"Electronic mustard" has become the standard meal for young people

Watch videos, TV dramas or variety shows while eating


　　When it’s time for meals, after the takeaway is placed on the table, set up your iPad or mobile phone first, and then eat. This has become a “new trend” for contemporary young people to eat.

Recently, people have invented a new term "electronic mustard" for this kind of "dinner" video or audio podcast.

"Electronic mustard" is beyond the form of video and the content itself, and is a new attribute that many young people have given to video and audio.

　　Although watching mobile phones while eating has always been a living habit strongly opposed by doctors and parents, it is clear that "electronic mustard" has become a standard accompaniment for many young people.

Loyal fans of "electronic mustard"

When you eat, you must watch the video "Dinner"

　　Xiao Deng is a heavy mobile phone user and a loyal fan of "electronic mustard".

When a person goes to the cafeteria to eat, he will choose to wear headphones, watch variety shows or browse station B.

The small mobile phone screen can bring him companionship and a sense of security. Faced with the din of the cafeteria, he prefers to find a corner and watch a 15 to 20-minute video "after dinner", "variety shows, sports highlights, live games, These more entertaining contents are the seasoning of my meal." Xiao Deng said.

　　From "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "The Legend of Miyue" to "Talk Show Conference" and "The Story of Strange Flowers", Xiao Deng and his girlfriend used the time of eating to watch dramas and catch up with updates, "the two have more common topics because of this." Through A total of one kind of "electronic mustard", Xiao Deng changed from the original steel straight man to a "tenth-level psychic".

　　"After the popularization of smartphones, people's lives have become more and more fragmented. You can see many people watching videos on their phones while eating, going to the toilet, and taking the subway." Game anchor Lao Qi believes that the phenomenon of using mobile phones while eating Behavior may have been integrated into our lives earlier, but the term "electronic mustard" was coined by netizens at the moment.

"Electronic mustard" has various flavors

young people have their own preferences

　　Everyone has their own favorite "electronic mustard".

The roommates got together and each took out their mobile phones to eat, with different tastes but without disturbing each other.

Old dramas such as "Wulin Biography", "Zhen Huan Biography" and "Bright Sword" belong to the classic taste of "electronic mustard", which has the characteristics of classic mustard shreds "never get tired of eating". There are similar American dramas "Friends" and Korean dramas "Please Answer 1988" and so on, even if the lines can be recited and recited, you can still never get tired of watching them.

　　"It's my habit to watch "Wulin Biography" while eating. I have watched it many times. Every time I watch it at the end, it seems to have completed a cycle of eating, and it goes back and forth, just like the barrage of the finale said, '(We) see you in the first episode.'" Xiaolu said.

　　Different from student Xiaolu’s preference, her roommate prefers Gongdou dramas such as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" in an infinite loop. The roommate said: "The Legend of Zhen Huan is a crisp 'electronic mustard', and there will be a kind of 'revenge' when swallowing. pleasure."

　　In addition to the classic, there is a fragrance.

Some young people enjoy the slow time of meals, and documentaries are their best choice. The "Aerial Photography of China" and "A Bite of China" series of videos are very popular.

Corresponding to it is "nutrition mustard", domestic and foreign news express, industry inventory, humanities science popularization.

The time for a meal can not only satisfy your hunger, but also get a lot of spiritual food.

There are also some young people who like heavy flavors. Based on the principle of "no food that is neither spicy nor spicy", they have a special liking for the "Ghost Blowing the Lantern" and "Forensic Qin Ming" series.

　　When it comes to the characteristics of "electronic mustard", in addition to the type, many interviewees mentioned the key concept of "duration": "Electronic mustard is generally 'the length of a meal', which reminds people of instant noodles in anime Fan——Different from the 24-minute length of standard anime, each episode of Instant Noodles is 3 to 5 minutes long, and this length of time happens to be close to the time it takes people to brew a bowl of cup noodles. The name of "Instant Noodles" comes from Come here."

　　Xiao He, who likes Japanese comics, said that Instant Noodles was originally an attempt by animation companies to balance the market, costs and production risks. Later, it became popular with the public and became a form of animation with a shorter duration. Seeing that "electronic mustard" has formed a fixed production routine, he believes that this is also very good, and everyone takes what they need.

Web bloggers will give their work

Labeled "Electronic Mustard"

　　Now, many audio and video bloggers will label their works as "electronic mustard" or "fan vlog", and live broadcast anchors will also set up special live broadcasts of meals.

　　Yize is a full-time contracted game anchor. In the first live broadcast, he did not intend to cover the meal time until one day, his loyal fans suggested to him: "Don't download the broadcast during lunch or dinner. This is the peak viewing time. Period.” For fans and profit, Yize decided to change his live broadcast time, every day around 11:00, he would eat his first meal, and then start the live broadcast on time at 11:30, until the end of the next day at 1:00 am.

After the broadcast, he will eat the second meal, and then take the time to rest.

　　In his opinion, the anchors choose to broadcast live at meal times and voluntarily become "electronic mustard", the most important thing is that fans have needs.

As a young man, Yize himself also chooses to swipe his phone and watch videos when eating after downloading the broadcast.

Every time at this time, he changed from an anchor to an audience, getting emotional relaxation from other people's videos and programs.

　　Lao Qi's screen name is "War Thunder Lao 7". He is both a diner and a producer of "Electronic Mustard".

As the game anchor of the game "War Thunder", he named his live video "Electronic food stall opened" a month ago. Later, he saw the word "electronic mustard" and thought it was more appropriate, so he changed it.

　　"What young people essentially need is a kind of spiritual food. Watching variety shows can have happiness, listening to anchors chat can get companionship, and watching game live broadcasts can feel the excitement brought by games at zero cost." Yi Ze said.

dialogue

Eat "electronic mustard"

Realize the reorganization of personal space

　　Wang Chengwei, a young scholar born in the 1980s, is a special professor of the Department of Science and Technology History and Archaeology of the University of Science and Technology of China, and also a scholar of food sociology.

He once wrote the book "When Pufferfish Wants to Eat - An Adventure in Food Sociology", and offered an online celebrity course "Sociology on the Bite of the Tongue", through the story between food and eating methods, from the matter of eating Let's go, start a serious discussion about sociology.

　　Beiqing Daily: What do you think of "electronic mustard"?

　　Wang Chengwei: "Electronic mustard" is a phenomenon in life, we can regard it as a short escape from urban life for young people.

This kind of escaping is not only eating, everyone will also play mobile phones in the bathroom, watch short dramas, variety shows and other videos.

Thinking about it from another angle, young people just want to have a space to escape from.

　　It is generally believed that eating together is a social behavior. The happiest thing we eat is with friends we know very well, because the social connection has been established, and it really doesn’t matter what we eat—drinking with the people you love the most happy.

But social dinners in life are not like this.

Most of the time, strangers and unfamiliar people get together, and for some reason, this meal must be eaten, which involves the concept of "I" in sociology.

　　Beiqing Daily: How do you view the reorganization and control of personal space through "electronic mustard"?

　　Wang Chengwei: For example, a long-running variety show "Talk Show Conference", what should I do if two hours is too long?

Someone on the Internet made a 40-minute pure version for you. If you still feel that the time is too long, you can play it at 2x or even 4x speed. In fact, technology has given us many possibilities to reorganize society and life.

In the environment of eating, you can also reorganize the time: no matter how many days or nights the variety show was recorded, if you cut it into a 2-hour film, you will finish playing it at 4x speed.

This is the personal reorganization of society - when the life outside makes you feel powerless, you can regain a sense of control over your life through the use of technology.

　　The advantage of using old dramas as "electronic mustard" is that you can control the speed of video playback-it depends on how much time you have reserved for your meal, and then choose a suitable video.

In this environment, we can not only reorganize the world, but also bring back the best time in the past through double-speed playback and re-watching classics.

　　Then everyone will set up a Douban group, recommend your favorite "electronic mustard", and get resonance through the recommendation. In this process, new social connections will be generated-everyone has the same hobbies, and we can connect with each other. Online social connections help us generate more avatars, so that people will not be confined to the original uncontrollable environment.

　　Beiqing Daily: What is the mentality of young people who eat "electronic mustard"?

　　Wang Chengwei: Many people charge their batteries while eating "electronic mustard".

I think everyone who enjoys "electronic mustard" is the person with the most positive energy, because after completing this series of baptisms, he can return to a refreshed state, and he can reappear in front of the society: he can entertain another dinner.

　　But in any case, we must leave some space for others. This is his own world. This is what I want to say at the core. "Electronic mustard" is not simply a problem of loneliness, nor can it be simply understood The invasion of technology into our lives.

What I see are more positive things. The word "electronic mustard" itself also has a particularly strong self-deprecation, showing a kind of optimism.

　　Beiqing Daily: How would you name "Electronic Mustard"?

　　Wang Chengwei: When everyone named the bibimbap video "electronic mustard", they also had a kind of self-degradation.

I prefer to call it "the house of time and spirit". This is derived from the famous training place in "Dragon Ball". This special space is a training place that can quickly improve strength. The time inside is different from the outside time. The specific location It is located in the temple, and it may have been practiced in it for a long time, and it took only one day to return to the real world.

In fact, many video games are also "houses of time and spirit". Players need to obtain a kind of spiritual energy in the virtual environment of the game. When everyone shuttles back to the real world, they bring back the spiritual energy.

　　A post-00s person once told us that she and her friends got together to eat, and they played with their mobile phones first, and everyone ate in silence when the dishes were served.

"Together and Alone" written by Sherry Turkle, a professor of sociology of technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), talks about information technology that seems to shorten the distance between each other, but makes us afraid of intimate communication and more isolated .

　　Now many people eat together, and everyone holds their mobile phones to play first, and then communicate when the meal really starts—why is that?

In fact, it’s still for escape—because I’m about to enter a battle state in the next second, and it’s very hard to say every word in line with social norms.

Therefore, sometimes talking about technology invading people's lives may be a bit too much.

In my book "When Pufferfish Wants to Eat", I also wrote that the owner of a ramen shop that eats for one person in Japan will divide the partitions to build an independent space-in fact, what people need is this kind of escape, in social life In today's overabundant world, escaping is actually a luxury we need to enjoy.

Regardless of time or space, "electronic mustard" is actually a small social isolation environment in the broadest sense, allowing us to reorganize society in our own small world.

　　Text in this edition/Reporter Zhang Zhiyi

　　Intern Tian Luyao

　　(Deng Rui also contributed to this article)

　　Coordinator/ Lin Yan Zhang Bin