Text/Wang Xinyi
"Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" did not ignite the hot search effect until the night of confession.
Compared with the previous season's "naked broadcast to the end" but the topic and broadcast volume soared, this season's "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" was directly dubbed "Heartbeat Signal 6" by netizens, and some netizens were just knocking on a specific pair of CP sugar, and adult men and women who were not "bold" enough were extra careful in their relationship in this season.
To some extent, "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" is very decent, and it seems that it can also truly reflect the love portrayal of 30+ mature people, that is, what is "blind date", because this love puzzle is also completely free of "mystery", three one-to-one two-way lines are established early, more is the pull of the suitability between the two, and the belated male 4 female 5, although trying to break the game, was also shouted by netizens more than "original match", but the guests still "cautious words and deeds", the program group continued to Buddhism.
Without the brave pursuit, heartbeat and a little bit of horse tricks, "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" is actually more like the love choice of most middle-aged people - to talk about decency.
And now, the word "decent" is completely detonating the "mid-life crisis" of romance.
To be an Internet celebrity, you can only be "decent"
There is no doubt that model solidification is a topic that cannot escape from the romance of five years of development.
Roughly comparing the online romance complexes, there are probably no escaping two modes, one is an amateur + star observation group, and the other is a social model without observation room settings and pure guest love.
In both models, guests are mostly placed "under the same roof" or engage in social activities such as travel, to "observe" parts or individuals in groups.
This also leads to the fact that most of the romance is easy to fall into the same pattern, the star guests in the observation room take the lead in snorting sugar, speculate on the emotional direction of the guests, propose relevant issues according to the interactive content and give views or answers, guests contact each other under the same roof, produce different emotional directions, and so on, which can be seen in different programs.
"Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" observation group
The model is similar, and it requires the show to work the settings, elements and people.
It is precisely because of this that the romance is also moving in a more subdivided direction, those who have never met, get together, friendship above, lovers are not full, after a breakup, re-love, mother-fetus solo, 30+ mature ... The romance is divided into groups and builds a show.
However, the above theme subdivision can only arouse the interest of the market and the audience in the early stage, and the final program mode returns to the above-mentioned "star observation room + amateur collective life", so that netizens can continue to chase, it must be because of the "love drama" between amateur guests, whether there is personal charm, whether there is a suitable sense of CP, and the embodiment of bravery, maturity, meticulousness and other characteristics when dealing with emotional problems.
The selection of people and the performance of people have become the most critical place for the success of the romance.
However, when the guests of the romance complex successively took a special fancy to the word "face" in this love "game", the decisive factor for the success of the romance complex was generally boring.
The tipping point for this development is "Heartbeat Signal 4".
"Heartbeat Signal 4" Ma Zijia and Kong Ruchun
"The more noisy the fiercer" is the theme of this season, when Ma Zijia began to swing between Hong Chengcheng and Kong Ruchun, the change of this emotional line and some details in the show presented, so that the fans of "Macabaka" CP and "Happy Planet" CP respectively had contradictions, and even a large number of personal attacks, and there were a lot of negative comments under the Weibo of male and female guests, and finally controversies about the inattentiveness of male guests, the "improper conduct" of female guests, etc., It also further curbs their follow-up on social media.
In "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2", when the previously fixed Yuan'er and Tianchao began to contact other male and female guests, some netizens who were not very kind also commented, and their immaturity in handling the relationship spread into a hot discussion, so that many netizens affirmed that they were not suitable between them.
Since "Heartbeat Signal 4" triggered the love circle effect, one-on-one locking, brotherly harmony, mutual assistance and other "peace and love" expressions, have become the central sentence of the romance, male and female guests adhere to the "original intention" of the choice is more firm, even if some guests have swayed, but finally through communication apology again return to the "original match", "Heartbeat Signal 5" is the perfect end in the form of "becoming four pairs" reflected in the show.
Subsequently, holding hands online and breaking up offline is becoming the customary ending for romantic guests.
"Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" stills
The "transaction volume" of the romance is higher, and behind this is also the high-frequency portrayal of the word "single-minded" by male and female guests, who are evading the evaluation of netizens who may bring about no choice and inner hesitation.
The proportion of Internet celebrities themselves and becoming Internet celebrities after the show occupies the majority of the romantic guests, and after the lessons of the past, the guests began to be cautious in their words and deeds, and directly went to bind CP to attract fans.
After all, few male and female guests can become like Wang Nengneng Lola, "big brother and sister-in-law", on the one hand, bravely follow the heart, on the other hand, can maturely deal with other emotional relationships, just like a male guest in "Like You and Me Also 2" often interacts with a female guest at high frequency, but suddenly said that he likes another female guest, which makes the whole network stunned, causing a wave of dissatisfaction, so many "front cars" in the situation, playing the safety card has become the most popular choice for romantic guests.
Celebrity drive and the "catfish effect"
The romance still has a certain degree of "dream-making" color, so the choice of amateur guests will be more distinctive, but just like the feelings that are amplified and accelerated by falling in love through a variety show, amateur guests will also be placed in front of the audience or amplified.
Therefore, the "collapse" of guests is not difficult to see in the past few years, which will also reduce the audience's trust in the program.
The discussion triggered by the guests' every move in the show is also concentrated, especially when the show shows good "star-making" ability and the audience's comments on some of these guests, which will also affect the subsequent guests' display of "true self".
Just as important as the selection of amateur guests is the choice of the observation group.
A common configuration is to act as a host control guest plus several star guests, plus one or two guests with professional backgrounds. One problem is the homogenization of the Mission's candidates. For example, Shen Yifei is the Xiangluo of the emotional variety show observation group, and such as Wu Xin, Qiao Xin, Xu Yiyang, etc. also appeared in the observation group of more than two programs.
Shen Yifei has served as an observer in several emotional variety shows
Another problem is that for today's romances, the role of celebrities in driving topics far exceeds that of amateur guests.
Of course, for the romance complex, the star does play a role in draining and creating topics in the early stage of the show, and with the broadcast of the show, amateur guests should also be the content noticed by the audience, but the current situation is often that the speech of the star observation group is often the main topic of the program and the source of discussion, especially in the selection of the observation group, there are star artists who have recently attracted the attention of netizens, when the amateurs in the complex are not distinctive because of the "decency" problem, Therefore, when it is not possible to create a high CP attention popularity, this group of stars with their own topics, their role in rushing to search KPIs is more significant, and from beginning to end.
The recently broadcast "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" and "Like You and Me Also 4" two variety shows are typical representatives, #Chen Yanxi said that Chen Xiao was very romantic before marriage## Chen Yanxi said I love you to Chen Xiao almost every day## Wang Ziwen said that he can't accept his partner looking at his mobile phone## Wang Ziwen said that a decent farewell is very important## Qin Lan said that there should be some small works in the relationship##Xu Yiyang said that he would not give up his career for love#, and other topics have good performances.
"Like You and Me Too 4" stills
Of course, in order to enhance the watchability, the ensemble has also made a variety of efforts, such as adding new guests in a timely manner to form a "catfish effect" to increase the complexity of the emotional direction and the watchability of the "Shura field".
But when exactly should Catfish join?
The appearance of the general female 4 male 4 is close to half of the three or four episodes of the program, and there is not much description of "late appearance" before, after all, when the guests did not go to "decent", just like the appearance of the female 4 Kong Ruchun in the past can stir up big waves, and in "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2", in the case of one-on-one locking, "Catfish" failed to break the game because it appeared too late.
It is precisely because of this that in "Like You and Me Also 4", when the one-on-one locking state of several pairs of guests first appeared, the program team quickly let the female 4 male 4 appear directly in the second issue, and the subsequent "disorder" also became the eye-catching part of the trailer, and more ruthlessly, the female 4 male 4 appeared in only one day and "disappeared", and the male 5 male 6 followed suit.
The romance program group also realized the "decency" that the guests were looking for, but how to break this game, is it really the sooner the "catfish" swim out and the more numerous, the better? The answer is not yes.
After all, no matter how hard you work under the "catfish", "artificial saccharin" and "boredom" still often appear in the comments about many romances.
Find increments, find people
Since the broadcast of "Heartbeat Signal" in 2018, after five years, many romances have returned more inclined to the prefixed "signal", and the "ceiling" is still those shows and those pairs of CPs.
Even so, romance is still a variety show track that is the focus of various platforms.
Old IPs continue to return, and new syntheses continue to emerge, but the overall performance of romance may not be so bright.
According to the Douban scores launched in Q1 of 2022 to 2023, in addition to "Spring Late Departure" and "Brilliant Forward" scored 8 points and 7.8 points, most of the scores that can be scored are between 6-7 points, and from the number of ratings, in addition to "Spring Day Late Departure" and "Heartbeat Signal 5" have more than 9,000 and 8,500 comments respectively, the number of other programs is only 4,000+.
According to Yunhe data, in 2022, the average score of Douban of the new variety show will rise to 7 points, and variety shows with more than 8 points will account for 27%. In the case of the overall market rising, many romantic scores or the number of scorers, there is always one party that is not satisfactory.
Even if many of today's new romance complexes are difficult to shake the position of the old romance complexes, and many of the returns of the N generation of comprehensive complexes have also shown a trend of declining reputation or attention, it is certain that the romance complexes still have a stable audience base and burst out new vitality in the "mid-life crisis".
There is a joke called "the essence of human beings is to snort CP". Whether it is in various CP brawls in film and television dramas, or in various variety shows, it shows that the audience's demand for CP, and emotional issues are more permanent topics, so it contains a variety of CP, emotional lines, and discusses and triggers the romance of various issues, naturally has needs and can meet the needs of some users.
Because of this, the love complex still has a good vitality and grows new branches.
First of all, the extension of the subdivision direction is still the source of the birth of the new love complex.
For example, the new love variety "Good Friendship and Love" that pays attention to "whether there is pure friendship between boyfriends and girlfriends" has reaped a good topic degree with the third place in the variety show hit list on Tencent Video Station, and the pre-topic of bringing good friends to the love show, coupled with the choice of guests who break the "decent", there is an eye-catching hot search such as #Domestic New Love Game Scale#, the brave action of "dragging sister" Du Ziyi, and the division of friendship or love between friends are the key points of netizens.
"So Friendly and Love" stills
Even when middle-aged and elderly love blind date programs are in full swing on local satellite TV and short video platforms, Zhejiang Satellite TV has also launched a show "When We Meet You", featuring children accompanying single middle-aged and elderly parents to find love, this program has been officially recorded, and appeared in the just-concluded 2023 Zhejiang Satellite TV Spring Blockbuster Communication Conference, and the title merchant has long been determined.
On the other hand, "Love Complex+" is also releasing heat value in the past, whether it is "Witty Love" of "Love + Script Killing", or the interactive "Love + Script" of the drama with celebrity admission or amateur immersive experience, and let the Love Variety not only socialize in love, but also seek increment and innovation towards "Love +".
Secondly, the layout of after-sales programs is also further grasping the attention of users in the circle.
For example, "The Distance Between Love and Marriage" launched by Mango TV is the after-sales customized program of "Wife's Romantic Trip", and the Da Manglight variety show "Lover in Love" is the fantastic linkage between "Goodbye Lover" and "Daughters' Love 4"; Tencent Video has the spin-off program "After Half-Cooked Lovers", which records the sweet daily life after the programs of Lola, Wang Nengneng and Luo Ying and Huang Ruien, and there is also the reality show "Her Heartbeat Weekend" that gathers female guests from the first four seasons of "Heartbeat Signal"...
Stills from "The Distance Between Love and Marriage"
Lianquan is enriching IP content, broadening IP chains, and experimenting and laying out different content volumes.
But no matter how the branches grow, the foundation of the relationship after changing the topic and mode should still be "people", how to choose people, and the selection of those who are willing to be "decent" will still be a dark cloud hovering over the casting director.
In this love drama that is jokingly called "battle royale", the audience is still more willing to see the love "warrior" with distinct personalities supported by brave, mature and other excellent characteristics, this scene is good enough, if one day, netizens say "there are no living people in the love complex" like ridiculing "there are no living people in internal entertainment", then the love complex is really in its twilight years.
While the love complex is only showing signs of a "mid-life crisis", the director team should psychologically counsel it.