"Fondaph" is a transliteration of fun stuff, meaning "interesting stuff", and the content posted belongs to the field of paleontology. In Station B, "Fondaph" is known as the most rigorous science account for transmitting knowledge - each work released by this account will be followed by a long list of references. But in this niche and unpopular field, "Fondaph" has released 143 videos, won 2.45 million followers, and received more than 100 million views.
The operator of "Fangstav" is a post-90s school bully couple: "Ghost Valley Hidden Dragon" Tang Cheng, graduated from the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in May 2020, is the main creator of the video number; "Fangstaff" Cai Chunlin works in an academic journal and focuses on operation. With "Fondaph", the two were selected as the "Top 100 UP Masters" of Station B for two consecutive years.
Start the popular science trail on a remote island
Tang Cheng's road to science popularization began in 2014. At that time, he was sent to study monkeys on a remote island. The island is so desolate that "the scene you see after pushing open the door is the ecstatic wilderness of Baye (bell, the protagonist of the documentary "Wilderness Lifesaving")," and "to buy food, you have to ride a battery car to a town 3 miles away to catch a market." In order to adjust his life, Tang Cheng began to write two to three popular science articles for the fruit shell network every month. By 2016, he had written more than 100 popular science articles and joined the Shanghai Association of Popular Science Authors.
In early 2018, China cloned the world's first primate pair, Zhongzhong and Huahua. This pair of treasures was born on the monkey platform where Tang Cheng was located. As a witness, Tang Cheng was almost the most suitable person in China to write popular science articles on cloned monkeys in that period, and he continued to draft for a while. Writing more, Tang Cheng wanted to know what his readers really wanted to see, so he did a relatively extensive survey.
The first thing Tang Cheng wanted to know was what kind of attitude everyone had towards the first cloned monkey. He himself presupposes two ideas: "One is inclined to nationalism, thinking that Chinese scientists are too good to easily do what foreign scientists can't do; the other is inclined to internationalism, feeling that these two monkeys are the result of the entire academic community, the efforts of scientists from all over the world, and the glory belongs to the entire academic community." It's just two kinds of ideas. ”
The reader's feedback shocked him: some people questioned the strength of Chinese scientific research, "Why can China clone monkeys?" Some people think that cloning is evil technology, "in fact, you don't know that those powerful people have long cloned people, and Chinese scientists have just broken through this layer of window paper." ”
"Why do we do science popularization for so long, and the people's concepts don't seem to have been changed?" Tang Cheng couldn't figure it out.
Another thing that made him even more devastated: once, Tang Cheng spent a lot of time preparing online course tutorials, wanting to give children science about what genes are. After an hour of talking, the first question the student asked made his mind break: "Teacher, what is a cell?" Tang Cheng said that since he chose the science class in high school, he has lived in an environment where no one around him knows the cells for more than ten years. At that moment, he suddenly understood that many people may not have really studied the needs of the audience before doing science communication.
"Let people who don't wear shoes put on shoes"
A sample survey on the scientific quality of Chinese citizens shows that the proportion of citizens with scientific quality in 2020 is 10.56%. That is, 90 percent of people are not scientifically literate. Some of the most basic concepts in scientific theories, they may not have a clue. "If those of us who do science communication ignore the 90 percent, then rumors and anti-intellectual conspiracy theories will occupy them." Tang Cheng wanted to understand that this was something that was ignored in science communication.
"I think science communication should be layered: some people package some knowledge very well and very comprehensively to those who have scientific knowledge; there are also people who want to push this scientific literacy to those who need science communication the most, but these people have been isolated by science communication in another group." For example, like the market, someone needs to sell shoes to people who wear shoes, but there is also someone to find a way to get people who don't wear shoes to wear shoes. Science communication should also have this, different division of labor. ”
"Personifying, dramating, and emotionalizing the paleontologists"
It's just that it's not so simple to get people who don't wear shoes to put on shoes. In 2019, Tang Cheng decided to become a UP master. At that time, Cai Chunlin, who was still Tang Cheng's girlfriend, often worked on Hanhua overseas science videos at Station B, but these videos were played less than 100 times in two or three months - equivalent to no one watching.
How do you get your fans' attention? Tang Cheng repeatedly studied the success secrets of the top streams of Station B. A few months later, he and his girlfriend finally made their first video, "Strange Shrimp"—about an ancient overlord named Strange Shrimp. Why paleontology? Mainly because there is little need for thresholds in the understanding of paleontology.
When "Odd Shrimp" was uploaded, the number of fans of "Fondafu" was about 700, and the number of plays of a video was about 1,000 times a month. The "Strange Shrimp" video was played more than 90,000 times in 24 hours. Fans rose to 21,000 in 24 hours, and then to 43,000 in 48 hours. Within a month, the video also reached 880,000 views.
How did Tang Cheng do it? This goes back to the problem of popularizing science to 90% of people. Tang Cheng found that one of the characteristics of this group of people is that they are very busy. Simply put, they tend to be busy office workers or busy students. "A person who goes to work for a day or a day of school, tired and has to scatter, do you still want to teach them?" I think the first spiritual need of this kind of person is to be entertained immediately, immediately. So, I need to refine my knowledge into exquisite entertainment products, delicious dishes, so that these people can eat it. ”
Tang Cheng's dismantling secret is to "try to personify, dramatize, and emotionalize the paleontologists as much as possible." Let those ancient creatures that are tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years away from the present stage a moving story of either pathos or surprise in a huge span of time and space. For example, in the face of the original overlord Qi shrimp, those prehistoric small animals did everything in their power to survive, some of them evolved hard armor, some dug holes to poison, and some simply made themselves skinny and unpalatable. For example, the trilobite, which has always been at the bottom of the paleontological world, was eaten by the mainstream top predators at that time in addition to acting as a passerby, but its vitality was extremely tenacious, and after 200 million years, it survived generation after generation of top overlords. The trilobite didn't have the ability to go up, but it kept desperately alive. With Tang Cheng's slightly secondary two-year copywriting explanation, the experience of the trilobites suddenly resonated with today's viewers - "In fact, I have given the trilobites a personality, it is an indomitable bottom." Later, fans of "Fondaph" created a stem for the trilobite - "the trilobite put up an indomitable middle finger to the world".
The process of verification is no different from writing a paper
To do popular science accounts, the most critical thing is to ensure the rigor of transmitting knowledge. Therefore, in the production process of each video, the most time-consuming and laborious thing is to find information and examine information. Tang Cheng introduced that whether it is the source and channel of literature, or the depth and breadth of verification, it is no different from the dissertation writing during his doctoral studies. The most time, he has read more than 50 related papers, and the least has more than a dozen, "for a topic, looking at the literature of the previous week, is basically a norm." When you encounter problems that are difficult to understand, you often have to check for a month or two."
Is it too grand to treat popular science with academic rigor? Tang Cheng felt that this was a must. Unlike the in-depth development of scientific research, popular science needs a breadth, which requires creators to quickly obtain relevant knowledge from the literature and translate it into interesting oral expressions.
Even so, errors are inevitable in the video, and errata after each video have become a "routine work". Once Tang Cheng looked back at the video he posted about cartilaginous fish and found that someone pointed out that "in reality, killer whales have cultural diversity, and there are groups that are very afraid of sharks" lack basis. He examined it and put a corrigendum comment at the top of the comment area. Don't worry that they will be embarrassed by this, sometimes read new conclusions from the paper, and actively correct it. "There's always been new research that overturns old theories," Fondaff says, "and we try not to make mistakes, but if we make mistakes, we have to correct them." ”
"I lived like a look that my parents didn't like very much, but I liked it"
Tang Cheng very much hopes to cooperate with more professional researchers to ensure the accuracy of the content. Because many people have prejudices about science popularization, this has caused the lack of professional science popularization talents in China to some extent. Because of this, pseudoscientific marketing numbers have a lot of opportunities to "harvest leeks" and "bad money drives out good money".
Although he has gone from being a doctor engaged in scientific research to a full-time science popularization UP master who does video content, he has become a "look that his parents and elders don't like very much", Tang Cheng feels that it is worth taking the road of popular science, and "someone must do this thing, and the threshold for doing this thing is very high, so it is most appropriate for a person with scientific literacy in academia to do it." What's more, in foreign countries, it is a very normal thing for people from science classes to do science communication. Tang Cheng felt, "There will definitely be more and more people like me in the future." ”
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zu Weiwei
Editor/Ying Qiao