Text / Octopus
Editor/Yan Ruyi
In the past year, the topic of the Internet has been focused on "freedom to consume".
As a result, the middle class has become a living target.
In adult society, eating, drinking, sleeping, and all activities are clearly priced.
In the consumption narrative of the Internet, no matter how much money one makes, one cannot achieve bread freedom, fruit freedom, takeaway freedom, taxi freedom, and hotel freedom.
No matter how glamorous the photos posted on the Internet are, in real life, most people still shop around when they spend money, and save if they can.
Carpooling to work, coffee ordering, grocery shopping, travel sharing......
As a more cost-effective way of consumption, group buying appears in every corner of life. So much so that a hearty contemporary consumption, if there is no partner, is always almost meaningless.
Finally, the wind of group buying still blew on the readers.
In order to achieve the freedom of reading, they searched all over the Internet to find a partner to "spell books". With a little attention, you can find the commonality of contemporary netizens' book buying in the social media puzzles:
Give up desperately
Migrant workers who fall in love with "spelling".
Crazy flock to Pinduoduo.
Spell the book to save the mid-life crisis of the workers
"Which is the best translation of When the Stars of Mankind Shine?"
"Help me choose! Dosyevsky or Kafka? ”
"Zhonghua Book Company's Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection, is 87.64 a good price?" ......
The Douban group "Buying books is like a mountain and reading is like a thread", gathering 650,000 nerds.
Here, they exchange all the details about buying and reading books. It is in these details that we find:
The reading month has long been turned into a book buying month by netizens.
Take a closer look, in the bills posted by netizens, the content of "spelling" is extremely high.
It was only in late March, and some netizens asked "whether Pinduoduo has a reading month this year", although "I haven't finished reading the book I bought last time";
As soon as the Duoduo Reading Month activity began, some people posted their new book lists.
also shared the preferential price after using the coupon by the way;
April 23 is World Book Day, and on April 26, the books spelled by netizens will arrive.
Although it was damaged by the book corner during transportation, people were still warmed by Pinduoduo's worry-free after-sales service.
For netizens who are addicted to "spelling books", reading books and buying books every month is like buying New Year's goods during the Spring Festival.
A qualified spell is not enough to buy, it has to be shared.
In the face of cheap prices, placing orders with passion seems to be a must.
I bought 18 books in one go, and at the rate of reading two books a month, I would have to read them all in 2025.
It doesn't matter if you can finish reading it, buy it back first, anyway, "buying books is like a mountain, and reading is like a thread".
In fact, once you pay attention to the netizens who are "spelling books", it is difficult not to wonder what they are reading.
From the Pinduoduo book purchase records posted on the Internet, you can even summarize the reading trends of some contemporary netizens.
During the crowded May Day holiday, some people spent tens of thousands of dollars to get stuck in the highway, and some people only spent 27 yuan and 6 cents to complete a hearty cyber culture journey.
Before opening "From Dadu to Shangdu (2022 Edition)", you may think that this is a boring history book.
But in fact, you will follow the author's footsteps in one afternoon, starting from Jiandemen in Beijing, traveling north along the Yuan Dynasty Yuan Dynasty Road, passing through Longhutai, crossing Juyong Pass, traveling through Heigu, crossing Shaling, and walking step by step from Jiandemen to Mingdemen 450 kilometers of mountains and rivers, arriving at Shangdu (located in Shangdu Town, Zhenglanqi, Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region).
In the comparison of ancient and modern records and research evidences by Professor Luo Xin of Peking University, every soil and tree along the way has been endowed with cultural meanings that travel through time and space.
This cyber tourism experience is the superpower of books, but the power of books is much more than that.
Since the advent of ChatGPT, there have always been people who say that the Internet era is in decline and the AI era is rising.
When people who were worried that they would be ruthlessly eliminated by the times picked up the "History of the Rise and Fall of the Chu State" and saw the cruel Warring States Period that advocated power and deceit and competed for greed, the ruling group of the Chu State still maintained the simplicity, elegance and slow pace cultivated by the etiquette and music civilization in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it was inevitable that they would substitute themselves into it and have relatives.
In the Warring States Period, which was greedy and involuted, the Chu State, which advocated a slow life, was doomed to perish, and the great waves of the times were so cruel.
Open books on social science, economics and management, art philosophy, literary novels, and historical biographies, and we can always find our own shadow in them.
Perhaps that's why these books, which require immersion, are still so popular.
In addition, the sales of functional and practical books such as self-improvement, examination and teaching aids, and health care have also been booming.
In Pinduoduo, the sales of examination and compilation reference books have exploded; Primary school supplementary books and children's literature books are on sale.
At the same time, book consumption also shows more demand for improvement and upgrading.
Book products such as hardcovers, autographs, pop-up books, and audiobooks are another hot spot for consumption.
Beautifully bound classics, children's favorite reading sets and other products, consumption has increased significantly.
Some "good-looking" books are no longer only existing as knowledge products, but have begun to be sought after by young consumers as household products.
Books are in the soft spiritual world at the same time, but also in the soft living room, which means:
For busy middle-aged people, the library can also be a living room.
Who's to say it's not a safe haven in another sense?
Why can spelling books become the first choice for book purchases?
In the early days of the Internet, there was a lot of talk about fragmented reading crowding out reading time.
But as the Internet penetrates into our lives, people are gradually discovering that:
Surfing the Internet and reading have never been antagonistic relationships.
The busier you are, the more you need some ways to decompress.
In the early years, donkey hoof repairing and catching the sea videos were the mainstream choices for short videos to decompress.
But now, carpenters and electricians have become a kind of newer Internet comforter.
On social media, a video of a carpenter making a table can have nearly 1.2 million views.
In the video comment area, many netizens expressed their interest in the knowledge of carpentry and electricians.
Short videos have become a window to open the curiosity, but it is books that can really satisfy the curiosity.
Open Pinduoduo, industrial and agricultural technology electrician, home appliance maintenance and other tool attributes of the book is very popular.
The sales of "The Easiest Family Carpentry" in a store show that 3,181 pieces have been assembled.
Books can be tools for solving specific problems or pheromones to soothe anxiety.
"The Neurotic Personality of Our Time" and "The Plague" are also becoming the initial attempts of another part of people to seek comfort and solve their confusion.
The 18,000 pieces of spelling books in a single store and the records of 100,000+ pieces of praise from the store are all traces left by spelling netizens.
A person's practical and spiritual needs are diverse, and the types of books needed are also diverse, and it is likely that the settlement cannot be completed in the same store.
At this point, the aggregation function of the platform is very important.
Every year during the Reading Month, Pinduoduo will hold the "Duoduo Reading Month Activity" to embrace the inclusiveness of knowledge and pay tribute to reading with classics.
This is a special project of Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidized book category, which presents high-quality book products in the form of exclusive pages in the special area, selects classic and high-quality books, and consumers can enjoy a one-stop experience of buying and hoarding books.
According to the data, in the two quarters of the "Reading Month" in 2023, about 36% of consumers will buy 5 or more books at one time, "hoarding books for a year at a time".
This season's Reading Month has selected the "Spring Book List" for the majority of consumers, including classic books by well-known domestic and foreign authors, such as Camus's "The Plague"; Books selected from the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Mao Dun Prize in Literature, the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and other awards, such as Kafka's The Trial; "Flowers", which was a hit because of the popularity of the TV series; and social science and philosophy books such as "Chip War" and "Three Questions on Man".
In addition, Pinduoduo is also providing financial subsidies for readers.
The Duoduo Reading Month Selection Team has selected 1,000 classic books in conjunction with major publishing houses, and directly subsidized more than 5 million genuine classic best-selling books through the key resources of the "10 billion subsidy" channel of the 100 million-level reading fund superposition platform.
The direct subsidy of the 100 million yuan reading fund is making the "national spelling book" an IP in the book industry.
Through solid subsidy funds, resource inclination, policy support and other investments, it has helped the development of the affordable genuine book market, and has been supported and welcomed by more and more mainstream publishing houses, book publishing companies and high-quality book brands.
This year, Pinduoduo has brought together thousands of book merchants and subsidized tens of thousands of books, so that more people can read more good books at the lowest possible cost.
On social media, "Reading Month" has become an annual shopping KPI, and what impresses readers is:
For the money of two cups of milk tea, you can buy 6 books.
Books have price, but knowledge is priceless.
The more we cannot achieve bread freedom with a monthly income of 30,000 yuan, the more human beings need to spell books, because it always tells us:
Consumption may be downgraded, but reading never will.
How far can the tentacles of the spelling book extend?
The more puzzles you look at on the Internet, the easier it is to discover:
Behind the different book orders, there are all kinds of people.
With the rise of feminism, women's book lists began to appear on the Internet.
A good book is likely to become a key to self-awakening and an opportunity for a woman's growth.
In Pinduoduo, "Feminism from Scratch", "A Room of One's Own", "The Reason She Is For Her" and "The Invisible Woman" have become popular bestsellers, and even the sales volume of a single store is more than 10,000 copies.
And the sales are even more amazing, as well as the postgraduate entrance examination and public examination materials.
Behind the sales of 2 million copies of national examination books in a single store, there are thousands of young people who are working hard and seeking to go ashore.
In the days of staying up late and reading hard, books are their most loyal companions.
In Pinduoduo, there is also a special group of book buyers:
They come from remote rural areas in Xinjiang.
For a long time, Xinjiang has always been blocked out of the "free shipping area" due to the vast land and sparsely populated areas, high logistics costs, and difficult large-scale transportation of parcels.
In 2022, Pinduoduo launched free shipping in Xinjiang for the first time, and the express delivery service was upgraded again in July last year.
In Xinjiang, free free shipping delivery has been implemented into the village, further shortening the distance between the terminal distribution network and consumers to less than 2 kilometers, and compressing the time limit for signing to 24 hours. Users in remote areas of the local area can more easily access these "knowledge packages".
At the same time, you can also enjoy the "buy with peace of mind" service of the standard 10 billion subsidy channel for the month of reading, in addition to the "quality insurance" provided by the platform, you can also enjoy services including free shipping, compensation for expensive purchases, and 48-hour delivery.
In March this year, the number of book orders in Xinjiang exceeded 1 million, a year-on-year increase of 80%.
Millions of books, sold in the form of a single order, entered the remote villages of Xinjiang through express delivery, and then entered thousands of households, and were placed on the desk.
In places where traffic can't be seen, Pinduoduo has quietly made efforts to break the knowledge gap caused by geographical barriers.
No matter where you are, which circle, what your preferences, or what age you are, you can gain your own reading experience and build your own spiritual home through spelling books.
And reading, as it should be, is so fair.