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【observation on the short video cultural phenomenon】

author: zhao lijin (professor of school of media, northwest normal university)

it is already a routine operation for literature and art to use short videos to improve the communication effect. as an "information device" in the digital age, short videos import various literary and artistic forms such as film and television dramas into the platform's link system and database structure, and use huge user traffic and algorithm mechanisms to accurately distribute and output at high frequency. at the same time, platforms or commercial companies have gradually integrated the production model, aesthetic taste, and business thinking of short videos into other art forms, or directly created "micro" literary and artistic forms such as micro short dramas and micro variety shows. when communication began to turn to the internet, short videos became the main media form, and the "short videoization" phenomenon of the current literary and artistic ecology has become more prominent.

internet users watch music short videos. xinhua news agency

digital literary works become resource information in the database

watching short videos of three to five minutes to catch up with dramas and movies, learning to sing and dance with short video bloggers, and sending little red hearts to wonderful performances... these are the new daily routines of netizens' literary and artistic life in the era of short videos. in the past two years, micro-short dramas have been very popular, and netizens bluntly said that "i can't stop watching them at all." according to the "2023 china short video platform market research report", nearly half of the users watch short videos multiple times a day, and most users watch short videos for an average of more than 1 hour a day. post-00s are particularly fond of watching short videos. singing performances, film and television entertainment and other literary and artistic content are among the most popular among short video users. it is the short video users themselves who have created the "short video" literary and artistic life. countless folk talents have stepped onto the short video stage to share performances comparable to professional standards, and used ancient style songs and dances, cross-dressing shows and other creative ideas to create traffic, so that folk art and intangible cultural heritage skills have attracted attention. the platform shouts the slogan "everyone is an artist" and supports the artistic dreams of ordinary people with technology and traffic. the whole society has jointly created a "short video" literary and artistic life for the masses, which is an unprecedented cultural picture.

from the perspective of the history of art development, different media have formed different artistic languages ​​and styles, which also correspond to different cognition, interaction methods and aesthetic experiences. material media such as canvas and paint are the basis of traditional painting art. poetry, novels, and essays have different ways of organizing text. the emergence of photography and film is inseparable from the invention and progress of film and cameras. material media creates and promotes the development of different arts. at the time of its birth, it also established professional norms and built thresholds from creators, creative institutions and mechanisms. therefore, material media creates art and forms a certain constraint on the creation and dissemination of art.

the emergence of digital technology has transformed the material basis for the creation, storage and dissemination of literature and art. digitally shot movies and tv dramas, paintings, music or dramas presented in audiovisual form, etc., have separated from the original media and become binary numerical data that can be used and processed by computers. multiple artistry is unified by digital artistry, and the difference in de-mediation of materiality has become the textual feature of art in the digital age. after being separated from the material medium, digitized literary and artistic works are stored on computer hard drives or disseminated on the internet, becoming resource information in the database. while preserving the audiovisual expression and cultural organization of the previous media, a new database logic is formed based on the operation of computerized collections to transform, reshape and transform literary and artistic works.

if the traditional art appreciation experience is to read a story or watch a movie from beginning to end, following the chronological order and keeping the timeline intact, then the database logic provides different operations, which divides a seemingly unified text into different, relatively independent parts, and then combines and weaves them at different levels and dimensions. the linear order of movies or other literary works imported into the internet or computers is loosened and broken, and the freedom to reorganize the narrative is obtained due to the disappearance of time, which generates new narrative possibilities outside the narrative time of traditional literary works.

since the beginning of its development, short video platforms have established content production and distribution mechanisms based on database logic. driven by the platform's huge number of users and content demand, "short video" literary and artistic content such as film and television commentary first appeared on mobile phone screens and quickly became popular. since then, short videos have continued to crack the code of digital literary and artistic creation and dissemination on the internet, accurately "grasping" media narratives, contemporary aesthetics, emotional values, user demands, etc., and continuously consolidating support in technology and industry. literary and artistic content and short video formats have rapidly merged and developed rapidly.

the duplication and repetition of short videos will lose artistic originality and authenticity

short videos are "small" but "big". with a small content volume, through content replication and repeated dissemination, they have exploded with the tremendous power to connect social emotions and reconstruct the power relationship of artistic production. short videos, which are as short as a few seconds or as long as a few minutes, have explored a series of narrative and audio-visual routines that are easy to imitate and copy, such as highlighting the dramatic nature of the narrative with reversals and reaching the emotional climax with "explosive points". they have shared the emotions of the public through repeated dissemination.

the 54th statistical report on the development of china's internet, recently released by the china internet network information center, shows that as of june 2024, the number of internet users in my country will be nearly 1.1 billion, and short video users will account for 95.5% of the total number of internet users. at the same time, among the 7.42 million internet applications that were used for the first time by new internet users in the first half of this year, short video applications accounted for 37.3%. based on such a huge user base, every push of a short video, every like or forwarding action, means a network connection between users and users, and users and content. through the extensive participation of user groups, short video content is repeatedly presented, which elevates literary and artistic phenomena and cultural significance to the social level, and users form social emotional resonance in emotional interaction.

with the deepening of re-mediation, many individuals who might not have been able to enter the art production system, and many resources, values ​​and demands that were idle or ignored in the traditional media era have been gradually activated. through network connections, they participate in the practice of short video literary creation and join in the construction of social significance. the production and dissemination of "short video" art has broken through the barriers of art itself, and also participated in the reconstruction of social relations and structures.

the massive spread of short videos is highly dependent on repetition and replication. the platform's content production has huge data resources, with digital technology as the underlying logic, and has formed an effective large-scale production mechanism. in this way, the platform has traffic, technology and other guarantee mechanisms, and guides users to make and forward short videos by capturing hot topics and setting tags. the repetition of content and the typification of form gradually emerge. although the individual identity background, aesthetic taste, knowledge and experience of users vary greatly, and give specific short video content differences, its content production is ultimately more repetitive than creative. boris groys and other media theorists have proposed that unlimited replication in the digital age is a universal feature of art, and cultural products can thus achieve a wider and deeper dissemination purpose.

for example, the "short video" movies or tv series are almost "taking things out of context" to turn literary works into material, stripping them from the original media text and meaning, and various characters have become code names with thousands of holes, such as "the man is called xiaoshuai" and "the woman is called xiaomei". the moment of "short video", movies are no longer movies. movie clips or commentary are just information media, and communication and traffic become the fundamental purpose. short video users who have watched the commentary may not necessarily watch the movie as people expect. there is still a gap and division between short videos and literary works.

moreover, the content of short videos is short, and the smooth sliding of the interface may further shorten the user's viewing time of the content. the compressed narrative, highly purified emotions, and almost no complex discourse methods directly hit the user's pleasure in a direct, sensitive, and immediate way, forming a communication feature with simple meaning and clear intention. the repetition and reproduction of short videos, in turn, exacerbate the superficiality, fragmentation, and homogenization of literary and artistic production. in "art in the age of mechanical reproduction", the german critic benjamin proposed that repetition means the withering of the "aura" of art and the loss of artistic originality and authenticity. as a result, the excessive repetition and reproduction of short video content has always been criticized.

there is still a gap between the media logic and literary and artistic strategies of "short video" and the essence of art and real life

many short video users have a consensus that the more enjoyable it is to watch short videos, the more bored and empty they feel after watching them. short videos are difficult to reproduce traditional aesthetic experiences such as gazing and association, and "short video-like" literature and art cannot inspire artistic imagination and rational thinking. when art dissemination turns to the internet platform, all art needs a short video face pass, and even obscures or replaces the original and complete art. the "short video-like" literature and art has become a crisis. traditional art attempts to arouse human rational consciousness with greater power through sublime experience. in traditional narratives, although each story succumbs to the grand narrative, the author can still take the initiative and have a certain degree of independent power over the narrative, thereby maintaining rational thinking and reflection. however, in the algorithmic black hole of the digital ocean, users even lose the freedom of imagination in the narrative.

moreover, the emphasis on data and algorithms in literary and artistic creation is dissolving the main power of the human spirit. no matter what content production model is adopted, it is ultimately inseparable from data thinking. in the pre-digital era, art used different material media to organize materials. readers or audiences experienced art in different interactive ways and used imagination and association to generate meaning. different artistic experiences and individual abstract mental activities are an indispensable part of artistic creation and expression. as researchers have pointed out, in the digital media era, when media can no longer determine the essential characteristics of artistic creation and artworks, the relationship between users and databases replaces the relationship between artists, audiences and artworks. the traditional and diverse artistic experience no longer exists. how to process data efficiently, diversely and flexibly becomes the primary issue, and human mental activities are replaced by operational behaviors.

in addition, short video platforms use digital technology to reduce the difficulty of content production and copying costs, and rely more on the re-assembly of multiple digital images to generate content. from virtual reality technology to generative artificial intelligence based on large models, the trend of intelligent development is obvious. artistic creation has shifted from artistic fiction of reality to the selection, combination, and collage of multiple digital resources. digital logic shifts the focus of literary and artistic creation to content generation rather than content creation. literary and artistic creation has shifted from indexing reality to indexing digital resources. large model technology optimization replaces the traditional acquisition of artistic literacy and skills. the early doubts about whether artificial intelligence can participate in artistic production have been buried in the wave of rapid iteration and realization of intelligent technology. the powerful function of short videos for daily recording is also becoming a data resource for future narrative generation and a world in future literary and artistic works.

the intervention of complex external factors such as technology may obscure the perspective of artistic phenomena. the confusion of many scholars may be precisely about the essence. the "short videoization" of literature and art is an unstoppable media trend, but in the more macro-literary ecology, the independence and diversity of traditional art are more important and necessary to maintain the health of the literary and artistic ecology. "short videoization" is indeed an effective path for the dissemination of literature and art, but it is not a single and absolute direction, or in other words, not all works of art can be "short videoized". for individuals, short videos cannot replace all artistic forms and aesthetic experiences. art must ultimately care about the development of human spirit and subjectivity, and is related to the expression of reality. the media logic and literary and artistic strategies of the "short videoization" of literature and art are at odds with the essence of art and real life, and we should prevent the gap from becoming a gully that hinders the healthy development of literature and art.