. For example, the same is an expression of gratitude, and some classic songs and nursery rhymes have some obvious differences in the style of creation.
"Grateful Heart" sings "Although the heavens and the earth are wide, this road is difficult to walk, I have seen all the ups and downs of this world... Let the heavens know that I do not admit defeat", adults sing with great ambition, but children will sing against harmony. And the expression of "send you a careful heart, send you a flower" in "Listen to Me and Thank You" is to convey emotions in a simpler and purer tone of a child. By lowering the threshold of songs, Li Kaichou's music includes more audiences of different ages and different circles.
Creating such "micro-songs" is Li Kaichou's active choice after twenty years of music. In the past two decades, he has participated in the composition, arrangement or production of a large number of songs, including many classic works that are familiar to the public, such as "I Don't Miss You Because of Loneliness", "Horse Pole", "Fiery Sarilang" and so on.
Ulantoya's "Fiery Sarilang" arranged by Li Kaichou
"Micro song" is not the same as "saliva song". In Li Kaichou's view, his path of music creation is a process from simple to complex and then back to simple. At the moment, he wants his music to be simple, flavorful, and good. Only in the light "micro song", integrated into his years of accumulation and thinking, and constantly seeking breakthroughs, can we achieve the effect of "lifting heavy weights" and passing on word of mouth today.
Third, the era of "micro-song"
Not to mention the controversy caused by the song "Listen to Me Thank You", to a certain extent, now is the best era that belongs to "micro-songs".
What is a "micro song"? We can make a more specific definition here for the time being: simple to produce, smaller songs, this kind of work is generally more aesthetically popular, the appreciation threshold is not high, there will not be too much too complex design, the expression is mostly direct, easy to understand, catchy, conducive to dissemination, is a musical form of all ages.
In an interview with China Art News in August 2020, Li Kaichou analyzed the reasons for the popularity of these "small songs": the "chorus dissemination" on the short video platform, the self-dissemination and processing creation of netizens, and the help of gesture dance. "This is indeed a very special phenomenon of the 'micro' spread of songs in the modern era." Li Kaichou said.
Summing up these reasons, the core element is the amplified influence of "micro songs" in the short video era.
First of all, from the logic of music creation itself, the fragmentary expression of short videos is very perfectly in line with the spread of "micro songs".
As a "children's song"-like work, one of the elements of "micro-song" is a chorus that is suitable for repetition and is enough to catch the ear.
Different from the "structure" in the production of traditional musical works, "micro-song" only needs a "bright spot" to support a song, in "You laugh so good", it is the sentence "You laugh so beautiful, like a spring flower", in "Listen to me say thank you" is the sentence "Listen to me say thank you, because you warm the four seasons" ,—— and even the name of each song is "Punchline" in the song, which is indeed regular and neat.
Therefore, it is naturally very clear what part of the short video should be crawled in 15 seconds. It can even be said that the song only needs 15 seconds of space to express, and the step of "condensation" has been designed in advance.
Secondly, it is the "rebirth" of "audio-visual" in the era of short videos.
Li Kaichou himself also mentioned that when they spread songs, they would ask teachers to make up some gesture dances, and these simple dances played a crucial role in the dissemination of songs.
Since 2018, "gesture dance" has become one of the most popular forms of content on the Douyin platform, and the characteristics of easy imitation and easy "original" have made it popular for many songs. In the early days, it may be that "98K" has a strong sense of rhythm, or "Downhill" and other stories are prominent, and over time, the image and music form a strong link, and more and more "gesture dance" begins to reshape people's perception of "pop music".
The "micro-song" further reduces the "audiovisual threshold", whether it is the creator or the listener, can join the transmission in the low difficulty. Most of the "micro-songs" will not have strong drum beats, the slow rhythm and melody make the difficulty of "gesture dance" have better control, and social units such as schools and families have become excellent communication spaces; the lyrics will not have any obscure vocabulary, singing and learning are very simple, once you listen to it more than a few times, it is difficult to forget.
"Listen to Me Thank You" Gesture Dance Image Source Network
But it should be reiterated that what the Hedgehog Commune calls "simple" and "red" is not harsh.
Short video platforms need these songs, and we also need these songs. This is the expression that suits the characteristics of the platform, and it is also the kind of "straightforwardness" that modern people need, whether it is encouragement or expression of gratitude and love, under the real environment, such songs will naturally be sung again and again.
Perhaps we may end with the statement in Neil Bozeman's The Disappearance of Childhood: "If one pays close attention to the content of television programs, one finds some fairly accurate record of the rise of 'adult' children, but also of 'child'. ”
The era of television has long passed, and the hidden worries brought about by media changes will always accompany human beings.
Author: Shi Xin Jia Xuan Ouyang; Editor: Director of the Park; WeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune
This article was originally published by @Hedgehog Commune and is not reproduced without the permission of the author.
The title image is from Pixabay, based on the CC0 protocol