"This morning, you woke up from sleep, looked through the circle of friends, and found that the status bar of your friends had become an animal."
In addition to cats and dogs, chickens, sheep, cows and horses are crawling around in the mobile phone screen.
The animals seem to have escaped from the zoo overnight and then moved to the circle of friends of young people.
Photo/ WeChat farm animals
This is a farm function launched by WeChat, inviting users to "raise pets" by changing wallpapers and memes in the WeChat state, causing netizens to live.
Photo/ WeChat farm animals
After a day of playing, we saw a variety of curious, creative, and warm WeChat farms.
But have you ever wondered how this state of being neither social nor interactive can attract so many young people to join?
01
"Internet Farm" archaeology
One of the reasons why WeChat Farms became popular may be that the word "farm" is in the name.
Spring ploughing, summer planting, autumn harvest and winter storage, "farm" is more like an urban people's yearning for farming pastoral life.
Even if modern people are getting farther and farther away from rural life, plug-ins such as Alipay chickens and Baba Farm in your mobile phone still catch up with the elements of pastoral life.
In the circle of friends, the first person to raise animals on WeChat Farm is nowhere to be found, but if you follow this clue and set the clock forward 14 years, Happy Farm is the source of China's "Internet farm".
In November 2008, the planting-themed social web game Happy Farm was released, allowing players to play as a farmer and reclaim land and grow a variety of vegetables and fruits on their farm.
Photo/Happy Farm
According to the relevant data survey at that time, in the period from 2009 to 2010, when Happy Farm was the hottest, the total number of registered people of Happy Farm was 70 million, and the number of online active people was 23 million.
After the happy farm was launched, it set off a national craze of stealing vegetables, from the 60-year-old grandmother to the 10-year-old child, the average person on the line Tao Yuanming.
From the news reports at the time, we can see how popular Happy Farm is.
Some people put on a good alarm clock in the middle of the night, just to go online to "steal food" at the point; because the boyfriend does not help "steal the dish", and some girls are angry, and they break up in anger...
"The first thing that will come to the office is to steal vegetables, the company colleagues are playing Happy Farm, calculating the time to collect vegetables, stealing vegetables, they don't have the heart to go to work, and then the company had to block the happy network."
Because too many people set an alarm clock in the middle of the night to get up and steal dishes on the Internet, long-term rest is not good, Happy Network also specially upgrades the game, allowing users to choose whether they can steal dishes in the middle of the night.
Later, it was acquired by Tencent and renamed QQ Farm, and after reaching a higher peak, it inevitably slid into decline.
On August 20, 2013, Happy Farm officially rolled off the production line, and the collective memory of a generation ended.
02
Growing vegetables, the idyllic dream of young people's hearts
Everyone's yearning for pastoral life is not only limited to the Internet, but also rooted in life.
Everyone with a land complex wants to have their own world, raise animals, dig a pond, plant a la carte, and enjoy the leisurely life of the countryside.
Although the pace of life today is fast, everyone's yearning for pastoral life has never stopped.
Especially with the rapid development of the city and the continuous improvement of the pressure of urban people, the pastoral dream hidden in the hearts of urban people has been stimulated as never before.
Grow vegetables on the balcony
Big cities don't just have to run, they can also live idyllic life.
Because of working from home, many originally busy office workers rarely have time to study family vegetables.
In your own kitchen, you will replant the remaining vegetables from the stir-fry to replenish tomorrow's table.
Photo/ Balcony vegetable garden
Grow vegetables in the community
In addition to the balcony, some people also stared at the roof.
Because the property repeatedly ordered that it could not grow vegetables on the public green space, some residents thought of using large foam boxes on the roof of the building to form a small vegetable garden.
In a box of tens of centimeters square, I saw a needle planted with my beloved vegetables.
Even if it is only a palm-sized clearing, it can be filled with onions and garlic.
Photo/ Vegetable garden on the roof
Grow vegetables in the suburbs
In some cities, there are also many private farms.
Vegetable garden buyers pay a certain fee every year to satisfy their enthusiasm for growing vegetables.
If you are busy at work, you can also issue instructions through the mobile app and entrust the staff to grow vegetables through the camera.
03
Why are we fascinated by pastoral life?
Chinese's yearning for pastoral life is engraved in the cultural genes.
Fei Xiaotong mentioned in "Native China" that the most inseparable thing from Chinese life is land, and we have gathered together because of the land to form a village, and together with it has formed a local village culture with kinship as the cohesion.
In addition, our life itself is built around farming and pastoral life, especially the lunar calendar and seasons, especially the festivals of Xiaoman, Mangzhong, and Guyu, which are basically reminding you that it is time to grow vegetables.
As long as we still have the habit of using the lunar calendar, we will not forget the precious wealth left by the farming culture.
Therefore, our obsession with pastoral life may stem from the joy of welcoming the harvest after diligent farming.
On the one hand, in special times, this interesting way allows people who can't go out at home to get a little simple healing.
On the other hand, WeChat Farms is also using a simple and easy form to let us temporarily forget about the chickens and dogs in life.
Photo/ WeChat Farm
In fact, no matter what you raise, open the WeChat state and see that there are several friends and their cute animals, you have harvested a simple and pure happiness.
Author: Yang Yifan Proofreader: Liu Baoqing
This article is produced by Hard Shell INK, reproduction without permission is prohibited