Recently, some netizens found that the Tianya community can no longer be opened. On April 1, Tianya Community issued an announcement that it will undergo technical upgrades and data reconstruction in the near future, during which the platform will not be accessible. Whether it is a technical upgrade or a permanent closure, the Tianya community has not yet responded, but this does not prevent netizens from starting to set off a "wave of mourning" on social platforms, after all, at this time a year ago, Xici Hutong was auctioned for a dollar, and finally became a history that can only be traced in memories.
Tianya Community and Xici Hutong were the most active cultural camps in the early days of the Chinese Internet. Scholars and authors such as Luo Xin and Wei Xidi who are now influential in various fields have initially become famous here. For the generation of young people at that time, the Internet was a communication window to a strange world, and the communication generated here followed the basic consensus.
Reporter | Chen Lu
Historian Luo Xin's real name has long become more famous than his cherished ID "Lao Leng". When it comes to the old coldness of the Tianya Forum, today's young people may feel strange, but for the early Internet surfers, it is thunderous.
Luo Xin, born in 1963, was one of the first people in China to have access to the Internet. In 1993, Luo Xin, who was still studying for a doctorate in the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties at Peking University, had the opportunity to acquire a computer because he served as the secretary of the Tang Research Foundation. This Macintosh is the predecessor of the current Apple Mac, but at that time China was not connected to the Internet, Luo Xin took this bulky Macintosh, only responsible for some text input and sorting work, did not feel its charm. By the time Chinese mainland first connected to the network, it was 1994.
But in fact, it was not until 1997, when China's Internet was included in the construction of national information infrastructure, that Luo Xin experienced the revolutionary significance of computers and the Internet.
Historian Luo Xin in Bolivia, 2017
Luo Xin recalled that at that time, he did not know what Internet access was, but he heard that he could go to the Beijing Telegraph Bureau to apply for an email account to send and receive E-mail. So, Luo Xin and Wang Xin, a teacher at the law department of Peking University, met and went to the Beijing Telegraph Building near Fuxing Gate. The line was long, and he couldn't remember exactly how long the queue was, "at least 40 minutes anyway." It was still an exciting day in his memory, and at the end of the long line, they all got their wishes for a mailbox prefixed with their names and the suffix "@public.bta.net.cn".
The people waiting in this line were a small number of people who Luo Xin described as "the first to gain popularity". In all of Beijing, only telegraph buildings could handle this business, and the Internet was too new to most people who at the time could not even figure out what the difference was between e-mail and letter writing. "With an email, I can send and receive E-mail, which greatly facilitates my contact with China and abroad, which is already an amazing change. At first, I didn't know that I could still browse the Internet, but then I found that I could also visit English websites, and I could watch a lot of foreign news, of course, it was also very shocking, but I didn't know that there were Chinese websites, and I didn't know that there were Chinese websites until 1999. Luo Xin said with emotion. In fact, by the end of 1998, China had only 747,000 computers and 2.1 million Internet users.
Stills from "Riding the Wind and Waves"
At this time, Wei Xidi, a film critic living in Nanjing, was also swept by this wave. In 1997, when he first had access to the Internet, Wei Xidi was still a designer engaged in civil engineering, because he came from a family of engineers, and because of the need to draw, his family already had a computer, but he could not access the Internet. One of his middle school classmates, whose father was the head of the telecommunications bureau, once happened to show him how to dial up the Internet at home. Despite the slow internet speed and the fact that I can't remember whether my friend logged into a humble BBS or a chat room, for Wei Xidi, the world changed drastically that night. He felt a completely strange world open up to him.
"The first people to go online in 1997 were almost all 'post-70s', for example, I was born in the '70s', and our entire youth was clearly divided into two stages, that is, with the Internet and without the Internet." For Wei Xidi, who loves movies but is trapped in the pile of drawings, the online world behind the modem has opened a window to his life, and he has been freed from the society of acquaintances and found many like-minded partners on the Internet.
Become a "moderator"
Wei Xidi had the impression that the convenient and rich Xici Hutong soon became his main position, and he did not consider other forums in the past. At this time, the forum was very simple, only divided into basic sections such as current affairs, entertainment, and literature, and movies and music, entertainment, fashion and other topics were all mixed in one section, often drowning each other. But he was still hungry, riding home from work every day, immediately turned on the computer, posted, left messages, replied, and posted words that he could only bury his head in his diary in the past to communicate with people on the forum.
Film critic Wei Xidi, 2010
Luo Xin soon had the opportunity to contact the Tianya community. In the summer of 1999, during an expedition, Luo Xin broke his shoulder blade and returned to his hometown in Suizhou City, Hubei Province to recover from his injuries. In October, his friend Chen Shuang, who came to visit him, told him that if he was bored, he would go to Tianya to chat online. Luo Xin didn't know what he meant, and Chen Shuang immediately helped him enter the URL. "I just learned there was such a place, it was fun." Luo Xin told this magazine about the degree of surprise at that time.
Although Chinese Internet giants such as Netease, Tencent, and Alibaba have emerged one after another at this time, it is this small forum that completely captures Luo Xin's heart. Tianya BBS, founded in March 1999, has only been open for more than half a year, Luo Xin has the impression that there are about 1,000 registered users, except for the peak period at night, less than 100 users often log in, and during the peak period, "two or three hundred people are incredible, and the normal situation is 100 people".
Subject to the development of the Internet at that time, Luo Xin did not have access to too many Chinese websites at this time, only went to Tianya BBS, and did not see much elsewhere. Luo Xin doesn't like to watch the news on the Internet, but he finds that Tianya can publish what he wrote at any time, and he can keep it at any time, "from the perspective of publishing, it is a revolution, so I feel very shocked." At first, what attracted him the most was not the various posts on the forum page - those were mostly small love notes, similar to Mandarin Duck Butterfly Pie articles, Luo Xin could not look at it - but he was full of enthusiasm for going to chat with all kinds of people in the chat room, "You don't know who the other person is, each of them talks without a match, I think this is still very new, quite attractive, it is an experience that has never been experienced in life."
Around 2000, with the rise of Internet cafes, the group of netizens gradually expanded and became younger (Photo courtesy of Visual China)
For a young scholar like Luo Xin, the people he can contact in daily life are very single, either students, peers and colleagues. Suddenly, the Internet brought him a new opportunity, and the chat room was full of people from areas he was not familiar with, "all kinds of people, but may be somewhat related to telecommunications, the Internet, most of them are social people, and they are those who are young, technical, have received a certain education, and are relatively high-level people." This is the biggest difference between the development of the Internet in China and the United States, that is, the Internet is not developed from universities, but from business; In the United States, its network grew out of universities." The things these people talked about, in Luo Xin's opinion, were strange and fresh, and their insights were also very interesting, so for about two or three months, he rushed into the chat room, chatting with different people every day, and the topics ranged from social reality to political economy. Over time, he had several regular chat partners, one of which is still in constant contact.
The Internet has changed the trajectory of the lives of two young people.
Stills from "Riding the Wind and Waves"
In addition to chatting with netizens, Luo Xin used his literary and historical skills to start writing something on the forum, and met more friends through reply post interaction. When he was recovering from his injuries and preparing to return to Beijing from his hometown, Luo Xin suddenly realized that he was about to lose this state of idleness, and he would not be able to chat like this in the future. It happened that at this time, the administrator of the Tianya community found Luo Xin, hoping that he could create a page, and the theme did not matter, as long as he was willing.
"I thought at the time, if I have any criticism of Tianya, it is that [it] is too bourgeois, too windy. So I put forward an idea, if we can discuss a little academic, talk about ideological issues beyond academia, not a specific professional academic, but out of the care of these academics, more consideration is the country or the world, the world. I said that if I could do such a page, I would be willing to do it. They were very supportive and said you come. This is the famous "Guantian Tea House" on the end of the world.
For Wei Xidi, the creation of "watching movies through the rear window" is a natural technological innovation. In the winter of 1998, when Xici Hutong was redesigned to allow individuals to apply for the establishment of a section, he decided to create a new dedicated film section. This section uses the name of Hitchcock's film "Rear Window" and is called "Watching Movies from the Rear Window".
At that time, VCD and DVD players entered the family successively, and many movie lovers would make some comments and impressions after watching the movie, and the demand for movie information increased, but film knowledge was still limited to the film academy. In Wei Xidi's impression, there was no other place in the market to teach film history, and there were no books on film on the market. But with the entry of pirated discs and the gradual popularization of films, especially with the entry of the art film trend, film lovers like him have a greater thirst for discussion.
Active and serious communication
In November 1999, the "Guantian Tea House" section was officially established, with "Lao Leng" or Luo Xin as the moderator. "Guan Tian" comes from Chen Yinke's poem "What My Brother Learns Guan Tianyi", which means "everything we learn is related to the will of God". Summoned by an idealistic enthusiasm, Luo Xin wrote a publication like a traditional magazine, clearly stating that he hoped that everyone would come out of their own professional field and discuss serious and important topics that are beyond their own profession but are of common concern to everyone.
At first, the page was a bit silent. According to Luo Xin's words, if you look at the two indicators of the update rate and the reply rate of the post, it is very embarrassing, often writing a post for a long time without replying, and even getting up in the middle of the night to see if anyone has followed. In order to activate the page, in addition to mobilizing friends online, Luo Xin also pulled many friends online. "One of my main characteristics is to develop friends into netizens." Luo Xin said with a smile that most of these friends are his mentors and friends at Peking University, or academic young people who are closer to their majors.
In addition, in order to study how to attract more people's attention, he also carefully studied writing skills. Although his undergraduate science was literature, he left all this set of literary writing skills behind when he began to study history. But at this time, Tianya awakened the nerve that he had been sleeping in, and Luo Xin began to ponder how to write readably, not to be daunting, and with greater ductility, so that people could speak. The topics he initiated are no longer limited to literature and history, and the books he has recently read and the topics that are currently hotly discussed have become the themes he writes. Often, in order to make the section look lively, he also posts under another trumpet.
Wei Xidi also recalled that the atmosphere of the "rear window" in the early days was not active, and for about two or three years, in order to maintain the flow of the page, he was like an editor every day, editing and publishing the information he collected to the board. It started with about two or three hundred users, but by 2000 it had grown exponentially, sometimes with thousands of people online at the same time. And the people who came here also silently followed his original rules, and were writing some more serious things, such as information, and afterthoughts, "I was still relatively clear at that time, I wanted to post only more serious things here, which is probably the only so-called rule in the section, that is, don't chat here." Later, people from the film school also came here, and the atmosphere became more serious, there were professional discussions and fierce arguments."
One of the most typical controversies was a 2002 discussion over the evaluation of Wang Chao's "Anyang Baby" by film critic Liar in an interview. Around this interview, netizens quickly divided into two camps, partial academic and partial folk, shifting from views on a movie to a serious thematic discussion of the nature of film. As the topic became more acute, some people reported their real names to show that they were responsible for their words, while others felt that this broke the rules of the game in cyberspace and were unhappy. In any case, this online debate has beneficially led to the practice of independent film. Some critics even believe that in a sense it established the orientation of independent films since then.
In fact, the year 2000 coincided with a period of explosive growth in Chinese Internet users. A large number of people at home and abroad have suddenly poured into the Chinese Internet world, and the registered users on the "Guantian Tea House" have reached about 100,000, and the number of users who have been online for a long time can reach tens of thousands.
Luo Xin believes that the "Guantian Tea House" really became lively and began to become famous, not because he did something special during his time as a moderator or led any topical discussions, "but maybe some important people joined". At the beginning of 2000, these people came to the "Guantian Tea House" at the same time, such as writers Wang Yi, Yi Daqi, media person Wei Yingjie and so on. The activity of these well-known writers and scholars has brought a completely different look to the "Guantian Tea House". Although Luo Xin's original vision was only to open up a community of acquaintances who "discussed scholarship", the issues debated here began to become more and more acute.
Yi Daqi left a deep impression on Luo Xin. "He wrote a lot of really good articles, and it was tens of thousands of words at every turn. After such a person appears, the readability is extremely high. In addition, the topics they provoked caused some hilarious reactions at the time. This kind of topic is easy to bring up, but it is more difficult to discuss in depth. But they all had some in-depth discussions, because the posts they initiated had already been talked about quite deeply, and other people's posts were also more in-depth, and some of the replies were even longer than the original posts, which was quite scary, and I still felt that these people really had time. So the addition of such a high-level crowd makes the entire page extremely active, making the rest of the world seem to be dwarfed, and there is no need for me to create any more topics. In fact, the 'Guantian Tea House' has become the most active place for the exchange of ideas in China at that time. ”
"Tearing is a new phenomenon, but it's always been there"
However, such a bustle gradually made Luo Xin and Wei Xidi feel uncomfortable. After the background and age structure of these active users became complicated, the topic of contention began to deviate from their respective expectations, coupled with the surge in posting, the main administrative tasks of the version became increasingly heavy. Luo Xin, who had resumed teaching at Peking University, finally resigned from his job as moderator of "Guantian Tea House" in February 2001 and was succeeded by Wang Yi.
Wei Xidi also resigned as a moderator of "Watching Movies in the Rear Window" in 2002. In Wei Xidi's view, the network environment at this time was completely different from the beginning. At first, the more expensive Internet fees and prices caused netizens to show a tendency to be a group of young knowledge, but around 2000, with the rise of Internet cafes, the group of netizens gradually expanded and became younger, and the first batch of netizens who "got the first to win the trend" gradually withdrew. At this time, print media entered a booming golden decade, and many of the first online writers like Wei Xidi gradually became columnists for print media, or turned to blog writing after the forum.
A still from "Chinese Partner"
"These ways are just different spaces for writing, but the nature is actually the same. Writing is for communication and sharing, it is a gathering of like-minded people, it doesn't matter who you express it to, but say what I think. Wei Xidi felt, "If the forum is the earliest Web 1.0 system, then after Web 2.0, clear interactivity requires you to have a clear writing object, an interactive feeling, and a competition for traffic." ”
But Luo Xin did not give up his dream, he planned to open up a new pure place. "One of the reasons I quit was that the way they got involved wasn't quite in line with my original starting point. My idea is that the participants should certainly have some ideological pursuits, but it should be based on majors, discussing problems from a certain discipline, rather than discussing China's political issues from the beginning, firstly, I am not good at doing this, and secondly, I personally do not want to do this. But no one can control the situation in this direction, as more people begin to realize that the Internet is a place where public affairs can be talked and discussed. ”
Luo Xin's idea was supported by his friends Chen Shuang and Pig Laoer, and the later reciprocating forum was born. Because the participants in the forum are mainly majors in literature and history, especially teachers and students from the history department of Peking University, it has a strong historical color. Of course, this was a surprise to me, because I wanted not to be too professional, but then it did develop too professionally and became an important website in the field of Chinese literature and history. The direction of the Internet is really not something you can design in advance. But in Luo Xin's opinion, this is an afterword.
Illustration by Jessie Lin
"Old Leng" became Luo Xin's past youth symbol. Now, as a historian, Luo Xin looks back at the past with this magazine, and he feels that compared with today's increasingly torn Internet world, there were not many different views on the Internet at that time, but there was generally consensus on many issues, "This is actually the case all over the world." That's why people feel so nervous and uneasy now. It may seem like tearing is a new phenomenon, but it's always been there."
Luo Xin explained: "In the past, many people did not have the conditions to express their ideas, so when several people with loud voices expressed ideas, regardless of whether the idea was reasonable or not, people would show understanding, support, and nods, in short, there were very few voices. Then people who disagree are not easy and accustomed to expressing their views directly. Why are husband and wife, brothers, friends, father and son suddenly torn? In fact, it is not tearing, but in the past he did not say, no one noticed that the family has such different views from each other, and when people pay attention, it is often the war and other major events that happen. But in the past decade or so, especially with the development of smartphones, everyone has been able to speak their minds, and it has gradually become a habit, making this phenomenon manifest itself in a new way. ”
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