It’s not so much a hit overnight, it’s better to say that there are early signs.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “xinmouls” (ID: xinmouls), author: Ya Ting, editor: Qimu.
Among the ten most popular cities for travel on May 1st this year, Changsha ranked tenth, which has basically achieved its reputation as an Internet celebrity city.
From the big data of the May Day trip, the average price of air tickets with Changsha as the destination is as high as more than 900 yuan, of which Beijing-Changsha, Haikou-Changsha, Xi’an-Changsha, Kunming-Changsha, and Shanghai-Changsha are the most popular Five routes. Train tickets are even harder to find. More than 100 high-speed trains (motor trains) sent from Guangzhou to Changsha on May 1 were all sold out before the holiday. Wuyi Square, Changsha Railway Station, and Hisense Square are the areas with the highest reservations. The prices of hotels in a few kilometers around Wuyi Square have all been 2-3 times higher than usual.
In fact, the popularity of Changsha is far more than that. The number of appointments in Yuelu Mountain and Orange Island is full every day during May Day. Wen Heyou queues for more than 20,000 numbers in a single day, and Cha Yan Yue Se is a family team. According to the “2021 “May 1st” Golden Week Travel Big Data Report”, among the popular tourist cities, Chongqing, Changsha, and Guangzhou have become representative cities for night travel, and the lively nightlife also adds a strong color to Changsha’s Internet celebrity background. pen.
“Fighting Dali, kicking Xiamen”, how did Changsha, the dark horse that ran out of central Hunan, turned itself into an Internet celebrity city? Changsha, which relied on “net celebrities” out of the circle, is in “pleasant consumption” How long can it last? Based on the consideration of the above issues, this article will take Changsha as an example to discuss the other side of the “net celebrity” city.
The Internet celebrity gene is hidden
Changsha’s exit from the circle is not so much a hit overnight, it is better to say that there are early signs.
Looking back in the past, you will find that entertainment genes have long been hidden in the background of the city of Changsha. Today, when radio and television are generally declining, the Hunan Broadcasting and Television Administration has relied on Hunan Satellite TV to support the sky in the satellite TV field. The trump card programs “Happy Camp” and “Everyday Upward” are very popular. Hunan Satellite TV takes root in Changsha, and welcomes a group of people every day. Entertaining stars and a large number of fans have been approved.
In 2008, Hunan Radio and Television launched Mango tv. As a pioneering explorer of online video sites, Mango TV continues to tap the traffic dividends brought by online videos. A series of variety shows launched in the past two years have also played Mango Channel’s own characteristics. Taking the two major IPs of “Star Detective” and “Escape Room” as examples, they directly brought the script killing and escape room industry into flames.
As the original production site of IP, walking in Changsha, you can see escape rooms and script killing halls everywhere. Different from the high housing prices in other cities, every piece of land is an inch of gold. The friendly rental prices in Changsha provide the soil for script killing and room escape. According to statistics, in the prosperous Wuyi Square business district in Tianxin District, Changsha, there are as many as a dozen escape rooms and scripts in one building.Reasoning Hall.
In addition to its strong entertainment, Changsha’s other great tool for attracting young people is its spicy food culture.
As one of the eight major cuisines in China, Hunan cuisine is undoubtedly delicious. The spiciness of Changsha food is different from the fragrance of Chengdu and the hemp of Chongqing. It is the spiciness that goes straight to the five organs and lungs. When you experience the spiciness to the point where your mouth is tingling and your eyes are pantothenic, you can truly appreciate the Changsha cuisine.
There has been a text description about Changsha cuisine on Zhihu: Changsha is a “city on the dinner table”. Every local living in Changsha and tourists stopping in Changsha are a member of the flowing water table—— In the middle of the night, every time a rice noodle shop closes, another rice noodle shop opens; in Changsha, the crayfish and shrimp shells eaten every year can be piled into a Yuelu Mountain; the Chongqing hot pot that swept the country was once broken when it entered the Changsha market…< /p>
Hunan rice noodles, Changsha stinky tofu, sugar oil paba, crayfish, these familiar Changsha delicacies, not only the locals love them for ten minutes, but also attract countless tourists come to travel to check in, Pozi Street, Taiping Old Street, Huang Xing Pedestrian Street and so on are all food districts that foreign tourists must check in.
Picture: Changsha Huangxing Pedestrian Street (Source: Xinmou Photography)
Eating, drinking and having fun are the key words of Changsha tourism. The delicious food and snacks in the fragrance of Shili and the rich and lively entertainment activities are matched with Changsha, a city that never sleeps. The dazzling nightlife of the city attracts batch after batch of young people. People walk into the city. Some netizens once joked that when you come to Changsha, you must have pills in order to have a good time.
Internet celebrity cities are not good enough
The prosperity of the “net celebrity” economy seems to have brought many benefits to the city of Changsha, but where people can’t see it, one can clearly feel the shortcomings.
As soon as I walked into Changsha, I was greeted by the breath of city life, accompanied by chaotic order and noisy environment. The crowded streets are full of people and cars. Whether it is a street or an alley, the roaring car whistle and noisy people will bombard your eardrums 24 hours a day without interruption. You must not be quiet for a while. The underground passage, which is not very spacious, is crowded with flower sellers, jewelry sellers, and fruit sellers, just like parking at any time on both sides of the street.
Although the phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to foreign tourists, But what is certain is that foreign tourists are overcrowding public resources, and locals commuting to get off work has become a kind of suffering. It should be a place for daily leisure and entertainment, but now it is crowded with tourists. It is true that the constant flow of people has brought Changsha a steady stream of economic growth, but when a city’s load burden is too large, Changsha should also consider how to balance the troubles behind the “net celebrity city”.
Secondly, behind the growing reputation of “net celebrities”, the cultural heritage of this city seems to be gradually disappearing.
Changsha, as the source of the development of Hunan culture and the red base, should have been a historical city with both classical culture and modern civilization. But under the cover of “net celebrities”, the cultural connotation of this city is hard to find. In Yuelu Mountain and Juzizhoutou, apart from the crowds and the noisy street market, the cultural flavor is almost imperceptible. The process of queuing, clocking in, and taking pictures is done in one go, and cultural attractions are also used as an online celebrity clocking in. Ground. Under the erosion of commercialization and Internet celebrity economy, the characteristics of Changsha are gradually disappearing.
It should also be mentioned that even though Changsha accepts millions of tourists every day, it cannot keep young people in its own city.
Today, when big data and cloud computing become popular, Changsha obviously lacks the Internet gene compared with the eastern cities where the information technology industry is developed. Young people who dare to venture and fight can’t let go of their hands in Changsha. In an era when major Internet companies are stationed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, the pace of young people has also changed their direction. The friendly housing prices in Changsha may be able to accommodate the tired body of young people, but they cannot accommodate the restless heart of young people.
In the newly announced seventh national census, the total population of Hunan Province was 66.44 million, accounting for 4.71% of the national population, a decrease of 0.19% from 2010. Among them, the population aged 15-59 in Hunan Province accounts for 60.6% of the total population, which is still far behind the national average of 63.35%.
The city where people come and go seems to be so vibrant and full of life forever, but the unavoidable question is how many fresh-blooded young people are left in Changsha when the people are dispersed?
The “net celebrity” brand is unreliable
Remember Xiamen who left the scene sadly?
According to data from the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Xiamen received a total of 3.3261 million tourists during the May 1st holiday in 2021, an increase of 26.3% over the same period in 2019. Among them, the four key scenic spots of Xiamen Gulangyu, Hulishan Fort, Jimei Ao Garden, and Tongan Film and Television City received a total of 323,400 tourists.
Compared with Changsha, this data performance seems a little insignificant. During the May Day period, the two scenic spots of Changsha Yuelu Mountain and Orange Island received 442,600 and 350,100 tourists respectively. Why is Xiamen, the former Internet celebrity, dimmed now? The Xiamen souvenir brand Su Xiaotang is responsible for the marketRen Lizi thinks: “Xiamen is imprisoned by the thinking of small and fresh tourism.”
Xiamen, as the first generation of Internet celebrities, was once famous throughout the country as the “small and fresh city”. At that time, Xiamen, as an island city, had a comfortable and comfortable climate near the tropics. In addition, it was close to Taiwan, and the local culture was mixed with Taiwan’s southern Fujian style. The climate, culture, and geographical location give this city an exotic and unique charm.
Sun, beach, straw hat, wearing a bohemian long skirt, walking on the coast, feeling the coolness of the sea breeze, this scene has made every literary and artistic youth yearn for. However, this fresh feeling of literature and art continues to this day, and it has rarely touched the hearts of most young people. After all, young people now prefer fragmented, fast-paced itineraries, and slow-paced Xiamen lacks a little enthusiasm and passion.
At home, eyes are on the road, and traveling around the world without leaving home is the norm. More and more cities rely on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou to promote themselves, making many travelers online Was attracted to offline. Short videos have caught the Changsha market, but Xiamen, which is a fresher, can’t keep up with the fast-paced pace of short videos.
The departure of Xiamen and the appearance of Changsha are a natural phenomenon, but does this imply Changsha to some extent?
People used to prefer small freshness, but now they prefer to live in the city, what about in the future? No one can say how long people’s love of a style lasts. Changsha, relying on its hot entertainment culture and fast-spreading short videos, has gone from the Internet to reality, and has been promoted to become a new “net celebrity”.
But it is foreseeable that “Internet celebrity” is a false proposition. After all, the flowing internet celebrity city can’t bear the inheritance of heritage.