Author: Ge Yiting
On July 26, the short video "Three days back to the village, my second uncle cured my mental internal friction" (hereinafter referred to as "Second Uncle") showed a trend of swiping on social platforms.
On weekday afternoons, the number of real-time online viewers on station B, the video launch platform, has always remained above 100,000.
This short video, created by the UP main character "Yi Ge Conjecture" at Station B, used 11 and a half minutes to look back at the twists and turns of the protagonist "Second Uncle", suffering but plentiful life.
The talented young man became disabled due to a misdiagnosis by a barefoot doctor. He gave up his studies to become a carpenter, traveled all over the world with his craftsmanship, and made friends from all over the world; when he was young, he took up the responsibility of the family, made all the furniture for the newlyweds for his relatives, and bought a house for his adopted daughter. With half a lifetime of savings, a middle-aged person takes care of a mother who can't take care of herself.
In the village, he was a well-known capable man who helped the villagers repair all kinds of electrical appliances, toys, and labor tools. He lived in poverty and never married.
The video was launched at station B at 8:00 a.m. on July 25. The popularity soared from late at night to the next morning. On the evening of the 26th, the number of broadcasts reached nearly 10 million, and the number of barrages exceeded 44,000.
Netizen Gezhong Twelfth Street's comment on the video received over 80,000 likes: "It seems to be narrated lightly outside the incident, occasionally interspersed with jokes, and the emotion behind the text is enough to move people to tears... It's like a long-term event. A short movie, rushing by and ending in a blink of an eye, how is it like the life of an ordinary person."
The story of "Second Uncle" overlaps the figures of many ordinary people, which arouses extensive empathy from the audience.
Among the 25,000 comments, many viewers recalled their close relatives, "like my uncle", "like my father", and "reminded of my grandfather".
These ordinary people are often hidden in ordinary markets, but like second uncles, they possess unique skills and dedicate others.
The netizen "Su Xinyiwei" said: "My dad is also a carpenter. He has made a lot of furniture. He loves reading books and researching. He can connect water and water pipes, heating pipes, laying tiles, repairing various small appliances, and farming. I asked him, Dad , how can you do anything? He said, this is life."
Many viewers think of Yu Hua's novel "Alive".
Yu Hua wrote in the preface: "As a word, 'alive' is full of power in our Chinese language, and its power does not come from shouting or attacking, but to endure, to endure the responsibilities that life entrusts to us. , to endure the happiness and suffering, boredom and mediocrity that reality has given us." This exposition of "living" is also more appropriate to describe the miserable and persevering life of the second uncle.
In the video, there are many "golden sentences" suitable for Internet dissemination, such as: "The happiest person in the world is the one who does not need to be responsible for others, and the second happiest person is the one who never looks back." Who doesn't regret it? People often find out when they are about to die. The biggest regret in life is regretting the regret of the past. Regret is the foreplay of the rise of the protagonist in the movie, and the poison that sinks people in life. "
The popularity of the video has also sparked some controversy.
Some commentators have doubts about the authenticity of the story and characters, and some believe that these golden sentences are no different from the popular "chicken soup" on the Internet, and the portrayal of the character "Second Uncle" also romanticizes suffering and consumption suffering. .
Chen Yaya, a scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the "Second Uncle" video expresses a positive attitude towards life in the face of suffering, a kind of resilience in life, and the interpretation of the second uncle's story is also rich in directions, inspirational, optimistic and so on. In her view, although it is the author's subjective interpretation, it does not deliberately glorify suffering.
She analyzed to Yicai that many people are overwhelmed at the moment of the epidemic, and the reason why the video is so popular may be related to the anxiety and depression of many people: "On the one hand, they are sluggish and have lost the courage to fight, on the other hand, they are very Because of their anxiety, they don’t want to be depressed, so they urgently need to see a positive life example like the second uncle, and because of the relative embarrassment of his life, this example is not a threat to them and will not deepen their anxiety.”
In Chen Yaya's view, the "Second Uncle" video is different from other popular short videos in terms of form: "Generally, short videos are relatively short, and they are all intercepting a section of life, not like this video about such a long process, a bit It’s like a documentary.” She also pointed out that documentaries generally take a period of time to be filmed, and many of the content in this video are supplemented by photos, and some of the shots are shot after the fact, so it can’t be called a documentary: “If you compare it with words, it’s a little bit different. Like nonfiction writing, but if it's true, how much it's true, it's unclear."
Before the release of "Second Uncle", Yi Ge guessed that he was a popular science UP master and had 1.35 million fans at station B. On November 15, 2020, he released the first video "Legends of the Provinces in Contemporary China", and 35 articles have been released so far. Videos are not very productive, but there are 11 videos with more than one million views.
"The number of broadcasts exceeded 13 million, and the number of broadcasts of "Understanding Money Laundering in 6 Minutes" exceeded 8 million.
Yi Ge guessed that his real name was Tang Hao, and he used to be a high school history teacher in the online course institution Yuanfudao.
The short videos he creates often contain a large amount of information, and he conducts popular science in a humorous and stern way, with clear logic, simple explanation and interesting.
However, in terms of characters, stories, and styles, "Second Uncle" is quite different from other videos. It is not popular science, but more like a biography of characters.
Some netizens suggested to let the second uncle go live on the short video platform, and Yi Ge guessed and responded: "Second uncle lived half his life earnestly, and I shared the second uncle's story. Everyone is a little touched after listening to it. The three together are a beautiful thing. A small story, a good story should have a good ending. Haven’t there been many good stories that have been unfinished in recent years? Let the second uncle live quietly with grandma in that small mountain village, that is the most beautiful story in this story. Happy ending."