When I heard that this season of "Longing for Life" was the last season, there may be many viewers in front of the screen who showed a bewildered expression like Zhang Yixing and Zhang Zifeng in the show.
He Jiong said in the show that variety shows have no results. In the past, there were too many shows that stopped before they had time to say goodbye, all the guests laughed and shouted "goodbye" to the camera, but the start of the next season was far away, and few variety shows could make the audience face this farewell.
Therefore, when "Longing for Life Season 8" put down the curtain in the first issue, there was still something special: the show flashed back with past clips at the beginning, He Jiong and Huang Lei, the first pair, arrived at the empty mushroom house, the two repaired the roof, cooked, and installed simple partitions for the house, like two empty nesters at home, they couldn't help but want to meet the juniors who were busy at the moment, and got up at five thirty the next morning, loaded up with large bags of snacks, drove for 8 hours, and went to Zhang Yixing, who was filming. Zhang Zifeng met and gave Peng Yuchang a video.
For many loyal audiences, slow variety shows such as "Longing for Life" provide a dream of "poetry and wine pastoral", and the tonality of slow variety shows allows it to abandon the tense, exciting, undercurrent variety show atmosphere and rhythm, allowing the audience to briefly leave the fast-paced city of traffic when watching the variety show dinner, enter the peach blossom source deep in the countryside, and seek short-term peace of mind.
Whether it is the last season or not, this variety show has released a signal of parting. The hot search of "Longing for Life" may also be a reminder that the traditional slow variety show era of finding beautiful scenery and living slowly is also moving towards its end; At the same time, the end of the dream is also a confirmation of reality - it is a glimpse of the gradual changes in the relationship between the audience and variety shows and stars in the past 7 years.
The era of "slow life variety show"
At a TV station's investment promotion meeting in 2015, Wang Zhengyu brought a new project to the stage, finished the content in just a few sentences, and then directly shelved the project because the investment was cold.
This kind of cold is well understood in the environment at that time: around 2015, the ratings of "The Singer" were stable, outdoor game reality shows such as "Run Brother" were sweeping the country, and at the same time, the domestic entertainment traffic star effect was in the limelight, the fixed lineup of "Longing for Life" did not have traffic stars, and the program model did not have the slightest competitiveness, just simply eating, working, and living in the countryside.
All this was new to the internal entertainment at that time, and brand customers would always give priority to the program mode that had been verified when doing variety shows. This kind of slow variety show without dramatic conflict was obviously not the mainstream of the market at that time.
But Wang Zhengyu did not give up - the team decided to start the film directly without sponsorship, and relying on his connections with the two MCs, it brought in a lot of big coffee, and finally successfully contacted Hunan Satellite TV, which was broadcast in January 2017.
At that time, the biggest topic around "Longing for Life" was the controversy of "whether to copy Han Zhen's "Three Hours, Three Meals". Wang Zhengyu responded specifically to this in an interview with Sina Entertainment: I only watched the first episode of the first season of "Three Hours, Three Meals", and I was afraid of falling into their screenwriting ideas.
But netizens at that time obviously did not buy it, in the first season was the majority of the audience "white moonlight", the Douban score was only 7.5 points, and most of the front row of the drama review area was denouncing its similarity with "Three Hours, Three Meals".
However, despite the controversy, "Longing for Life" finally used a new model, at least in China, to obtain stable ratings and gain the satisfaction of advertisers.
This has given many domestic production companies and platforms confidence, so the variety show theme of letting stars go to scenic places to run inns and restaurants to experience life has risen, and similar programs such as "Chinese Restaurant" and "Dear Inn" have appeared, and 2017 is also regarded as the "first year of slow variety shows" in China.
Chinese audiences have yearned for rural pastoral life since ancient times, going to the countryside to get rid of the chaos of the city, experience natural scenery, and seek spiritual tranquility, is the spiritual therapy of audiences in first- and second-tier cities, and the theme of slow variety shows such as "Longing for Life" has stepped on the password - it not only shows the beauty of the countryside, but also has the freedom and comfort between old friends, the whole atmosphere is not competitive, the pace is slow, like a wisp of smoke rising from a mushroom house.
The outdoor reality shows and competitive music ensembles that were prevalent at that time all had a certain degree of confrontation, and there were competitions that won and lost, and there were all kinds of shady scenes and script rumors when there were wins and losses.
The public likes to watch stars compete for victory or loss on the screen, showing their true faces, not like to watch the "real people" who win or lose and edit well, and the endless editing gangs and catch-and-shoot scripts say that the audience's patience with reality show variety shows has consumed the audience's patience with reality show variety shows.
And the slow variety show that operates the theme of life, because there is no competitive nature, at least there is no script. The glamorous stars live in the mushroom house, and the next morning they wake up with plain faces with swollen eyes, and it is difficult to take care of the image when working in the field, sweat sticks to the well-styled hair, Peng Yuchang eats and successfully fattens out a double chin, causing the whole network to blame Huang Lei's rice for being too fragrant - compared to some idol dramas where actors fall asleep with heavy makeup, slow variety shows are much more real.
At the same time, the establishment of the slow life flow variety show is also a further application of variety show to the relationship between acquaintances.
The family sense and feelings of the slow flow of life variety show must ultimately be based on the relationship between guests, whether it is the initial group of old friends for many years, or the real "family" in the later stage, it is an example of the effectiveness of the "acquaintance bureau" in variety shows.
In response to the controversy over the program's similarity to "Three Hours, Three Meals", Wang Zhengyu once mentioned: ""Three Hours, Three Meals" expresses more about the relationship between people and food, and our essence still hopes to tell more about the relationship between people in Chinese society. ”
In a certain sense, this also became the core of the slow flow of domestic life variety shows.
Slow variety show, evolution is a little slow
Although 2017 is the first year of domestic slow variety shows, the development after this "first year" is actually not as beautiful as imagined.
In the slow flow of life at that time, "Dear Inn" came to an abrupt end in the third season, and the latest two seasons of "Chinese Restaurant" Douban scores have slipped below 5 points, even "Please Refrigerator", which was also a gathering of friends and sharing food in the same period, also plummeted in word of mouth in the seventh season, which came to an end.
In the later life flow variety shows, it seems that the themes are further subdivided, "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock" focuses on socializing, "Let's Camp Together" focuses on "camping", and the background of "Mao Xuewang" is directly moved to the small living room in the city. The group of old friends gathering programs with beautiful scenery and work back then, only "Longing for Life" is trying to support.
Programs with a strong competitive nature may increase the freshness by changing the format and changing guests, but the sense of atmosphere and slow pace of slow variety shows require less rules and enough familiar guests to support, and for a long time, it is naturally easy to fall into the trap of routine.
There are also many shows that try to make changes, add conflicting topics or change rules, such as Huang Xiaoming, who rushed to the hot search because of his domineering in "Chinese Restaurant 3", and "Dear Inn 3" suddenly added KPIs and asked everyone to roll up the "workplace rules".
As a result, most of the audience is not adapted to the sudden change in rhythm, even if it gains a moment of popularity with hot search topics, it is difficult to support an entire season, and extremely damage the reputation of the show - the Douban score of the first two seasons of "Chinese Restaurant" was still above 6 points, and the third season directly slipped to 4.8 points. Also experiencing this was "Please Fridge," which in its seventh season aspired to take a turn through showroom innovation, only to be rated 3.3 by angry viewers.
"Longing for Life" has maintained its original rhythm without major changes. But the other side of the change is fatigue, the audience has summed up a set of rules of the show: new guests visit, everyone goes out to work to find ingredients, watch Huang Lei cook, and finally dinner table drinks, late night talk - the same model is broadcast for seven seasons, even viewers who are not familiar with variety show routines can guess what content each episode will have.
Internal entertainment lacks full-time variety show cafes, and most of these slow variety shows need to rely on the familiarity between old friends for many years, or the family feelings slowly cultivated in variety shows.
But after the show is formed year after year and the IP is formed, the flying guests in the program come and go, and it is easy to make it into a simple "announcement program".
Through the guest lineup, the audience can guess whether this issue gathered at the dinner table is selling a wave of feelings or holding a "whitewashing conference". Some netizens ridiculed that "Longing for Life" is the outdoor version of "Happy Base Camp".
On the other hand, the "real" side embodied in reality shows, for artists, the accumulation of reality shows over the years can easily lead to a fixed public image. Huang Lei, another main coffee of "Longing for Life", mentioned this concern in the first issue of this season.
In fact, in terms of quantity, Huang Lei has not participated in many variety shows, but just because of "Longing for Life", the audience has easily solidified his image. Actors need to avoid the influence of variety show images, not to mention that many guests are still acting, and the three juniors of this show are on the set, and they can already see their career planning focus, and they have all thoughtfully concluded this topic.
Whether it is the evolution of the show itself or the benefits of the guests participating in it, represented by "Longing for Life", the evolution of slow variety shows is still a bit slow.
It is better to "forget about the rivers and lakes"
The content form of the program, the people involved in the program, these are still internal factors; In addition to the content, the change in attitudes on both sides of the B side and the C side is also an "external factor" for the program's active choice to come to an end.
"Longing for Life" used to be synonymous with variety shows "attracting money", because of the smooth temperament of the program, the strong breath of life, and many opportunities to expose, etc., "Longing for Life" was once the envy of the platform "money-making variety show", and the single-season sponsorship fee has also been rumored to be 800 million, 1.5 billion and other staggering figures. Correspondingly, at its peak, "Longing for Life" was disliked by some audiences for too many advertisements, and it was a "program inserted in advertisements".
However, the market will not remain static, and the difficulties of attracting investment in variety shows will not be spared because of the status of the program,
According to the CCTV market research media intelligence advertising detection database AdEx, the advertising market in 2022 will decrease by 11.8% year-on-year, and the pressure of variety show investment has increased sharply, for programs such as "Longing for Life", the more obvious such a trend is, the more you have to face the dilemma of program revenue and program effect.
In addition to the brand, the mentality of another group of variety shows - the audience - is also changing.
In the current Internet environment, the words and deeds in slow variety shows have become more and more easy to be put under a magnifying glass, not to mention the head of such programs.
In the face of the public opinion environment of light ridicule and heavy criticism, after the accumulation of multiple seasons of shows, artists already know what kind of performance is within the safety line, behavior will naturally converge, and the topics discussed will also become conservative.
In the last season of "Longing for Life", Xu Zhiyuan actively refused to chat about the bureau, walked out of the mushroom house and talked with local villagers to experience life, this behavior of breaking the pattern was actually praised by a large number of audiences, and when he pulled Yang Di out of the mushroom house, Yang Di had obvious worries: not going back to work "will be scolded by the audience".
On the other hand, after the frequent exposure of incidents such as sky-high salaries, moral collapse and even illegal crimes, the audience's perspective on celebrities is changing.
Stars working in the fields and self-reliance are the highlights of the show, but many viewers think of their salary income and their dedication, and the audience's recognition of the "hard work" in their show has become more and more ethereal.
In a word, the field of slow variety shows itself is also changing with the audience.
Poison Eye has mentioned in a previous article that for urban youth who are accustomed to urban life, the fast-paced work makes it difficult for them to look forward to "poetry and distant places", and they are unwilling to give up convenient Internet, air conditioning and takeaway. As the post-70s Huang Lei and He Jiong are looking for a paradise in the countryside, but what young people need more may be the living room sofa that can put down the game console and friends.
"Longing for Life" takes the initiative to talk about the choice of "temporarily stopping", which is indeed a kind of wisdom and courage. This may also be the bottleneck that the category of slow variety itself needs to break through - when a giant ship actively chooses to stop at port, there is always something to think about and enlighten on the route.