The way out of the Internet celebrity city
"Internet celebrity cities are an emerging vocabulary. With the popularity of mobile short video platforms such as Douyin, the amount of attention on short videos about cities has also increased sharply, making a number of cities known on the Internet."
Searching for the explanation of the term "Internet celebrity city", it is not difficult to find that it is closely connected with elements such as "emerging", "mobile short video", and "Internet".
In recent years, the Internet has brought about changes in communication channels, and traditional urban publicity channels have been broken. A wave of urban image communication that fits the Internet context has taken advantage of the trend of short videos in the private sector.
Except for big cities like Xi'an, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Changsha that already have a certain degree of popularity, they rely on the creation of distinctive labels to become popular networks. A group of niche cities that people have rarely heard of before have also made breakthroughs in various forms through the participation of short videos. The original small circle layer enters the public view.
Driven by short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, these cities of different sizes have been regained by the public in different forms, and new city images have been reshaped in the context of the Internet.
Behind the popularity, it may come from the government's leading role in the image of urban tourism, or from the contingency of non-governmental communication. The phenomenon of urban out-of-circle under the Internet communication spree is fermenting.
Metropolis with the featured label "Reduce"
On the open space against the wall, the wine jar encloses a rectangle with a mountain of fragments of the wine bowl in the middle.
The drinker stood in front of the altar, holding a pottery bowl in his hand, drank all the rice wine in the bowl, and slammed it to the ground cleanly, "pop", the crisp sound of ceramics shattered to the ground.
At the beginning of 2018, just a few seconds of video made Xi'an Yongxingfang's "wrestling bowl wine" experience quickly become popular on the Douyin platform, becoming a popular check-in attraction for Xi'an tourism.
This modern tourism product developed from traditional cultural symbols has reached 100 million hits on the topic of Douyin, followed by a tourist boom of tourists visiting Xi'an to check-in attractions.
In 2019, the Xi'an Datang Everbright City Scenic Area designed two street performance art performances incorporating classical elements of the Tang Dynasty based on the city mascots "Tang Bao" and "Tang Niu" in Xi'an. The performance videos exceeded 2.3 billion times on Douyin. The number of views has made Xi'an Datang Evernight City the top spot with the highest number of vibrato views in 2019.
Relying on the city's strong cultural heritage, Xi'an, the ancient capital of the thirteen dynasties, has created a series of characteristic label products built around the feelings of the ancient city and classical culture, and has become a "net celebrity city" that is popular on the entire network.
On the other side, in the mountain city of Chongqing in southwestern China, a short video of a rail train passing through a building makes Li Ziba, a Chongqing light rail station, a new online celebrity check-in point on Douyin. Aerial shots from various angles bring different angles to check-in Lizi. The craze for trains across the building.
Following this, more and more local attractions have been unearthed: Hongyadong, another attraction in Chongqing, quickly became popular because of the reality version of "Spirited Away", and the airbus Yangtze River Ropeway attraction was due to the sense of experience. Novelty out of the circle.
Since 2018, Chongqing has become the “city of Douyin”, and the number of popular attractions has leaped to the top of all cities. The total number of views of city image-related videos on Douyin has reached 11.36 billion times, and it is also the only city image-related video with more than 100 views. Billion cities.
This mountain city, which was originally known for its "spicy culture" label, has successfully made its way out of the circle with its unique terrain and peculiar light rail system with the label of "Magic 8D City".
If Xi’an and Chongqing have succeeded in shaping their unique urban characteristics by virtue of cultural and geographic labels, the central city of Changsha has used two unique and popular online independent brands, "Wenheyou" and "Tea Yanyue Se". Following the trend of short video craze, it successfully ranks among the Internet celebrity cities through gourmet brands.
According to the "Life Consumption Report for the 2020 November Holiday" released by Meituan, a cup of tea Yanyue color milk tea on the platform is hard to find, and the order volume exceeds 1.1 billion. It is difficult to order a table of super writers and friends. The number is 40,000, and the number is 2 Million.
In addition to food, the Orange Island fireworks show in Changsha has also successfully attracted more than 300,000 people to watch the scene, and has brought back the popularity of old tourist landmarks such as Yuelu Mountain, Window of the World, Dawei Mountain, Liu Shaoqi Memorial Hall, etc. Huayi Brothers ( Changsha) Movie Town, Xinhualian Tongguan Kiln Ancient Town and other new and popular scenic spots are showing strong screens.
Counterattack in the small town
On the one hand, big cities that already have a certain degree of popularity have gained a share of the short video craze by shaping different urban characteristics.
On the other hand, some small towns that are not well known to the public have also successfully made their way out of the circle with subculture and freshness, winning public attention and gaining huge amounts of traffic.
In November 2020, a 10-second video of Douyin user "Smile Collector Boge" received 2.76 million praises in a short period of time.
In the video, the 20-year-old herder "Ding Zhen" has attracted the attention of the entire network like a hurricane with his original skin color and innocent smile.
According to media reports, the photographer went to Tibetan areas to look for the smile of the world's high city. The protagonist of the original plan was Ding Zhen's younger brother, but unexpectedly met Ding Zhen who went to the village to buy instant noodles.
This accident also made Litang, the small town behind the "sweet wild boy" Ding Zhen, successfully out of the circle, and it became popular all over the network for a while.
This small town, Litang, which has the characteristic scenery and customs of the Tibetan area, just took off the hat of the impoverished county nine months before it became popular.
According to data from Ctrip, the popularity of "Litang" has soared from November 20, 2020. By the last week of November, the search volume of "Litang" soared by 620%, even compared to the peak tourist season of National Day. Also doubled 4 times.
Qunar data shows that hotel bookings in Ganzi, Sichuan increased by 89% in November compared with the same period in 2019.
Unlike Litang’s "accidental" exit, the exit of another small town, Zhaosu, has more elements dominated by the local government.
In November of the same year, in a video, He Jiaolong, the female deputy magistrate of Zhaosu County, Xinjiang wearing a red cape, riding horses galloping in the snow, the white snow is lined with a bright red. This video of Zhaosu tourism endorsement is shaking. The sound quickly became popular, and He Jiaolong was also known to the public as the "female county governor on horseback". The number of fans of his Douyin account quickly rose to more than 800,000 at the end of November.
Either out of the yearning for the martial arts complex, or out of the novelty of riding horses in the vast snowfields, the public's attention was successfully attracted.
Xiaocheng Zhaosu succeeded in getting out of the circle in this plan led by the local government, gaining a wave of tourist traffic.
Another small town, Cao County, originated from a video called Mai Mai by a Douyin anchor, which is even more unique.
A devilish voice called "Shandong Heze Caoxian Niu 666", which aroused the attention of netizens to this small city.
The subsequent public response by Liang Huimin, the mayor of Cao County, sparked a second wave of discussions about Cao County, and also revealed more aspects of this small town: here is the country’s largest production site for costumes, and the Han costumes produced in Cao County accounted for One third of the national market, 90% of the coffins in Japan come from Cao County.
Ridiculous slogans such as "I would rather have a bed in Cao County than a house in Shanghai" and "Beijing, Guangzhou and Cao" have become popular on the Internet. On Weibo, Cao County has more than 500 million related topics.
Different from the traditional mainstream culture’s shaping of the city’s image, this small city has been given a “earth flavor” completely different from that of the big city by the Internet. It has completed a “small city counterattack” dominated by the Internet, making the mountain in the east, west and south of the mountain. The small town succeeded in getting out of the circle in a sub-cultural way.
Government
Simultaneously with the popularity of these cities on the Internet are the city brand building and promotion activities carried out by each city.
During the Spring Festival in 2019, the Xi'an Municipal Government held a series of activities for the Spring Festival "Xi'an Year·The Most China", creating light and shadow performances and light shows in Xi'an City Walls, Datang Everbright City and other places.
In more than 20 days, Xi'an has received more than 10 million Chinese and foreign tourists, making it the fourth most popular city for Spring Festival tourism in the country.
In addition, Xi’an has also created a series of cultural-centric urban brands such as the "City of Music", "City of Museums" and "City of Scholars", and organized such as the Silk Road Film Festival, the Sino-French Cultural Forum, and the International Marathon. Competitions and other large-scale events and competitions.
After Litang County became popular, Ganzi Prefecture took advantage of the hot iron and announced that from November 15, 2020 to February 1, 2021, 67 A-level scenic spots will implement a policy of exemption of tickets for tourists.
After Liziba became popular on the Internet, the Chongqing Municipal Government deliberately built a viewing platform under the Liziba site for tourists to watch.
Liziba Station has also undergone expansion and renovation, and station name signs are set at the end of the station outside the station to "guide the way" for out-of-town tourists.
The landscape lighting of Liziba Station has also appeared one after another, and the gradual color matching of the station facade adds a sense of dynamic and layering.
With the help of Internet celebrities, Chongqing has also focused on talent training.
Since 2018, the Chongqing Institute of Culture has added cultural industry research think tanks and talent training functions, and signed cooperation agreements with 9 universities including Chongqing University and Southwest University to jointly build cultural industry incubators and training bases to provide high-quality cultural tourism for the city Development provides talent support and intellectual support.
Another Internet celebrity city, Changsha, uses Douyin as its key platform to shape its image. The total number of clicks on the "Changsha Release" Government Douyin account exceeded 300 million, and it was awarded the "2018 National Influential Government Douyin Account". His work ranked first in the "National Urban Image List".
In May of this year, the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China and Douyin jointly released the "Research Report on Short Videos and Live Broadcasts Helping New County Economic Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report").
The "Report" pointed out that in 2020, the total number of cultural travel videos on Douyin will exceed 880 million, an increase of 60% over 2019.
In the whole year, cultural and tourism videos were played more than 926 billion times, an increase of about 50% over 2019.
Statistics from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism show that from January to August 2020, the total number of rural tourists nationwide was 1.207 billion, with a total income of 592.5 billion yuan.
The explosive growth of the publication volume and attention of cultural and tourism short videos has proved the strong demand and motivation of the cultural and tourism industry from the side.
The above-mentioned "Report" also pointed out that, as a new type of industry and consumption pattern, rural tourism has become an important driving force for the development of a large number of rural areas and is a "hands-on industry" to be released in the rural economy.
"Internet celebrity city" is just a label. Behind the internet celebrities are the opportunities and challenges for the development of large and small urban agglomerations in China.
Sort out the context of the development of Internet celebrity cities and find out the texture of the city. When the enthusiasm fades, there should be a calm and long-term development context through the city and continue to stimulate the vitality of Chinese cities.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Siya