The rise of "uncle circle", some people's fame, coffee positions soared, and some people gained fame and fortune, why is this appeal so strong?
Text | Round bread
"Who is He" made Zhang Yi angry again. Following the role of An Xin in "Crazy", the Baidu index soared above 10,000, this new drama that has just been launched is starred by him as the male lead, from the final setting of the play to the popularity of breaking 10,000, Zhang Yi's name is frequently revealed on hot searches, and netizens who love him call it "Uncle Circle Ceiling".
The concept of uncle circle has been around for a long time, and in the years when idol talent shows rose, a group of 30+ age-old middle-aged male actors were also brought out by netizens to participate in "Uncle Circle 101", and the scattered fan appeal of "uncles" began to condense, slowly getting bigger and bigger, and people came and went. Now that the era of idol drafts has come to an end, the uncle circle has stood tall in the transformation of the internal entertainment structure, and even become more and more dazzling.
The bubble of the "traffic era" is fading, and the "uncle circle" has entered a larger stage, conveying new hope to the internal entertainment that is looking forward to the arrival of the new "Ziwei Star", which is a good symbol for the market, that is, the standard for the audience to view actors, abandoning "traffic first" in the precipitation of time and falling back to "business ability".
The acting era of middle-aged male actors has become more brilliant.
1
Acting actors, let the "uncle circle" continue to be popular
Zhang Yi performed well as a police officer for the second time in "Crazy" and "Who Is He", which brought a surprise to the audience, and other members of the "Uncle Circle" became popular on the Internet, basically relying on acting skills.
Another middle-aged actor who has recently become popular is Zhang Songwen, also from "Crazy", he plays the role of Gao Qiqiang in this drama, in which Brother Qiang has changed from a bottom-level fishmonger to the leader of a local gang-related organization, the evolution of white to black, the pursuit of money and power make this role complicated, Zhang Songwen's superb acting skills show the audience the character arc of this role. During the broadcast of the play and even for a period of time after the broadcast, Zhang Songwen's discussion on the Internet increased day by day, and he was praised by some netizens as the "top stream" of the uncle circle.
"Uncle circle top stream" or "uncle circle C position" for the public, in fact, there is never a standard answer, in the drama market in recent years, middle-aged actors take turns to sit in the "C position" of the topic with the help of acting skills.
For example, Yu Hewei and Zhang Luyi, the popularity of "The Three-Body Problem" has greatly increased the popularity of the two actors, and there is also a hot search entry #Yu Hewei Zhang Luyi Three-Body Rival Play#, focusing on how the two actors soared their acting skills in the play and presented the audience with a visual feast. A similar situation happened to Yu Hewei in 2021, when "Age of Awakening" was broadcast, the topic around his interpretation of Chen Duxiu's superb acting skills was once the "traffic password" of the Internet, and even his stills in the play were popular on major social platforms as memes.
For example, last year's "The World" ignited the drama market at the beginning of the year, and Lei Jiayin, as the male lead in this drama, his excellent acting skills were recognized by more young audiences and became the focus of the topic for a while. It is worth noting that Lei Jiayin also won the 31st Golden Eagle Award for Best Actor last year with the role of Zhou Bingkun, and this year's more professional and authoritative Shanghai Magnolia Award restarts, and he has become a popular contestant on the list of netizens' predictions.
The rise of "uncle circle", some people's fame, coffee positions soared, and some people gained fame and fortune, why is this appeal so strong? In the view of Reading Entertainment Jun, the audience's acting skills for actors are becoming increasingly strict, resulting in more and more powerful middle-aged actors being noticed by more people, and once a good script and role appear, it is not difficult to heat up this circle.
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The drama path is wider and more cautious
Fortunately, the market really provides middle-aged actors with more good scripts and roles, especially those who reach the top, and there is no shortage of good choices. The best times for them have come, and their living environment is wide but also bumpy.
The breadth is reflected in the increase in the proportion of dramas with themes such as suspense reasoning and criminal detective cases, and these dramas are more challenging due to the more diverse character settings, which is convenient for them to show their skills and cheerfully soar their acting skills. In addition, period dramas with serious themes, if they join, will also add an acting guarantee.
The earliest Pan Yueming became popular, and he played two roles in "White Night Chasing Murderers", which is famous for "China's first tough guy suspense reasoning drama". In the play, he challenged the positive and negative sides, burst out "acting explosion" moments many times, and instantly reversed the wind criticism after becoming popular in 2017, becoming a hot acting school for film and television works of the same genre, and since then the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series of adaptations have also had a green eye for it, and last year he also played the mysterious thief in a theft-themed suspense drama "The Gate of Rebirth" partnered by Zhang Yi and Wang Junkai.
Later, Qin Hao in "Hidden Corner", Duan Yihong in "Octagonal Pavilion Fog", Liao Fan in "The Silent Truth", Liu Yijun and Huang Jue in "The Beginning", and the recently launched "Echo" (the male protagonist is Wang Yang), are the configuration of suspense + middle-aged male actors, these types of dramas have almost become a large gathering place of "uncle circle", most of the male actors have acted in several films in a row, such as Chen Jianbin has "Trident" in front of him, and "Black Earth Speechless" and "Thirteen Years of Dust" to be broadcast.
Life, emotional dramas have also been easy to popular types of middle-aged actors, this kind of drama for middle-aged actors, the key is the right age, those things in life are always inseparable from the key participation of middle-aged characters, and the rich life experience of uncles makes them naturally in line with this type of drama.
Huang Lei, Zhang Jiayi and other "uncles" have played a large number of roles such as fathers and husbands, and have accumulated many works and roles out of the circle. The former has representatives of hot dramas such as "Little Parting", "Little Huanxi" and "Xiaomin's House", and the latter has also "Youth Pi" and "Loading Stage" that have triggered phenomenal discussions.
And male actors who are relatively unwilling to discuss the "mid-life crisis" also have idols and romance dramas to choose from. For example, Yan Chengxu played a couple in "Summer Flower" and Xu Ruohan, a post-90s little flower, and Zhong Hanliang played a tortuous sadomasochistic relationship with Li Xiaoran in "With You in This Life", and the list goes on.
The so-called ups and downs also stem from this, on the one hand, life and emotional dramas provide them with some face-painting roles of father and husband, and it is easy to appear a thousand people, Huang Lei and Zhang Jiayi have both encountered dilemma such as character homogeneity and insufficient novelty; On the other hand, the romance theme is rich in "middle-aged Mary Sue", and this kind of role is more picky about the choice of male actors, Zhong Hanliang, Huang Xiaoming, Yan Chengxu, Lin Feng and other "uncles" with strict appearance and body management are easier to control, and Chen Jianbin, Huang Bo, etc. are planted.
Therefore, the market has indeed widened the path tailored to the "uncle circle", but the competition they face has also become fierce, after all, high-quality scripts and roles are still limited, and the higher you stand, you may be in another danger, such as most actors repeatedly play the role of a policeman, and if they play improperly, they will fall into the trap.
3
Be in the uncle's circle and stay awake
Reading Entertainment Jun still remembers that when the concept of "uncle circle" first emerged on the Internet, netizens enthusiastically nominated 30+ and 40+ male actors for the hot scene of "boy group debut".
A few years have passed, and sure enough, the variety show "Through the Thorns" has made two seasons of the program, providing a singing and dancing stage for the artists of the middle generation, and also creating several derivative shows, giving full play to the topic of "30+ brothers" and gaining considerable popularity. However, this did not prevent the continued popularity of "Uncle Circle" in 2023, and this team is still growing as more middle-aged actors appear in film and television works.
The mature charm of male artists of the middle generation has more people paying, and the fan portraits of many actors have begun to show youth, and according to statistics, Zhang Yi's fan portraits are in the 80s and 90s, and there is a state of equal gender between men and women in terms of audience gender. Obviously, the rise of the Internet has opened up a bridge between them and young audiences.
And the dividends of the uncle circle are still inexhaustible in 2023, and they are also facing a new problem: the middle-aged actors nominated for the "uncle circle" will not only face the audience's trial of their acting skills, but also the joint encirclement of traffic and rice circles.
The most obvious example is the hot search on these middle-aged actors for "rice circle" marketing, recently netizens cut Zhang Yi in "Who is He" wearing a short leather jacket for Amway, #Zhang Yi's wrist line over the crotch # topic also rushed to the hot search, earlier during the Spring Festival movie fight, around Zhang Yi's hot search in "Manjiang Red", netizens also paid attention to the topic of #He Li's waist #.
The audience placed the rice circle culture on these middle-aged male actors, and the related manners also dug up tricks:
We began to see some news about middle-aged male actors picking up and responding, as well as the phenomenon of fans voting for them, and some marketing numbers used this to list the number of middle-aged male actors' super words and the gold content of awards, which often triggered verbal disputes among Xiaobo fans.
Behind the huge traffic, there are also some famous scenes of rapid "collapse" and "heading", and the "uncles" who used to act silently may be amplified by netizens digging out old "materials". For example, an interview with Zhang Yi was seen as evidence of bullying colleagues, and later there were clarifying voices on the Internet, but this news still stirred up a wave of storms on the Internet from time to time.
If the previous traffic era of small fresh meat covered up the light of middle-aged male actors, then the explosion of "Uncle Circle" made middle-aged actors stand at a new crossroads. Unlike the traffic era, the prevalence of Uncle Circle 101 has not yet triggered too deformed development, and the current attitude of actors and fans is relatively positive.
For example, when Zhang Songwen faced soaring fan enthusiasm, he also fashionably caught up with the "business" team, actively replying to netizens on social media, full of network sense, but gradually drifted away as soon as the "business period" passed; When "The Beginning" was a hit, Huang Jue attracted many netizens to interact with him with the image of the playful and people-friendly uncle on social media, and netizens affectionately called him "Juebao" in the comments, chatting with him and joking, and having fun, and no matter how much is limited to this, outside the meme of "Juebao", few fans control comments every day, brushing their presence on the Internet.
Some generation gaps between middle-aged actors and young netizens have cooled the excessive enthusiasm of fans to a certain extent, and the audience who choose to "pick" the uncle circle also knows that the increased love is just a meme, and after entertainment, they still want to see them shine in film and television works.