Culture is a projection of comprehensive national strength.
On September 14, Universal Studios Beijing officially opened. Previously, it has been internally tested for a period of time, and a large number of first-line stars and media practitioners have come to punch the clock.
Due to the enthusiasm of the hipster men and women, within 1 minute, the tickets for the opening day of the park were sold out, and even the suites of 20,000 yuan a night in the park were snatched up. APP and Mini Program were robbed of server crashes, USpetual automatically refunded tickets, VIP vip experience a ticket is difficult to find, scalpers scalpers reselled.
In the context of the current epidemic era, compared with the coldness of peers, this grand situation can be called a miracle in the tourism industry.
It was hard to grab a ticket, and the cost of going in and playing a lap was also very high. First door fares range from 418 to 748. On the Little Red Book, there are big Vs who posted consumption lists, including the Harry Potter Wand Interactive Edition (349 yuan), Minion Ice Cream (40 yuan), Popcorn Minion Car (195 yuan), butter beer (50 yuan, cups need to add 30 yuan), Global Apple Smoothie (80 yuan) and other popular souvenirs queued up all day. There are also a large number of other peripherals such as college uniforms, magic robes, etc., a few hundred yuan a piece. It's easy to buy it one day and spend a few thousand dollars.
So expensive but hot. The owners of other attractions will be silent when they hear it, and the tourism practitioners will shed tears when they see it.
Compared with the old amusement park in Beijing: Happy Valley, the annual pass is only 780, and universal studios has only a single ticket price level. Is the Universal Cinema thing too much fun? As far as the facilities themselves are concerned, it may even be more exciting to be happy valley's various flying cars and drifts.
A very similar situation arises on the sales of the iPhone 13. On the evening of September 17, Apple's iPhone 13 series began to open pre-sales on Apple's official website and major e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall. Soon, the platforms encountered the "seconds" situation, and Apple's official website also appeared page caton and other conditions. Around 21:00 in the evening, the topic "Apple's official website collapsed" landed on the first place in the Weibo real-time hot search list.
Although after the release of the iPhone 13, the technology circle generally believes that it lacks bright spots and has no novelty, but the masses use real money and silver to say: although they say no, the body is still very honest.
Weibo users ridiculed the iPhone 12 upgrade 13
When consumers are willing to pay a high premium for a product and maintain a low price sensitivity, what exactly are they pursuing?
01
The soft power of the Lighthouse Nation
"As a beacon of democracy, the United States should shine on the world."
— George H.W. Bush, 1991 State of the Union Address
To answer the above question, let's first set our sights on the other side of the ocean.
It has been more than a hundred years since World War I that the United States surpassed Britain to reach the top of the world's GDP. It peaked in 1960 and accounted for 39.7% of global GDP.
The world's wealth is one stone, and the US empire monopolizes the four buckets, which is the legendary rich world.
The three well-known elements of hegemony are: military, dollar, and technology. Military forces guarantee the expansion of science and technology, the US dollar is used for commercial settlement, and scientific and technological innovation ensures the competitive advantage of commerce. Eventually, the profits of technology will once again feed back into the military and the dollar, allowing them to maintain their advantage.
The superstructure based on this iron triangle also has invisible cultural hegemony.
This is the hegemony of the hegemony, and it is also the hegemony of the hegemony.
We are the world 封面
In 1984, British singers Phil Collins and Bob Geldorf convened more than a dozen singers to record the song "Do They Know It's Christmas", raising many donations for the hungry people of Africa.
At that time, the news of food shortages and starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan also shocked Michael S. Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, the two thought they should do something, so they co-wrote the song.
On January 28, 1985, after the American Music Awards, Michael Jackson called on 45 singers to come to the A&M studio in Los Angeles and spend the night recording "We Are The World."
The big guys who participated in the recording, combined with the Grammy Awards, took at least a hundred, and if the head fee is followed, the song is afraid that it will be the most expensive song in history.
Of course it's free. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 on April 13, 1985, staying for four consecutive weeks. On February 25, 1986, the song won four awards at the 28th Grammy Awards for "Production of the Year", "Song of the Year", "Best Short Music Video", and "Best Pop Co-performance". The song eventually raised at least $60 million in charitable donations for Africa.
MV screenshot, from Station B
We are the world, we are the children
We are all god's people
We are the ones who make a brighter day
We can really create a better tomorrow
So let's start giving
So, let's start giving ourselves
There's a choice we're making
The choice we are making
We're saving our own lives
It is saving one's own life
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
It's up to you and me
Eagle Sauce also had a dream, which is the real world unity. After all, if you have money, you can reach and help the world.
No matter where they are, people all over the world will involuntarily advocate more advanced civilizations. Advanced civilizations are often projections of comprehensive national strength. With the prosperity brought about by the economic base as the core of attraction and the cultural media as the cloak, the penetration of ideology is invincible.
Hollywood Mountain Views
For decades, Hollywood has been at the forefront of the lighthouse nation's cultural front, exporting American values to the world year after year. Among them, although there is a essence, there are also some entrainments of private goods. Whether it is a small story with a warm pulse or a blockbuster of saving the world with passion, the final foothold is often the struggle between the righteous American people and the evil so-and-so forces, and in the end, the evil does not suppress the right, and the heroic and fearless American people have won the final victory with difficulty.
If you want to understand the newly opened Universal Studios Beijing, you will at least need to learn the background of knowledge including: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", "Despicable Father", "Kung Fu Panda", "Transformers", "Jurassic", "The Great Wall", "How to Train Your Dragon", "Future Water World" and other series.
These can be regarded as soft power knocking blocks, and when you go deeper, there are a series of hardcore backhands such as Forrest Gump, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, escape from Tehran and so on.
Forrest Gump is still
The best way to gain a person's approval is not to hold a gun to his head, but to let the other party approve and appreciate it from the heart.
The culture between countries is not entirely so simple, and many times it is a tool and a gripper. If you can start from the idea to make the other party approve, then all the actions are not to fight for themselves, but the other party will take the initiative to give hugs.
Under the blue sky and white clouds of democracy and freedom, some people feel that even the air looks so sweet.
02
Cultural and economic resonance
The cultural influence of a nation has spread far and wide with the prosperity of national strength, and this matter has existed since ancient times.
The term "Bafang Lai Dynasty" originated from the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty was one of the most influential dynasties in China, with unprecedented cultural, political, and military prosperity.
After the defeat of the Eastern Turks and XueYantuo, Tianzi was revered as the Heavenly Khan by the Siyi tribes, swept north through Goguryeo and the Eastern and Western Turks, to the west the military sphere of influence reached the Black Sea, and to the south surrendered to the Southern Commandment and suppressed Tubo. Crossing the Yellow Sea to the east led to the total annihilation of the shogunate army. It also allowed the vassal states of Nanzhao, Silla, Bohai, and Japan to learn their own cultural and political systems.
The Tang Dynasty was ranked as the most powerful empire in the world alongside the Arab Empire at that time, and its reputation spread overseas, with contacts with Asian and European countries. After the Tang Dynasty, many overseas people called Chinese as Tang people.
The military and economic strength of the peak also promoted the high development of culture. In the Tang Dynasty, science and technology, culture, economy and art had the characteristics of diversification, and a large number of famous artists emerged in poetry, books and paintings. The Tang Dynasty was also the most open and inclusive dynasty, with inclusive cultures, accepting exchanges and learnings between countries and nationalities at home and abroad, and forming an open international culture.
The famous poet Bai Juyi, who was the super big V of the new media circle of the Tang Dynasty at that time, put the "Bai Family Anthology" under the pillow of the Saga Emperor who was far away in Japan, and every day he read the works of geniuses, and was the leader of the entire Bai Juyi Japanese support fan group.
Under his advocacy, the entire Upper Nobility of Japan frantically called for Bai Juyi, learning white poetry, understanding white poetry, and reading and reciting the whole text, which became a symbol of elegance and taste.
To this day, There are still a large number of Tang poems in Japanese language textbooks.
Sanshengtang 2013 Edition of "Chinese Synthesis"
In a country, there is no lower culture than the writing used to record the inheritance. Walking on the streets of Japan today, a Chinese who has not learned Japanese at all can often read the signposts and building names. The cultural influence of a thousand years ago is evident.
In fact, the Korean language of the Korean Peninsula used to be a large number of reused Chinese characters, and later China fell behind in modern history, and The Korean language also began to be Westernized. Today's young Koreans can't understand the local ancient books, but Chinese can understand roughly what the korean ancient texts are saying.
Records of famous courtiers of the old Korean dynasty
This change is also mentioned in The Age of Awakening, and even in China, at the time of the New Culture Movement, there was a discussion of a full change to the Roman script.
After all, the economic base determines the superstructure. Those who have money are generally more fragrant.
In contemporary times, as the economic development rate of Japan and South Korea has taken off, the corresponding culture has also begun to spread throughout Asia. After the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, it went to the world.
The post-80s and post-90s generations are not unfamiliar with the term Harihahan. Young people in the zero years, dressed in fat and loose costumes, look at the dunk masters, listen to the songs of oriental gods and Super Junior, and learn cool blowing and blowing movements in their hands. Feel the corners of your mouth, you can also appear super idol smile, as sweet as they are.
Slam Dunk Master Poster
To say how far-reaching the influence of this atmosphere is, Wu Zhan, Lu Han, Huang Zitao and other stars are the descendants of these people above. Everyone came down on the same assembly line.
However, it should be noted that although culture often resonates with the economy, the rise and fall of the cultural system usually has a lag in relative economic development compared with the first step of the economy.
Although the Great Qing dynasty is dead, the wheels of the more advanced era are rolling forward, but the old and the young will still miss the past, and even the master Wang Guowei cannot be exempted from the vulgarity.
When the United States first developed, the European continent still looked at their eyes at the upstart: just a bunch of rich old people.
In recent years, the weight of English in people's minds is obviously not as good as before, and there have even been proposals to reduce English as a non-mandatory college entrance examination item or reduce it to 120 points, while emphasizing large languages and increasing the weight of languages.
Implicit in this is actually the weight of the national strength behind the English system in the world, while the weight of the Chinese language is rising, which also stems from the increase in China's national comprehensive strength.
The economy went up, but the culture didn't keep up.
03
A sea of stars of a new culture
The highlands of culture are there, and if you don't occupy them, someone else will occupy them.
In recent decades, the main body of the nation, led by Ansa and Jews, has basically ruled the cultural and public opinion highland of the global village. Culture itself is neutral, but it can be used as a tool to spread love and peace, and it can also be used for mental occupation.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a classic game produced in Westwood and published by EA. The entire game framework is built against the backdrop of the two camps of the United States and the Soviet Union.
In the United States and its allies such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and South Korea, the design of weapons such as: Phantom Tank, Chrono Combat Corps, Rocket Flyer, Spy Satellite, all high-tech.
And who did the Soviet allies arrange, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, etc., designed weapons such as nuclear weapons, clone factories, self-detonating trucks, radiation engineers, crazy Evan, mind control master Yuri, in short, low technology content, high level of terror is right.
One design detail is that the purchase price of police dogs in the United States is 200 per piece, and the Soviet infantry is 100 per piece.
In addition, Yuri takes a group photo after communicating with Stalin about the mind control plan in the expansion pack:
The processed prototype of this photo PS: a group photo of Comrade Lenin and Stalin. The flavor of this metaphor is too strong.
Details like this are innumerable in the various films mentioned above. Again, culture is a gripper, there is no good or bad, it all depends on how to use it.
Specific to the case of a company, let's go back to the best-selling story of the iPhone 13. From the very beginning, Apple has attached great importance to the occupation of the mind by brand culture.
"We have always been committed to pushing the limits of science and technology and leading all mankind into a new era. To this end, we have created the most friendly human-computer interaction, the most perfect system, the coolest products. In the process, we happened to make macs and iPhones. ”
Notice that this mental construction begins with the spiritual core, the pursuit of ideas, and elaborates in a way that is from why to how and finally to what. To put it bluntly, Apple's mobile phone or Apple computer is just a superficial phenomenon of what level it has created.
The premium portion of people's willingness to pay for a high commodity is recognition of the value of its spiritual core.
Today, most countries in the world are in the context of big social media public opinion led by Fackbook and Twitter. Among them, Facebook's monthly active users have exceeded 3 billion, covering half of the global village. The culture of the English system is still the absolute mainstream.
Compared with the development of China's economic strength, our right to speak and cultural influence in the world are far from matching economic status.
The most famous Confucius Institute overseas before, due to its official and traditional nature, can not flexibly reflect China's latest spiritual outlook, where is the road to the sea of new culture?
At the end of 2020, Li Ziqi has 7.35 million fans on Youtube, each video has a playback volume of 500W+, and all videos are basically speechless, and they are all shots of their own silent life. Not a single Chinese word is praising China for being good, but she can make Americans, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Israelis, Russians, Saudis and dozens of other people from different countries, use dozens of different languages, under her video to praise her good, and yearn to live in China together.
Some people believe that her influence overseas is even higher than that of Confucius Institutes, which has also sparked a heated discussion about whether Li Ziqi is a cultural export.
In the end, the People's Daily gave a conclusion:
The Purple Light Pavilion and Tuantuan also came to call.
The young people after the 00s have caught up with the most powerful era in China in a hundred years. They do not have the experience of our childhood, and they do not have the ideological baggage of blindly advocating the West. From birth, what they have seen is that China has hosted the best Olympic Games in history, built the world's most complete road and railway infrastructure, and the most powerful industrial manufacturing system.
They have Huawei, TIKTOK, and the whole industry chain of next-generation photovoltaic and new energy that has been laid out by their predecessors.
They have the Liaoning warship, the J-20 and the Dongfeng 41, and they have the basic conditions for sitting down with the world and talking about the truth.
They have too much to say to the world.
In this country, there are too many stories to share with the world.
hi! Comrade, do you know where Leningrad and Stalingrad are? I can't find it on the map.
No more, no more, we failed. Once again, the white bandits and capitalists rode on our heads. If you're going to follow that red star, go to the East. Cross the Dnieper River, over the Ural Mountains, at the end of the Siberian plain, where the spark of stars is still burning.