Analysis of the public opinion characteristics behind the popularity of “Cao County Terrier”.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “quanmeipai” (ID: quanmeipai), author: Lin Wen.
Cao County is on fire. To be precise, Cao County has been on fire for a long time.
The creator of the short video, Sun Shuo, screamed at Caoxian. This “spiritual guy” said “Shandong Heze Caoxian Cowhide 666” and a series of flattering slogans of “The United States sees New York, the world sees Caoxian”, Let this small city located at the junction of Shandong and Henan provinces become the new “center of the universe” on the Internet in just a few days.
To some extent, when Sun Shuo, wearing a big gold chain and fancy dress, uses his unique chest and abdomen resonant roar in the video to endorse Cao County, it will give people a feeling of exaggeration. Sun Shuo also said in an interview on the “Emergency Call” column of the Beijing News that he had been found two or three times, “I hope I will promote more positive things.”
However, the formation and spread of memes has always been unreasonable. Sun Shuo’s exaggerated interpretation of “Cao County 666”, not only did not provoke Cao County to gangsters, but with the enthusiastic second creation of netizens, it quickly entered the field of vision of the people across the country.
In this issue, the All Media Group (ID: quanmeipai) will review the popularity of Cao County and discuss the characteristics of the fission-type spread of “Cao County Terrier” and three derivative issues.
Cao County that emerged from the Internet epidemic
In fact, Sun Shuo’s “Cao County 666” is just an introduction. The core of “Cao County Terrier” comes from the second creation of netizens, such as “Northern Shanghai Guangcao” and “The Earth is divided into the Southern Hemisphere and Cao Hemisphere” I would rather have a bed in Cao County than a house in Beijing. “My first choice is Cao County University and my second choice is Tsinghua University.” “The gap between cities must be seen clearly and objectively evaluated. New York has not been able to catch up with Cao County in recent years. “…
The hot comments on “What the hell is Cao County” are full of Versailles-style exaggerated remarks of “Cao County Niubi 666”. Picture source: Weibo
From May 15th, a “Cao County Bragging Contest” featuring obvious exaggeration, joking, and contrast kicked off on the Internet and quickly spread to mainstream social media and short video platforms.
The trend of the WeChat index of “Cao County”.
For example, there are nearly 100 Cao County related topics on a short video platform. As of May 25, “Cao County”-related short videos have been close to 50,000, and have received more than 1.3 billion views; the comment area of the Cao County Rong Media Center has also been “conquered” by constantly innovating stories.
The number of “Cao County” related topic videos on Douyin is nearly 50,000, and the number of views has exceeded 1.3 billion.
Weibo topic data shows that the number of readings of “What is Cao County” on Weibo has reached 500 million. The peak appeared on May 17, with 320 million readings in a single day.
Image source: Weibo
It was on this day that Cao County Magistrate Liang Huimin walked into the camera and responded positively to the netizens’ concerns about Cao County. She said, “Whether you are positive or ridiculed, everyone is welcome to visit Cao County.”
Take this as a watershed. Previously, it was Cao County in the “Internet Terrier” that dominated the screen. Later, while the “Cao County Terrier” continued to screen, a more real Cao County gradually emerged.
In the next few days, mainstream media increased their attention. For example, the “Guangming Daily” published a review article explaining “Why Cao County is hot”, and the “Qilu Evening News” published an interview with the county magistrate Liang Huimin, except for the central media and Shandong Local media and some other domestic market-oriented media have also paid attention to Cao County’s characteristic industries-Hanfu and coffins. On the Internet, a large number of short video creators have also participated in the discussion and participated in the all-round “knowledge popularization” task of Cao County.
For a time, the exaggerated and ridiculous curtain was gradually torn off. The real Cao County from culture, resources, population, industry and other aspects, 360 degrees without blind spots in front of the public:
Shandong’s most populous county, Shandong’s largest county in labor resources; one of the cradles of ancient Chinese culture, the political, economic and cultural center of the early Shang Dynasty, known as the “China’s No. 1 Capital”; one of the top 100 Taobao counties in the country , A model of counterattack by riding the e-commerce industry; the country’s largest performance clothing base and one of the country’s three 100-billion-level wood product industrial clusters; contracting the “following things” of the Japanese, and 90% of the coffins bought by the Japanese All come from this city…
When a real Cao County was shown in front of people, netizens were surprised to find that Cao County that was blown to the sky was indeed not easy. It’s no wonder that the People’s Daily commented on the popularity of Cao County like this: “The popularity is also for cities that are prepared… The online city display is just a projection of the development of reality.“
How can the “Cao County Terrier” who is swiping the screen make people want to stop?
From Cao County in “Geng” to the real Cao County, this grand carnival reached its climax from May 17th to May 19th. From the interesting side, the “Cao County Terrier” not only exhibits universal memes, but is also different. Its creative space is large, and the duration, depth and breadth of discussion are far beyond other common cases. Specifically, as the main body of an Internet popular stalk, the public opinion characteristics behind the popularity of Cao County this time can be summarized as the following three points:
The exit of “Cao County Terrier” is another victory of meme spreading
Undoubtedly, most out-of-circle events in the Internet age can be attributed to memes. The essence of human beings is a “repeating machine”, and a stalk can become popular to a large extent by imitation. The dissemination of memes is precisely copied and disseminated from small groups by “good people”, and finally spread. This process has three distinct characteristics:
1. Transmission is spontaneous, and there is no compulsion in the entire process of “person-to-person transmission”;
2. The speed of disappearing is often as fast as the speed of becoming popular;
3. The content itself does not pay attention to logic or rationality, and the participants are more focused on participating in the communication process itself.
The “Cao County Terrier” has emerged in an endless stream and carried forward, showing the basic characteristics of Internet memes such as autonomous propagation, short-term outbursts, and imitative participation. These characteristics determine that the public opinion discussion around Cao County is relaxed, interesting, and slightly joking.
There are many official responses and relatively serious voices from the mainstream media in public opinion, but the widespread circumstance is still those bragging stories that are easy to remember and imitate.
More open-ended proposition creation space
Compared with many Explosive Terriers that have appeared in the past, the biggest feature of the “Cao County Terrier” is that it is not a fixed sentence, aBehavior, a posture, a BGM or an emoticon package, but associated creation around a county.
If the dissemination of the smashing memes in the past is to do “fill in the blanks”, then following the trend of “Cao County Territory” is to do an open-ended proposition centered on “Cao County 666”, which has more Broad space for creative play.
If you comb the content of “Cao County Terrier” on the Internet, you will find that some video creators are actually using Shan Dongfang dialect to imitate Sun Shuo’s phrase “Shandong Heze Caoxian Cowhide 666”, which is also funny, but perhaps due to the high degree of repetition. The freshness is not enough, this kind of video has not been out of the circle. Instead, those open-ended bragging stories have brought online attention to Cao County to an unprecedented height.
Whoever speaks more exaggeratedly and who expresses more interestingly has formed a “comparison” effect to a certain extent, which further stimulated the creative enthusiasm of netizens. Open-ended topics also give greater creative freedom, allowing related paragraphs and witty words to continue to derive.
Image source: Netizens’ brain-hole creation collection
The mirror image forms a two-way stimulus online and offline
There is another difference between “Cao County Terrier” and many previous Explosive Terriers. Cao County is a real county, and the description of its virtuality will eventually be reflected in the exploration of its authenticity.
The real Cao County and the mirror image in “Geng” reflect each other, forming a two-way stimulus online and offline.
On the one hand, the “Cao County Terrier” has brought the spotlight and massive attention to Cao County, allowing this small county to become the “universal center” of the Internet overnight, and have the opportunity to show itself; on the other hand, the real Cao County is nearby. The earth-shaking changes that have been made in the past 20 years have also led to the development of characteristic industries. This has allowed the media and self-media who subsequently went to the field to explore new creative materials.
For example, as the country’s largest paulownia trading center, Cao County’s wood processing products are exported overseas. Cao County alone is the most famous town for coffins. There are 2,569 wood processing companies and more than 5,000 self-employed. The archways of “Wood Industry Company” and “Wood Industry Processing” can be seen everywhere.
In other words, the “Cao County Terrier” is not as groundless as other fast-deteriorating memes. The “Cao County Terrier” is like haha.Like a mirror, it uses exaggerated techniques to fragmentally map a real small county town. Its exaggerated narrative is a selective filtering and creation of the city’s slicing, and it also confirms the new media, especially short videos, in shaping the image of the city. In terms of strong performance tension.
What kind of cold thinking does the real Cao County bring?
In addition to becoming a source of happiness, the “Cao County Terrier” has also triggered some serious discussions. After extending from Cao County in “Geng” to real Cao County, more media expressed their concerns. In a nutshell, the cold thinking derived from the “Cao County Territory” includes at least the following three topics: one is the interpretation of the emotions behind the explosion; the other is the inevitability contained in the contingency of Cao County’s popularity; and the third is how to keep Cao County on fire. And how to build a sustainable “new first-line” internet celebrity town.
Is “entertainment” or “sentiment” behind the banter?
After the “Cao County Terrier” became popular, people couldn’t help but ask, why is this eclectic way of expression so popular? On this topic, there are three main opinions in public opinion:
The first view is that this is just an external manifestation of the young generation’s tendency to entertain to death in the context of self-media. Comments holding this view are scattered in the comment section of each related topic.
Secondly, some people also reflected that the joke of scramble for the first and the second contains the psychology of trying to eliminate the gap. For example, Caijing pointed out in the article “Behind the “Cao County Terrier” is the dignity and self-expectations of 1,800 counties in China”, “The popularity of the “Caoxian Terrier” is firstly due to the customers of certain short video platforms. The sinking brought about a resistance and counterattack by the county people to the public issues of urban society’s influence on the Internet.”
Cao County Mayor responded with pride. Picture source: Cao County Financial Media
Third, some people lamented Behind the “Cao County Terrier” is the spirit of humor and the feeling that “the hometown has changed a lot”. For example, Liang Huimin, the mayor of Cao County, pointed out in an interview, “There are at least two meanings in this. One is that everyone is very concerned about the information from their hometown and the development of their hometown, and the other is that the changes in their hometown are indeed great, even It’s kind of hard for everyone to believe.”
Cao County walkWhat inevitability is contained in the contingency of red?
Why is it Cao County? Although in the era of mass media, everyone has a camera, and everyone can become an internet celebrity. However, the popularity will not be unreasonable, and the world in the haha mirror will not be born out of nothing. The contingency of Cao County’s popularity must contain certain inevitability.
The “People’s Daily” commented that “only those cities that really focus their energy on development plans have the basis to stand out; only those who work hard for the development of their hometowns can support a city’s growth and development. Win a place on the Internet.”
Therefore, the general view is that these inevitabilities include, but are not limited to, the strong local e-commerce atmosphere, the deeply rooted Internet thinking, and the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in the past 20 years by taking advantage of the e-commerce industry’s “hit ride”.
In an interview with the Beijing News, Cao County Magistrate Liang Huimin pointed out, “Why is it hot? It has a lot to do with our keenness, quicker contact with new things, and Internet thinking. Our e-commerce start is relatively It started early in 1997, and it also boosted our development at that time.” And County Magistrate Liang himself also appeared on the live broadcast to bring goods to the local Hanfu industry.
How to keep the popularity of the Internet celebrity town represented by Cao County?
Cao County is unique, but as a real observation sample, Cao County has obvious representativeness. It is one of the countless small counties on the vast land of China that are undergoing earth-shaking changes under the guidance of the rural revitalization strategy.
In these small counties, some produce half of the world’s underwear, some produce native products that are sold in hundreds of countries, and some have thousands of years of intangible cultural heritage and outstanding craftsmen.
Based on this, Caijing emphasized in the article “Behind the “Cao County Stem”, the dignity and self-expectations of 1,800 counties in China”: “China’s hope is not only in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. More in these counties where most outsiders probably don’t know their names.”
For this reason, how to take advantage of the east wind of the Internet to keep the Internet celebrity town represented by Cao County in flames has become an important issue in the later stage of the development of public opinion. Related articles discussed this topic from many aspects, such as “practicing internal skills”, “telling a good story”, “building a good financial media”. Obviously, this is a systematic project, but also a gradual process.
Shen Yang, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, once summarized in his paper “How Internet Celebrity Cities Continue to Be Popular”: “Cities gather because of people, they thrive because of gathering, and they are named because of their prosperity. Famous people, Image and brand. The image and brand of a city contains many elements such as geographical environment, architectural landscape, commercial trade, public value, etc…. If a city can activate the inner self of residents and touristsContent production can take the road of Internet popularity and become the focus of everyone’s attention. “
The above three points come from the cold thinking of hot public opinion, covering the judgment of netizens’ emotions, the cultivation of network awareness, and the systematic planning of the construction of emerging towns in the context of the information age. From this perspective, the “Cao County Terrier” in public opinion is both a funny joke and a serious issue. Even if it becomes a past tense tomorrow, the meaning at this moment is still worth pondering.
Reference link:
1. County Mayor of Cao County: Cao County’s popularity has a lot to do with the local people’s Internet thinking
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0FTMC4TdZO1drWwQ49Q0Hg
2. Behind the “Cao County Terrier” is the dignity and self-expectations of 1,800 counties in China
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/s0HT-dVXYQ23rMj9pzqBng
3. “Beijing, Shanghai, Guangcao”, “I would rather have a bed in Cao County than a suite in Beijing”… “Internet celebrity” Cao County 666 why?
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jpKZ3_3oczUsa5JPHc5ObA
4. Shenyang. How does the Internet celebrity city continue to be popular[J]. People’s Forum,2019(30):130-131