Why "N Brush" Becomes Fashion
Since entering the information age, a large number of cultural and entertainment products have been continuously launched and updated through various platforms every day. While a large number of cultural and entertainment products that lack creativity and homogeneity cannot gain attention, some cultural and entertainment products also stand out, including online novels, movies, series, variety shows, short videos, etc. "N brush" object. At the beginning of 2022, many online platforms have some “lists of movies, TV dramas, novels, and variety shows that are worth watching”. In the personal annual reports of short video platforms posted by many netizens, the same short video is repeatedly reviewed a dozen times to several times. Hundreds of times are not uncommon.
At present, it has become the norm to watch the movie at double speed, watch a movie in a few minutes, just watch the clip or watch the beginning and abandon the text and the drama, and the phenomenon of second, third and N brushing of some cultural and entertainment works reflects the phenomenon. Deep immersion and high cultural engagement of the masses with their favorite works.
From "Classic Rereading" to "N Brushing": "Repeated Appreciation" Derived New Implications in the Internet Age
The repeated appreciation of literary and artistic works is not a new topic.
Traditionally, it is common to repeatedly appreciate art classics such as music, art, and drama, as well as world-wide literary classics.
Italian author Italo Calvino mentioned in the preface to Why Read Classics that classics are those books you often hear people say "I'm rereading" instead of "I'm reading".
A classic never runs out of everything it has to say to the reader, and every age, every stage, every re-reading brings new discoveries like a first reading.
The development of the film and television industry has gradually changed the traditional form of art appreciation, and repeated appreciation of entertainment and popularization has become a common phenomenon.
In order to attract more attention, TV stations continuously screen and repeatedly broadcast TV dramas that are more popular with audiences through technical means such as calculating audience ratings.
With the development of dome screen, 3D and other technologies, new cinephile culture and consumption habits have gradually formed, and more and more young people have the enthusiasm to watch their favorite movies repeatedly.
However, the way of dissemination of film and television still has certain restrictions and constraints on the audience's repeated appreciation.
The rise of the Internet and mobile media has brought about a new form of media communication that is full of personalization, controllability and interactivity. From this, the phenomenon of "N-swiping" of film and television dramas, online novels, and short and medium videos in the Internet audio-visual era has been derived, including more cultural implications of the Internet age.
Major network platforms provide users with a large number of entertainment products in different periods, making "N brush" break through the time and space limitations of traditional communication methods, and become more personalized and selective.
Users can choose to watch the latest works, classic movies and TV series or finished novels.
For larger works, users can also selectively watch.
In the video playback interface of online dramas, there is generally an option setting of "only watch TA", which is equivalent to providing users with a single character (or double character) clip of the drama, and providing users with selective viewing of the favorite character's plot. convenience.
Users can also drag the progress bar to skip the plots of characters they don’t like, so as to achieve “N-swipe” without watching TA; ".
It can be seen from the annual reports on the use of the platform published by many netizens that the phenomenon of "N brushing" of short videos and animations is the most common.
When you open some popular videos, it is not uncommon to see bullet screens such as "one hundred million times again" and "one brush a day".
In the video playback interface of major platforms, in addition to the settings such as multi-speed selection, barrage switch and comment area, the playback button similar to the single loop in the music player is also standard.
This makes the "N brush" more convenient, and users can immerse themselves in their favorite stories, characters or atmospheres infinitely as long as they click on the loop play button.
Due to the slow update speed of each season of animation works, the online parts are constantly refreshed, maintaining communication through barrage, and waiting for the update together, which is the new normal for animation fans to follow.
If the comment or barrage sent is liked or replied by others, the user will also receive a platform notification, and can click to re-enter the relevant playback interface to view the interaction at any time.
This setting of the platform creates a good interactive atmosphere and attracts more users to re-browse the video.
Discover rich details through "N brush": regain psychological memory, prolong peak experience, and gain the pleasure of interaction
From the traditional re-reading of classics to the "N brush" in the age of online audio-visual, repeated appreciation is a relatively common psychological and emotional need of human beings.
The "rereading of classics" emphasized by Calvino is mainly aimed at those classics that embody human wisdom and have permanent value.
Due to lack of experience at a young age, people may miss many rich details, meanings and layers when reading.
After re-reading after a certain precipitation of thought, the new subject will collide with the classics with rich connotations to create new sparks, and obtain new aesthetic experience or ideological enlightenment, which represents the repeated appreciation of the era of printing civilization with the characteristics of elitism.
Entering the era of mobile media, surrounded by a large number of cultural and entertainment products every day, many people are not interested in homogenized works, and prefer to "N brush" their favorite old works during meals, commuting or leisure, and regain their good psychological memories.
The concentrated "N brushing" of film and television dramas and online novels can reproduce and prolong the strong empathic response and the aesthetic peak experience.
In the process of reading or watching, people will feel their joys, sorrows and sorrows because they identify with the characters, and produce subconscious empathy reactions.
In the strong empathy, the artistic imagination and association are carried out, and the emotions are ups and downs with the fate of the characters, the integration and unity of the subject and the object are completed, and the aesthetic peak experience is formed.
Until the end of the story, people will be eager to continue to indulge in this continuous emotion, resulting in the desire of "two brushes", "three brushes", and even "N brushes".
The Internet and mobile media provide users with the convenience of “N brushing” that is almost unrestricted by time and space, in which people can obtain a longer aesthetic peak experience, vent their emotions more happily, and gradually adjust and balance the emotional agitation caused by immersion in it. .
For works with a certain degree of difficulty and ambiguity in understanding, through "N brush", you can also capture more details, restore the potential meaning in the shot or text, re-order the relationship between characters and events, and grasp the internal logic that was not understood before. level.
Movies with complex plot structures have attracted a lot of fans of "technical control" and "documentary madness".
They "N-swipe" movies, drag the progress bar to play back important details repeatedly, pause to take screenshots at any time, clarify the structure and clues, record classic lines, restore various details, write long-length film reviews with pictures and texts, and publish them in the film review area of the platform to analyze the story. connotation.
This kind of repeated appreciation of film works is actually very close to the "close reading" of literary works, which is an in-depth cultural participation with a certain value.
The "N brush" in the Internet age is also affected by interactive needs.
The development of media extends people and creates a vast virtual space, but in a sense, it also strengthens the essence of people as lonely individuals.
The young generation, known as the Internet aborigines, is more psychologically dependent on the communication and interaction in the virtual space of the Internet.
For the favorite short videos, "one swipe" to watch the content, "second swipe" to swipe the bullet screen, wait for the bullet screen and comment "fattening" and then "N swipe" to communicate has become a habit of many people.
There are also some users who are keen to take screenshots and retouch pictures, make emoticons, edit videos, etc. at any time in "N Brush", and share and communicate in a more sticky "Interest Community" through secondary creation.
Some users like to use "N brush" for game interaction, and spread all kinds of fan-shaped, circular, color gradient words and other fancy barrages all over the screen, and give their favorite videos "surfaces".
This kind of bullet screen is too thick and covers the full screen of popular videos. Even if the platform uses technical means to capture the portrait and float it on the bullet screen, it will still seriously affect the viewing effect.
Therefore, later viewers have to close the bullet screen to watch the video, and then "swipe" to experience the "column face" of the bullet screen, like or respond to other interesting bullet screens. This kind of game interaction has also increased to a certain extent. The "just need" of the user's "N brush".
Returning to the poetic meaning of repeated appreciation: Let more artistic works of art gain long-term time value
The short-term "N brush" maintained by immersive enthusiasm is different from repeated appreciation after a certain period of precipitation, with typical postmodern cultural symptoms.
The action verb "brush" in "N brush" is a popular word on the Internet.
In recent years, many new meanings and new words have been derived from "swiping", including swiping Weibo, swiping faces, swiping questions, swiping orders, swiping dramas, etc. Among them, 'N-swiping' is the one that can be quickly and repeatedly operated to improve a certain effect. The extended meaning, which refers to behaviors such as reading and watching, itself reflects the anxiety, fast life and addiction that modern people have.
In particular, its implicit tendency to indulge may exacerbate the manipulation of people’s mind and body by technology and the domination of people by consumption logic.
Under the modern consumption logic, in order to maximize economic benefits, commercial capital simulates people's psychological pleasure mechanism through physical technology, and uses various entertainment products to lock people in a state of immersion for a long time to achieve unlimited attention. .
In this case, people's desire to "N brush", on the surface, is out of sincere love and the result of a free choice, but in fact, it may be a short-term addiction controlled and shaped by body technology. It is the externalization of the need for an immersive experience to fully devote the brain's attention to it.
This kind of experience makes people forget time, forget themselves, and put aside their own problems. On the contrary, it may compress the space for aftertaste, narrow the dimension of thinking, and finally reduce the aesthetic activities of art to the indulgence of pleasure, which will bring about negative effects on physical and mental health.
Therefore, the behavior of "N brushing" in popular cultural entertainment should be regulated by self-time insight.
High-intensity "N brush" favorite works can strengthen and prolong the peak experience; through "N brush" continuous interaction in the online "interesting community", you can also get the thrill of huddled together for warmth.
However, if there is a lack of time insight and the strong immersion emotions cannot be adjusted in time, there will also be addiction problems such as ignoring the passage of time, blurring the boundary between the virtual world and real life, and being addicted to it.
Pay attention to time management in repeated appreciation, in order to nourish psychological experience and memory with time, and release more space for reading and thinking.
As a repeated appreciation of aesthetic activities, it is essential to obtain spiritual satisfaction and sublimation in a certain sense of time distance.
Returning to the poetic meaning of repeated appreciation, people can truly open up a vast spiritual space through careful reading and aftertaste, and achieve the affirmation of the value of the aesthetic subject through internal self-validation.
In this way, it is also helpful for people to overcome the subjectivity anxiety under the constraints of technology, and to invest the human's finiteness into the infinite spiritual pursuit, taking into account the needs of life and the dimension of the soul.
Returning to the poetic meaning of repeated appreciation also helps to screen out outstanding literary and artistic works with real time value among the massive cultural and entertainment products.
These works should not only rely on pleasing "characters", shocking spectacles, funny gimmicks and other elements to consume people's "N brush" enthusiasm in a relatively short period of time, but should take into account valuable content and rich humanities. Spirit and long-term artistic charm, in the hope that in a longer period of time, it can still arouse resonance, trigger thinking, and realize long-term time value and social value.
(Author: Yang Tianshu, Associate Professor, School of Literature, Minzu University of China)