Source: Financial Sector News
When everyone is young, they see the rising sun; when each generation rises, they have all been toward the light; young people have the past, and they also need to study hard and know how to be in awe, but more importantly, to move forward and find new hope for mankind.
On the eve of May Fourth Youth Day in 2022, THE JD Consumer and Industrial Development Research Institute, together with JD Books, Beijing Insight, Tencent Research Institute, Maoyan Research Institute, Tencent Music Data Research Institute, Reading Group, and Himalaya (in no particular order), jointly launched the "Survey on the Current Situation of Contemporary Young People's "Spiritual Consumption"" * and released the "2022 White Paper on Young People's Spiritual World and Spiritual Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), and worked with young people listening (music, audiobooks), watching (movies, electronics/ Paper books) and consumption data in the field of writing are combined to analyze the spiritual world and spiritual consumption status of contemporary young people, and draw the following trends:
In this era, too much "fragmentation" seems to make people powerless, but young people have learned to find treasures;
Traditional culture as a "gripper" that enriches the hearts of young people;
This year's young people are talking about "lying flat", in fact, they are better shaping themselves;
Today, the mainstream narrative of Chinese society is shifting from "life is getting better and better" to "getting more and more interesting";
The three major roles of the spiritual world make the light of young people's idealism always shine.
(*According to the age range of "youth" defined by the relevant institutions, this survey covers people aged 18-45 years; a total of 1000 copies of 25 years old and below, 550 copies of 26-45 years old, the ratio of men to women is about 51:49; the "Generation Z" mentioned below is the population born in 1995 and later, with a sample size of about 1100 copies; the "whole population" referred to below refers to all 45 years old and younger people who participated in the survey, with a total sample size of about 1550 copies)
Shifting from "progressive narratives" to "interesting narratives"
Compared with the post-70s and earlier generations, today's Young Chinese people have basically eaten and eaten, they are better educated, the spiritual world is richer, and the pursuit of non-material levels is higher, so their growth process can be called a "progressive narrative" spanning 40 years.
The "Report" pointed out that the basic situation of the interviewees in the survey can be confirmed: because it is mainly based on the JD channel survey, the respondents' education and income levels are slightly higher than the overall level.
From the chart below, 61% of people have "irregular" consumption at the spiritual level, but among those with fixed expenditures, The amount of expenditure of Generation Z is even higher than that of 28-35-year-olds, while 36-45-year-olds have better economic conditions and therefore have an advantage in large expenditures.
According to Jingdong's consumption situation, in 2021, The sales volume of home appliances purchased by Z generation users will account for more than 20%, and they prefer to buy audio-visual and audio-visual products including power amplifiers and home theaters; in the first quarter, the sales of micro-single cameras increased by 57% year-on-year, VR glasses increased by 55%, and wireless Bluetooth headsets increased by 45%.
The "Report" believes that with better income, higher education and broader vision, riding on the tide of reform and opening up and the Internet, contemporary young people are undoubtedly born in the most imaginative era in human history. Their narrative mode is changing from "getting better and better" to "getting more and more interesting".
But they are also a generation with many conflicts and contradictions in their hearts, they are both independent and love to follow the trend, they are both brave in innovation but they do not seem to suffer too much, they accept consumerism and despise materials, they both believe in the future and seem to be a little confused... Therefore, it is very meaningful to make some inquiries into their spiritual world and spiritual pursuits.
Movie watching: Generation Z is a "mobile" moviegoer and a new force in the film market
According to the data of Maoyan Film, the composition of the consumer population in the film market will change significantly in 2021: as the post-00s enter adulthood, they quickly pour into the film market, gradually becoming a new consumer force, driving the overall structure of the Chinese film market audience to become younger. In addition, female moviegoers have a certain increase in 2021.
From the perspective of movie preferences, youth, love, youth animation, thriller and other genres are the preferred themes of the post-00s; post-95 movies in addition to youth and love, more suspense movies are chosen; the post-90s have a stronger preference for action, adventure and other genre films; the post-80s parent-child movie demand is obvious, reflected in their enthusiasm for animated films; feature films, historical war themes have a stronger appeal to post-70s and pre-70s audiences.
The "Report" quoted Maoyan's point of view pointing out that different growth environments, consumption habits and aesthetic interests have influenced the concept of movie consumption for generations. By creating high-quality genre films, creating strong content, operating series IP, and a sense of ceremony, the audience's motivation to watch movies can be strengthened.
Music: Reluctance to conform to the crowd, algorithms and friends know my heart
The report analyzes the musical preferences of young users and finds that the concentration of users is much lower than that of watching movies. 47% (multiple choice - response rate) voted for "favorite singer (new song)" to make it number one, followed by "Daily Recommended Song List" with 41% and "Good Movie Song" with 38%.
Data from Tencent Music shows that young people spend significantly more time on music than those who are older. Moreover, in the three years from 2019 to 2021, their listening time still shows a trend of increasing year by year.
When faced with the role of music on themselves, 52% of Gen Z will listen to music because of the singers they like, and their preferences influenced by singers are far ahead of the first; they also like to listen to daily recommended song lists - algorithms will recommend according to the user's habitual preferences, and it is likely to find their favorite niche singers and music, while older people use this personalized recommendation less often.
Tencent Music pointed out that one of the characteristics of contemporary young people's listening to songs is to find resonance and complete self-expression from the works of young musicians with attitudes.
Read: The most discrete and self-contained journey
4.23 Just after World Book Day, it can be seen from industry and media reports that reading (including listening to audiobooks) has a certain particularity, which seems to be far away from people's lives, but once it goes deep into spiritual life, books are an infrastructure-like existence.
The report shows that electronic reading has become one of the mainstream reading methods for young people, with 36% of people choosing e-readers or other devices (excluding mobile phones) to read books, followed by social platforms reading 26%, and again paper books 20%.
Among them, Gen Z has somewhat unexpectedly shown a preference for paper books, which should stem from the influence of campus atmosphere, and the preference for e-books and reading on social platforms is also higher than other groups; only listening (audiobooks) is the part, and the 28-45-year-old population occupies an absolute advantage.
Comparing the above music data, it shows that Gen Z may have left their "ears" to music, while older people may have limited time or commute by car or car, so they prefer to read books in a listening way.
Himalaya found that young users have the dual characteristics of "love to learn" and "love entertainment", love entertainment is reflected in the search for "novels", "cross-talk" content accounted for up to 55%, higher than the elderly users about 20% (TGI); love learning is reflected in the search for "higher education", "foreign language learning" and "learning promotion" Accounted for a relatively high proportion.
The "Report" quoted its data shows that the preferred channels of young users aged 18-30 include radio dramas, suspense, emotional life, learning promotion, cross-talk, and audiobooks. From the perspective of TGI, young Himalayan users prefer campus, learning promotion, radio drama, foreign language growth, audiobooks, emotional life, entertainment, talk shows and other channels.
Reading interacts with the two ends
When Generation Z becomes the main force of readers, as the literary form closest to readers, Generation Z's behavior, value orientation and spiritual characteristics have also profoundly affected the content composition and value cultivation of online literature, presenting a different style, weather and spiritual realm than in the past.
Reading Group put forward an analysis in the "Report" that the Z generation's online aesthetic is more diverse, not only love to read urban, fairy tales, historical works, but also keen to pursue science fiction, reality, and light novels.
According to its data, science fiction readers account for 60% of post-95 readers, and generation Z of realistic theme readers account for more than 40%. Compared with 2020, the growth rate of the number of paying people in science fiction themes ranks first in the whole site.
Secondly, with the refinement, mainstreaming and the trend of theme shifting to become explicit, reading online literature is no longer just a pastime after tea and dinner, but gradually becomes the knowledge learning entrance of Generation Z.
According to the statistics of the reading APP of the starting point of the Reading Group, in 2021 alone, the keyword "knowledge" appeared 130,000 times in the book review area, "physics" appeared 70,000 times, "chemistry" appeared 16,000 times, and even "high number" appeared more than 5,000 times.
Finally, Generation Z grew up in rising China, and the national pride is more intense, which is manifested both in the creation of online literature and in the book review area of online literature. In addition to the aforementioned shift in the home-country narrative of online literature, readers of online literature have also shown more positive patriotic feelings and national pride.
Readers' preferences are also fed back to the creative level. In 2021, the rapid growth of the younger generation of online writers - the "post-95s" has become the largest and fastest growing group of online writers. According to the data of Reading Group, more than 80% of the new writers in 2021 are "post-95", nearly half of the "twelve kings" of online literature model writers in 2021 are "post-95", "post-95s" account for 30% of the new faces in the 2021 writers index TOP 1000, and a quarter of the newly promoted god writers in 2021 are "post-95s".
The influx of Generation Z has profoundly affected the creative orientation, spiritual outlook and value function of online literature. With its rich imagination, front-line interactive exchanges and the advantages of spring wind and rain, online literature not only creates the Chinese stories that young people love to read the most, but also plays a positive value guiding role of literary works, but also becomes an important part of continuously absorbing new readers and new works, and broadening the reading territory and content of the whole people.
Traditional culture has become a "grasp" to enrich the hearts of young people
In recent years, Sinology is gradually returning to its essence—thought and life. It turns out that in addition to the art of the world, our ancestors also have such brilliant words, colorful ideas, secular fireworks, and even interesting mythological stories.
Take "Night Sailing Ship" as an example, in fact, it can not be regarded as a strict "study", but a subset of the ancients in the travel of the mountains, in which astronomical geography, three religions and nine streams, grass, bamboo and stone, Chinese cuisine are all-encompassing, it will not bring fame, but you can see interesting souls from it. Other similar books, such as "Idle Love And Occasional Mail" and "West Lake Dream Search", have gradually entered the list of readers.
According to Tencent Music data, from July 2020 to June 2021, the total number of new songs in the national style category reached 29.01 billion times, an increase of 122.1% over the previous cycle, of which the preference of the post-00s (under 22 years old) for national style music reached 141.7 (TGI, the average is 100), typical works such as "Red Ling", which integrates the singing method of the opera.
At the same time, young people are also brave enough to try new styles. The number of "Guofeng × Rap" fusion new songs increased by 90% year-on-year; the number of "Guofeng × Electronic Music" fusion new songs increased by 200% year-on-year, and the representative works of the two types of songs are GAI Zhouyan's "Fire War Horse" and the Times Youth League's "Suzaku" and so on.
Maoyan pointed out that in 2021, the total annual box office and the total number of screens in the Chinese film market will continue to remain the first in the world, and the development and creation of domestic films, the strengthening of their own IP precipitation, and the ability to develop and produce excellent content have been significantly improved, and good content with excellent quality and positive values will continue to be exported, and the competitiveness and innovation ability will be continuously improved.