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"is it unworthy for a second-year student to watch a dating variety show?"

the dating variety show "signal of love 7" has recently returned with a bang, but this time what broke the circle was not the appearance and romantic love of the male and female guests, but the controversy caused by the selection of guests.

after the men and women looking for love gathered in the heart-beating house, one of the guests, weng qingya, started the conversation and asked everyone which city they liked the most. tomo, who graduated from northumbria university, said, "i like...southampton." oscar, another graduate from the uk and hong kong, immediately followed up, "i also like...manchester."

southampton became a hot topic on the internet for a while.

however, as the audience gradually dispersed, the casting of the guests for the love variety show sparked discussions in the industry.heartbeat》series of guests’ resumes, it is found that the content of international students in this program is increasing, and it can even be directly renamed "signals of international students".

a large number of media outlets have begun to criticize dating variety shows, asking questions such as "are second-rate people unworthy of variety shows?" and "why do dating variety shows also require academic qualifications?" this has given rise to the public's call for "second-rate dating variety shows."

so,is the "second-tier romance variety show" feasible? why are amateur variety shows, which should be the closest to ordinary people, gradually floating? is this change good or bad?lengyan will take you to talk about it today.

if you don't have a high degree, don't come to variety shows

amateur variety shows are getting further and further away from the general public, and this is most directly reflected in their academic qualifications.

taking the "heartbeat" series as an example, the guests' academic qualifications are mainly from double first-class universities or returnees, and only 1-2 places are reserved for "second-class universities" in each season.heart 6》there is also "monkey sister" hou siyi, who graduated from tianjin university of science and technology, a second-tier university, and table tennis player cheng jingqi who belongs to another training system.

in "heartbeat 7", the lowest academic qualifications are from non-key universities. although the guangzhou academy of fine arts where male no. 4 li dinghao studied is an art school, it is one of the "eight major art academies" and the admission threshold is not low.

tencent video is not the only one that is competing for academic qualifications. youku's "20-year-old" season 4 has as many as six international students, including those from overseas institutions such as the university of bristol, the university of southampton, and nanyang technological university. iqiyi's "i like you, too" season 5 has five returnees from michigan state university, shih hsin university, university of california, san diego, king's college london, and columbia university.

intuitively speaking, love and education are still not directly related. the educational threshold has been rolled up to this point.the situation of workplace variety shows is even more "suffocating".in the recently aired sixth season of "the heart-stirring offer", eight interns competed for two internship positions in hong kong law firms. these eight guests are not only graduates from prestigious universities, but also include a top scorer in the college entrance examination and a super student who ranked 11th in the province in liberal arts.

in the past few seasons of the "offer" series, there were still older interns and interns from second-tier universities, but this season's elite content directly exceeded the "one in a million" level. such a mediocre lineup makes it almost impossible for ordinary audiences to find any empathy or sense of substitution in these amateurs.

a high level of education brings a second sense of “suspension”.the living environment of the amateur guests is too far away from that of ordinary audiences.

in the "heartbeat" series of non-job-related love, the guests work during the day and return to their cabin to date at night. their impressive resumes have destined them to work in better units than most ordinary people. the leading female character in "heartbeat 6", fan yilan, has bachelor's and master's degrees from prestigious european and american universities, and became a management trainee at the head office of a bank at the age of 24; li yumei, who graduated from renmin university of china, was an intern at a private equity investment firm at the age of 23.

this makes most of the modern "malos" who self-deprecatingly say "unemployed upon graduation" and "3,000 yuan for 996 work and one day off". they all graduated from college in their 20s, but they are both successful in work and love, while they have checked the recruitment software 800 times and still don't even have an interview opportunity.

workplace variety shows have a stronger sense of elite narrative, and the experiences of amateur guests are even more out of reach.

《offer6although most of the guests in the show are still postgraduate students, their internship resumes are already very impressive. some of them edited books with their mentors, and some have long-term internship experience in hong kong law firms or overseas. for ordinary people, this experience has nothing to do with them.

although these interns also have to squeeze into public transportation, work overtime, and live in tiny pigeon coops, their future is one of bitterness before sweetness. the program also said that "hong kong barristers' hourly wages are calculated in tens of thousands." but looking back at the current workplace environment, the future of more ordinary people is hanging by a sword of damocles called the "35-year-old threshold."

the third level of "suspension"the ultimate goal of the guests, this is even more obvious in workplace variety shows.

from the legal season to the medical season and then back to the legal season, "lawyer" is already a relatively elite profession. "offer6" adds more to this and moves the story to the hong kong legal world. the goal of the eight interns is to become "barristers", or what is called "big lawyers (litigation lawyers)" in hong kong dramas.

the entire legal system in hong kong is different from that in the mainland, and barristers are also different from the lawyers familiar to the chinese people. they have more initiative in the courts, and the substitute lawyer himself admitted that there has to be some performance in the courts.

more importantly, hong kong lawyers have to speak in english during lawsuits, while the main audience of the "offer" series is mainland audiences, who rarely need an english environment, not to mention that lawsuits involve a lot of professional terms. this undoubtedly raises the threshold for watching the program. there is no sense of immersion and no reference, and the distance from the audience is getting farther and farther.

the combination of academic qualifications, experience and purpose brings about a fourth sense of suspension:the surreal nature of amateur variety shows: romance variety shows have become like sweet pet dramas, with handsome men and beautiful women as the guests, all of whom come from good families and work hard, but they just have nothing to do with us ordinary people. workplace variety shows, especially this season's "offer6", are like hong kong legal dramas, with several barristers walking and talking in style, but from the audience's perspective, they don't seem like "real people" who would appear around them, but like "characters" in a tv show.

amateur variety shows, a kind of high-quality human content

why are amateur variety shows becoming more and more versailles? lengyan believes that it is unfair to simply blame the platform and the production team for being out of touch with reality. there are multiple factors that have led to the current state of variety shows featuring acquaintances.

first, yesthe “demise” of celebrity variety shows.

if you are a veteran variety show fan, you will find that there are fewer and fewer "super luxurious variety shows" that invite many big stars, and the platforms are more inclined to the combination of "1 top star + several mid-level stars".

on the one hand, the announcement fees of big stars are high, and in the current era of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, "super luxurious variety shows" are no longer so cost-effective; on the other hand, the problem of "star guest labor shortage" has not been alleviated. in the past four or five years,da zhangwei、zhou shen、wang sulongthe fact that the old ones are still the darlings of variety shows shows that the training system for variety show stars is not yet mature, and there are only a few stars who are available and easy to use.

therefore, amateur variety shows, especially reality shows, have assumed the functions of celebrity variety shows in the past to some extent. "high-quality humans" are the most direct means of attracting audiences. appearance and education are a way of attracting people. who doesn't like to see beautiful faces and smart brains? these guests with outstanding resumes and good looks are the "stars" among ordinary people.

it is also worth noting that, whether it is a dating variety show or a career variety show, most of them were produced around 2016-2018. at that time, elite narratives were still very popular, and there were many international students in "heartbeat 1". but at that time, no one felt that it was "humiliating second-tier universities". instead, they praised the excellence of the guests.

secondly,related to the country where the model is introduced.

the "heartbeat" series and the "offer" series are both based on the korean model. koreans define this type of program as a "drama-style variety show". since it is a drama, it must have a "surreal" part, and the most intuitive male and female guests must have at least one particularly eye-catching and outstanding feature. in the recently aired silver-haired love variety show "last love", grandparents with an average age of 58 also took the route of "elderly idols". in korea, this type of variety show is also another way to debut.

finally,the psychological mechanism issues of the participating guests.

can making a "second-rate variety show" really save the variety show market? lengyan thinks it may not be the case.

to be in reality shows means exposing yourself to the camera, which actually means giving up some of your privacy. when you give up your privacy, you have to accept the judgment of the outside world. facing the scrutiny of the public, the elites are relatively more comfortable than the "second-tier college students", or they enjoy this kind of attention more.

because elites have outstanding conditions in all aspects, they have a strong desire to show off in front of the public. the two male guests of "heartbeat 7" suddenly spoke english, which is related to this hidden desire to show off. they seem to be pretending, but they are not against showing themselves in front of the camera, and they will even take the initiative to create memes in order to attract attention.

what about ordinary people? they call themselves "rat in the gutter", go crazy and make comments online, and try their best to reduce their presence in real life, hoping that no one will notice them. expose themselves to netizens and be judged? i believe that most "second-tier" students do not have the courage to do so.

indeed, this year's comedy variety shows have a high content of "secondary books", such as "comedy conference stand-up season"fu hang, and often take the initiative to cue themselves that they have “low education” and “i’m from a junior college”, but the nature of comedy variety shows is different from workplace variety shows and dating variety shows. it focuses more on competition, and the proportion of reality shows is not that high.

finding a balance between fantasy and reality

objectively speaking, the entire public opinion field has been anti-elitism since the second half of 2022. netizens deconstruct elites, ridicule authority, and use them as material for playing with abstraction. if variety shows overemphasize elitism, it will certainly arouse the disgust of the audience.

lengyan believes that for amateur variety shows,"high-quality humans" are still the key to capturing audiencesif it is really replaced by "ordinary men and women", unless their personal stories are very contagious, it is actually difficult for the audience to be attracted by people who are similar to themselves. rather than saying that the audience wants to watch "second-rate variety shows", it is better to say that everyone wants to see more down-to-earth and down-to-earth content. in other words, the content presented by the program,it can make the audience feel that "it's related to me".

this year, "emotional value" is a hot concept in the entire content product market. whether it is a drama or a variety show, they all emphasize "satisfying the audience's emotional value" and "starting from the audience's emotions." what is emotional value? simply put, it isit can make people empathize, make people relate to others, and also allow people to see some solutions to their own difficulties.

so how can we eliminate the sense of suspension in today's amateur variety shows while ensuring "high-quality humans"? perhaps changes can be made in the following three aspects.

first, the participating guests can be elites,but the content of discussion and the goals pursued should be relevant to ordinary people.

the "offer" series has always been an elite narrative, but why did the first season become the white moonlight in the hearts of many people? in addition to the "first love complex", it is also because the events it discusses are understandable to ordinary people.

a simple comparison is that the first case of "offer 1" is "beauty live rewards". the anchor turned on the beauty filter and received huge rewards. is it a scam? this is what many viewers will experience in real life. the first case of "offer 6" is a bitcoin dispute. the buyer said that his money was used to buy a car, but it ended up flowing into a third party. there are far fewer people playing bitcoin than watching live broadcasts and rewards, and the bitcoin dispute is still discussed under the framework of hong kong law.

in "offer 1", lawyers went to the countryside to provide legal aid and truly solved the problems of the villagers. moreover, the problems encountered by the villagers were also very universal and of reference significance to the audience. the problem with this season's "offer 6" is that the entire legal system of hong kong and the mainland is different. no matter how "deeply involved" it is, it is just a "tvb legal drama" for mainland audiences.

second, in addition to appearance and academic qualifications,more dimensions can be included when selecting guests, which can also eliminate the audience's aversion to elitist narratives.

the "heartbeat" series has had a high content of overseas returnees since the first season, but the remarks made by two men this season became the fuse that ignited the public opinion field. the root cause was that the two men's little thoughts, which could easily be understood as wanting to show off, caused the audience to rebel.

fan yilan from the last season of "heartbeat 6" is also a returnee. she has a good internship unit and is also known to be a second-generation rich. however, she is very popular among the audience because she is humorous and straightforward. she is nicknamed "big girl" by many viewers. she returns to the heartbeat house every day with a classy look on her face, which makes many viewers say "play me". so the audience is not annoyed by the elites, but by "pretentious people".

or, to be more direct, take "surrealism" to the extreme. the korean love variety show "love in the sky" observes the emotions of fortune-tellers and sorcerers. although this type of profession is also far away from the audience, because it is far enough away, it can use curiosity to attract the audience.when making observation programs, being "half an inch off the ground" is more deadly than being "out of touch with reality."

third,the right people to match the right content.

brain variety shows are almost always attended by elites, and no one thinks it is wrong, because in the minds of the audience, brain variety shows are games for people with high iqs, and the source of satisfaction for everyone is the excitement of the masters fighting each other. however, love variety shows are different from workplace variety shows. some viewers have the need to use them as "life references", and some people even make summaries on social platforms, such as how the male and female guests in love variety shows pursue love, and how the interns in workplace variety shows level up and fight monsters.

based on this, perhaps while ensuring appearance, the standards in other aspects can be slightly lowered, or the academic qualifications can be more down-to-earth, or the worries of the guests can be more common, or the goals they ultimately achieve can be universal. for example, can workplace variety shows go beyond top professions such as lawyers and doctors and turn their attention to professions that have relatively lower barriers to entry for the audience to understand?

in short, at a time when "emotional value" is in vogue, variety show content must still achieve at least one point:"it's about me". it allows people to empathize and empathize, and see the outlets and solutions to their own problems through the choices and growth of the guests. otherwise, if we just keep on following the elite narrative, it will turn from a "drama-style variety show" into an "amateur tv series". why don't the audience chase after better-made tv series?