How does a person live in old age? In this open proposition, fishing, mountain climbing, square dancing, bringing grandchildren, and university for the elderly are a kind of traditional answers. Of course, this is not so much a traditional answer as a stereotype.
K songs, being anchors, cutting short videos, and becoming up masters are also a way of answering.
As Dylan Thomas said: Do not walk gently into that good night, but the old man should burn at dusk and roar, roar, and rebuke the disappearance of the light. This class of elderly people is more and more able to "toss".
The digital divide exists objectively, but technology is also lowering the threshold for the use of some basic applications, and the elderly can get more time and space on the Internet to start their second life. In the future, surfing the web with the elderly will be an increasingly common thing.
In the national k song, there is such a group of people:
They mostly take selfies as their avatars, because the high interaction rate is at the top of the old song charts, politely replying "thank you" to every commenter, and the dynamics are full of "rose", "hug" and "love" memes. Click on the homepage of their work, there are sss ratings and s ratings, as well as a rating and c ratings, whether they sing well or not, they are very willing to share these, never hidden. They are the middle-aged and elderly people who love to sing.
Wang Jinxiang is 65 years old this year, everyone calls her "Grandma Jinxiang", has 361,000 fans in the national k-song, more than 2,000 works, and also participated in CCTV's "Opening the Door" after becoming popular. The host asked her what her wish was, she first smiled and asked the host if her clothes looked good, and after getting a positive nod, she replied, I just like to buy my favorite clothes. Grandma Jin Xiang's hottest song "I Really Miss You" has been played 720,000 times. There was a lot of encouragement and praise in the comments section, "Singing beautifully, speaking clearly, singing my heart".
Tencent "Guiquan" interviewed 74-year-old Xia Lihua, who released more than 2,300 works in the national k-song, commenting on bombs, Peking opera, Yue opera and everything, sometimes singing 10 paragraphs a day, with more than 30,000 fans. Meeting friends with songs not only increased his cardiopulmonary activity, but also made him feel that he was being paid attention to and accompanied.
The same is true of the listening software Himalaya. On March 4 this year, Himalayas announced a set of big data: more than 50,000 elderly people over the age of 60 are anchors on the platform, of which 44.28% are men and 55.72% are women, the oldest is 100 years old, the album has the largest number of more than 500 million, the highest annual income can reach more than 3 million yuan, and the largest number of fans is more than 2.5 million.
Wen Xinran, 71 years old, is a veteran backpacker and globetrotter, and since she was 61 years old, she has spent ten years traveling around the world. Her account in the Himalayas is "Love Travel after sixty" and has more than 1,300 followers. On the album "70 Years old, 1010 days in 86 countries", she shares her travel experiences in Egypt, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam and other countries, and popularizes the historical and cultural landmarks of these countries, which have reached 84,000 views.
Jiang Jianfang, 63, is a retired high school Chinese teacher in Shanghai. In 2016, after retirement, Jiang Jianfang registered the account "Kapok Tree in the Wind" on the Himalayas, became an anchor, labeled himself a "literary youth", and opened a program "Shanghai Nursery Rhymes", interpreting nursery rhymes in the Shanghai dialect, which was played 532,000 times. Later, she released the album of recitations by xu Zhimo, Xi Murong, Li Qingzhao, Cangyang Gyatso and other famous artists. She currently has 20,000 followers and 14 albums in the Himalayas.
Many elderly people's vision is not very good, text records are not convenient, k song software and audio production is simple and convenient, reducing the threshold for the elderly to "make a sound" on the Internet. Some elderly people realize their dreams when they were young here; some elderly people continue to shine after retirement and share experience in their own areas of expertise; and many elderly people learn to buy microphones and brackets on their own in order to achieve better results, and even specially report to classes to learn new technologies.
Their enthusiasm never fades with age, they just find the right platform to express what they think.
Short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also indispensable to the active participation of the elderly.
"Uncle Ben Liang", formerly known as Xie Ben Liang, is a music fanatic who has more than 17 million fans on Kuaishou. He used to be a poor local household, and later saw young people rapping on their mobile phones, so he also began singing live with a guitar and a voice. Although Uncle Ben Liang's playing and singing skills are not necessarily the best, his simple and careful interpretation, as if it grew out of the land naturally, touched many netizens, "This old man is too rocky"
The 70-year-old "Aunt Luo" has more than 6.4 million fans in Douyin, she focuses on emotions and funny fields, has a strong sense of network and a girlish heart, masters practical mahjong skills, and uses humor to explore gender issues, performing various novels, TV dramas, and even fancy scumbags. She subverted people's stereotypes of a 70-year-old grandmother, and brought a lot of happiness to thousands of netizens.
Behind Aunt Luo, there is a post-90s creative team, but Aunt Luo's own temperament and charm are also rare, she is not only an authentic Farmer in Qionglai, Sichuan, but also a cute and cheerful drama grandma.
▲ Screenshot from: Douyin "Aunt Luo"
On short video platforms, not only are elderly creators increasing, but there is also more and more content about the elderly. Busy in the kitchen, with the baby to raise a cat and dog fun, the happy daily life of the centenarian grandmother... According to statistics, users over the age of 50 on Douyin account for about 8% of the total. Short videos are not only a social tool for young people, but also an important way for the elderly to integrate into the new social circle.
Unlike young people, who are almost all Internet users, middle-aged and elderly people are still a huge incremental group on the Internet. The short video platform has keenly grasped this trend and actively laid out the ecology of the middle-aged and elderly market.
On March 24 this year, Douyin announced the launch of the "Old Friend Program" to enhance the product experience of elderly Internet users, one of the initiatives is to recruit 10 elderly user representatives to participate in the douyin aging upgrade as a product think tank, on the one hand, I hope that they can fully participate in the optimization of douyin aging and improve the user experience of the elderly, on the other hand, I hope that they can teach what they have learned to more peers and embrace digital life together, and peers may be the best teachers.
At the beginning of 2020, Kuaishou named the Spring Festival Gala and gained a large number of middle-aged and elderly users through sharing the red envelope grabbing activity. Kuaishou also held a number of square dance competitions to attract middle-aged and elderly people to participate. According to the data, the cumulative exposure of Kuaishou square dance videos reached 80 billion+ in one year, and the total number of fans of Kuaishou square dance creators reached 350 million+.
The reason why the elderly like short videos as a form of entertainment is also obvious, fragmented knowledge is easier to absorb, and videos are more likely to stimulate the senses. The social attributes of short video platforms are also very strong, and they are liked, interactive messages, and friends come and go more frequently. Moreover, short videos are easy to make, and it is not so difficult for the elderly to become creators.
"I'm full of joy, I can do anything."
This is a sentence said by the male protagonist of the 11th anniversary special screening of Station B. His age is an old man in the b station, but he knows that the way to maintain eternal youth is to learn, in the b station he can swim in the ocean of knowledge, into science, embrace culture, dance with art, walk with the trend, "the front wave can not die on the beach" .
In this film, the b station seems to subvert the previous public impression, but in fact, it extends its positioning, which not only emphasizes the core characteristics of the content creators of the b station, but also hopes to break the circle of the elderly market to seek increment.
B station monthly active users reached 202 million, b station more than 86% of monthly active users are under the age of 35, which is the core group of b station. Second dimension, non-mainstream, z generation, ghost animals, these are their key words. At the same time, station b wants to show its tolerance for diversity, youth is not the only answer, can always maintain youth, live to the old to learn the old mind is.
▲ Screenshot from: b station "Min Ci is not old"
Elderly users like Jiang Minci are pouring into the b station, and her ID is "Minci is not old", which is a name that is praised by her family as soon as she proposes it. The first video "I am 90 years old can I come to the b station to be the up master?" "" has more than 5 million plays, netizens in the encouragement of grandma do not forget to play terriers, "harm, are after 90, do not distinguish between you and me" "others are up lord, you are the grandmother lord"
In a video after Jiang Minci got the certificate of "100,000 fans up", it was mentioned that her grandson did not support her as the up master at the beginning, "where are the elderly playing this". But what she thinks in her heart is "you care if he is old or not, I can do it" and "You teach me, I will." Therefore, for the question of "I am 90 years old, can I come to the b station to be the up master", she has long been determined. Jiang Minci once studied vocal and video meetings at the university of the elderly, and now also uses PR to edit videos.
Carpenter "Lu Zhengyi's Carving Time" is 72 years old, likes to wear a gray I-shaped vest, blue plastic slippers, a worldly temperament that does not show mountain dew, and is good at making various wood carvings from mahogany. Only by constantly innovating for everyone to see, can the traditional Chinese craftsmanship be passed on, so with the help of apprentices, Lu Zhengyi joined the b station and released various acg (animation, manga, game abbreviation) character carving videos, including Iron Man, Attack on Titan, Kujo Shotaro, etc., which have received high attention, and the hottest video "Wood Carving Cannon Sister Misaka Mikoto" has more than 8 million plays.
Lu Zhengyi entered the same world with exquisite craftsmanship and interesting soul, and the two-dimensional people entered the same world, and there are more than 1.91 million fans in the b station. His profile is "I am Lu Zhengyi, twenty-seven years old, a young carpenter", and the comments section is also very good at playing with the terrier, affectionately calling him "Xiao Lu", "As long as you insist on cultivating immortals like me, it will not be long before you will be as young as Xiao Lu".
▲ Screenshot from: b station "Lu Zhengyi's carving time"
The food up main "Nongxiang Uncle Sauce" has 528,000 fans, using the earth stove to make braised pork, pineapple fried chicken, slippery egg beef, sour soup tomato noodles, is the original, simple and kind local atmosphere, but also got the "100,000 fans up master" certificate. As a food up master, "Stutter Daddy" is relatively hardcore, lobster, jellyfish, abalone, coconut snail, king crab are all eaten and broadcast, grounded, unpretentious style also makes people look happy.
Behind the success of these videos, there are not only the active learning and optimistic and enlightened spirit of the elderly, but also the support and help of young people in content, equipment and materials, including grandchildren, sons, apprentices, etc., of course, there is no lack of support and support from young users of Station B. In a sense, this is also a kind of "yellow hair hanging down and enjoying yourself". But after all, station b is not a peach blossom source, and the ecology of station b needs to be more healthy and friendly to support more silver-haired people to settle in.
Qutoutiao and The Paper jointly released the "2020 Elderly Internet Life Report", as of June 2020, There are 940 million Netizens in China, of which 10.3% are elderly Netizens over the age of 60, which means that there are about 96 million silver-haired people active on China's mobile Internet.
Of the 1 million elderly users, 1,900 were active online for more than 10 hours on a single Qutoutiao app, 4,000 were active online for more than 8 hours, and more than 12,000 were active for more than 6 hours a day.
It can be said that more middle-aged and elderly groups are involved in the field of Internet pan-entertainment, and many elderly people have already relied on the Internet. When their familiar worlds operate in a divided and connected screen by screen, there may also be some indistinguishable pitfalls.
For example, the national k song not only gives the elderly the opportunity to express themselves, but also allows many elderly people to have Internet addiction, and there are many similar "how to cleverly let the mother quit the national k song?" of questions. Some netizens' fathers "open a small shop at home, don't do things every day, don't open shops, and don't do work"; some netizens' mothers' health is affected, "now the eyes are blurred, the neck hurts, and they say dizzy, they just refuse not to play"; more people doubt, "To be honest, Mandarin is not standard, how can each song be 3 s, there are more than 100 people listening to her songs, whether this national k song has a trust.".
▲ Image from: Visual China
There are also some middle-aged and elderly people who are eager to find a cathartic outlet on the Internet, but they fall into a more collapsing scam.
In October 2020, the news that a 61-year-old woman in Jiangxi had run away from home because of her obsession with Douyin's "fake Jin Dong" attracted widespread attention, and also involved several other women who were also deceived. They are all vulnerable people who cannot get love and understanding in reality, so they look for sustenance on the Internet, waiting for others to express their concern for themselves, and at the same time negatively evaluating their self-worth. This may be a hoax that is not worth mentioning for us, but the needs of the elderly in all aspects are not real.
Many of the dilemmas faced by the elderly and the Internet are caused by the huge digital divide and intergenerational gap in society. With more support and understanding, young people will have access to more avenues to enrich their spiritual world and have a healthier mind.
But if we all think that the reason why the elderly go online is only to eliminate loneliness, then we may just be confined to our own cognitive framework, some condescending, some arrogant.
The elderly in the Internet era face many pain points and many opportunities. On the one hand, the Internet has compressed their material and cultural living space to a certain extent, and the methods of maintaining emotions in the past are no longer solid; on the other hand, the technical threshold of the Internet is getting lower and lower, opening up a new world to the elderly. As long as you are willing to express and communicate, no matter what age, you can be heard and seen, the need for social interaction, the need for self-actualization, the desire to be concerned, and the love of life, in fact, have nothing to do with age.
▲ Aunt Su Min. Image from: Douban @ 50-year-old aunt self-driving tour
Aunt Su Min, 57 years old this year, experienced a long, loveless marriage, fulfilled all the motherhood in the social sense, survived until her grandson went to kindergarten, and finally decided to live for herself once, and began to drive across China in September 2020. She felt that "the hardest time had passed", so she did not wait. The hardships of the journey are not humane, "escape" is not her theme, her biggest feeling is "freedom".
Aunt Su Min's family relationship is very common in China. The middle-aged and elderly women who are deceived by the "fake Jin Dong", and their husbands who are not good at expressing themselves and are quiet, this is not the case.
This generation of silver-haired people, especially women, who grew up with economic and social transformation, often experienced similar dilemmas - the lack of intimate relationships, the suppression of emotional needs, the prominence of instrumental values, can be anyone, but not themselves. Not very good, not very bad, fifty or sixty years of hard work.
When the traditional definition of social and family duties are fulfilled, they finally have more time and energy to pay attention to themselves, the Internet also gives them more information, they are exposed to a different world, aware of the past lack and the loneliness of the present, but also see the possibility of self-worth, a new yearning for the future.
Aunt Su Min once said that going from the original family to marriage is "from one tunnel to another". In a sense, old age may be one of the most free and open stages of life, and more and more elderly people are ready.