Cao Wanjiang exploded, and the appreciation of ugliness was also ＂rolled up＂？

Original Risep New Weekly

The movie Countdown tells the story of a musical composer struggling to pursue his dream.

While some "saliva songs" without musicality and nutrition encroach on the audience’s ears, many independent musicians’ carefully prepared albums have no interest, no publicity channels, no audience and no income.

The music library of brainwashing divine comedy in Chinese music scene has been updated again. After "You love me, I love you, and it’s sweet in Mi Xue Ice City" last year, a new generation of online divine comedy "You’re getting married" opened its own era.

With 840 million single plays, 1W+ Yuncun single comments and dozens of popular adaptation versions, the singer Cao Wanjiang enjoyed superstar treatment with this song, and the popularity remained high in Tik Tok. Various adaptations with its lyrics "You are getting married, the groom is not me" as the female parent supported half of the short video BGM.

The video received 500,000 likes. /Tik Tok screenshot

On the Internet, some people put his name together with Pang Mailang, a former internet celebrity, and called him "Pang Mailang’s enemy".

Indeed, we can see some familiar shadows in Cao Wanjiang. Born in the grass roots, dressed simply, speaks nonstandard Mandarin, and has no skills. It is all emotional singing techniques, which is what they have in common. In the Internet age, they all went from obscurity to the spotlight because of a widely spread divine comedy, and were examined by netizens.

"The loss of Cao Wanjiang in the Chinese music scene is like the loss of a bicycle by a fish." This is the ridicule of netizens. This nonsense and absurd online buzzword frequently appeared under his comments and gradually became one of his personal labels.

Regarding his popularity, some people say that "this is a counterattack of grassroots culture to the mass stage", while others say that "this is the product of the network ugliness culture". Under all kinds of labels, controversy and enthusiasm coexist.

Netizen’s comment: If you are willing to spend an hour getting to know him, then you will waste an hour.

With a lyric, it became popular in Tik Tok.

There is a law in rice circles called "little red depends on holding, and big red depends on life".

The paradox of the Internet age is that some people can’t win the popularity even if they are strong, while some people can win the popularity in Tik Tok only by one lyric.

Cao Wanjiang’s popularity is largely attributed to a group of netizens who are keen on playing with stalks. They have become the most important part of this viral communication incident. The overwhelming spoof video has made the popularity of "Cao Wanjiang" increase exponentially. In this sense, Cao Wanjiang seems to have been selected by netizens.

Cao Song Conqueror, the person selected by netizens, John Wan’s contribution to the Chinese music scene is an unremarkable but widely used lyric, which is almost ubiquitous.

Friendly reminder, don’t turn on this song before going to bed. /network picture

It appeared in the famous scene in Empresses in the Palace-

The dream linkage between Zhen Xue and Cao Xue. /Empresses in the Palace Episode 55

Also appeared in the front line of entertainment gossip news—

When Big S remarried, the immoral literature was found in Wang Xiaofei comment area. /Weibo screenshot

Even homophonic terriers are not immune—

It is obvious that the single repetition of words can not satisfy the interest of netizens, and the adaptation derived from lyrics provides a steady stream of new materials.

Relying on the talents of netizens, Cao Wanjiang officially entered the Chinese music scene and cooperated with Jay Chou, JJ Lin, Bruno Mars and other superstars. The song of Blue and White Porcelain with the lyrics of You’re Getting Married became a new song "Green Wedding Porcelain", "Flower Sea" became "Marriage Sea" and "Say Good Happiness" became "Say Good Marriage" without touching porcelain.

Netizen: "Jay Chou can be the original singer or the plaintiff." /Tik Tok screenshot

Another characteristic of online spoof culture is to satirize and exaggerate the object, so netizens touch the porcelain singer himself after touching the songs.

The classic "touching porcelain literature" includes: Jay Chou/Jacky Cheung’s present achievements can only be called "Little Cao Wanjiang".

However, this "touching porcelain action" seems to be somewhat stale after Cao Wanjiang himself joined. The netizen found that his personal profile page said, "In 2021, he debuted in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province with the song" You are getting married ",and was called the three kings of China together with Andy Lau and Jay Chou, among which Cao Wanjiang was the first of the three."

This move caused a lot of abuse. /Tik Tok screenshot

Neil Pozmann mentioned in "Entertainment to Death": "Here, all public discourses are increasingly appearing in the form of entertainment and become a cultural spirit."

Obviously, the online carnival in the pan-entertainment era has not come to an end. Just last week, Cao Wanjiang appeared in the captain’s concert tour as a guest. The scene was cheered and the response was enthusiastic. From a small town in Guizhou, he stepped onto a bigger stage and was illuminated by more magnesium lights.

Nutritious songs are popular,

Seriously writing songs, but no one listens?

How long does it take for a song to be born?

The documentary "The Secret of Music" directed by Liang Huan once gave an answer.

From the conception of lyrics to recording, mixing and mastering, the whole production process of the single "If Maybe" took two months, during which he invited ten heavyweight musicians to participate in the production of the song and polished it carefully. In their view, music is the art of sound, and the choice of guitar timbre and the position where each chord falls are all particular, because this will affect the temperament of the whole song.

Top-notch music production team, expensive equipment and more than 200,000 production expenses are the stories behind the song "If Maybe".

Yu Zeng, a music producer, has worked with singers such as Eason Chan and Zhou Xun. /The Secret of Music

Compared with the speed at which a professional producer can produce a song in two months, Cao Wanjiang is really talented in music. It has only been more than 20 days since March, and he has released seven original singles with varied styles, including electronic music, rock and rap. Although he failed to continue the super-high popularity of "You’re getting married", the amount of praise and playback is still quite amazing.

In the MV of Fish and Bicycle, he sat on the roadside with rape flowers and sang with a supportive pillow. His lyrics were simple, full of emotion and no skills.

Cao Wanjiang’s entry into the Chinese music scene is another masterpiece. /Tik Tok screenshot

Compared with the two, it is inevitable to remind people of a word-"bad money drives out good money". While some "saliva songs" without musicality and nutrition occupy the audience’s ears, many albums carefully prepared by independent musicians are ignored.

There is no publicity channel, no audience and no income, which is the status quo of most independent musicians. Losing money to make music is the normal state of the industry. According to the 2019 China Musicians Report, 47% musicians earn less than 2,000 yuan a month, while 26% musicians earn between 2,000 and 4,000 yuan a month. This figure obviously cannot support expensive equipment and recording studio rental fees. Therefore, many musicians with dreams often lose money to make music, and arrange performances while working to earn money to support the band.

Liu Yiwei once interviewed a band in Chengdu on the show. They admitted that they couldn’t make a band without money, hoping to earn some money to improve the equipment. When Liu Yiwei asked about the input-output ratio of making music, their answer was "Don’t lose too much".

The status quo of independent musicians. /Variety "Can I make you a meal? 》

"Good songs don’t go out, but local songs spread thousands of miles."

Under such a music ecology, "Chinese music pill" has become the mantra of many music fans. They ridicule the current situation of the music industry, miss the era when the superstar commanded the music traffic, and are also looking for the answer-who made "Cao Wanjiang" popular?

An ugly review?

In the documentary "The Secret of Music", there is a saying: "Music is not competitive, and music is only good and bad, with or without heart."

Then the question is, is Cao Wanjiang’s song good or not?

A piece of nonsense literature by netizens tells the truth: "His songs are good to listen to, if not ugly."

The evaluation of some netizens. /Netease Cloud "You are getting married" song review

This is an involution of appreciating ugliness. While the same beauty causes aesthetic fatigue to the audience, another involution is taking place. In the noisy Internet environment, a lot of information from unknown sources is flooding our eyes, and only those information that is exaggerated, shocking and curious enough can capture our attention for the first time.

"As an aesthetic object, ugliness is more profound than beauty." Ten melodious songs may not impress the audience as much as a harsh song, and they are more "recognizable".

Every element in Cao Wanjiang’s songs is quite different from the music in our cognition, such as the singing method of pretending to be out of tune, the original ecological MV picture and the earthy lyrics. Every time we press the play button, it will bring a direct shock to the soul, and this emotional stimulation not only deepens the audience’s sensory cognition, but also brings psychological pleasure to some extent.

Some scholars believe that in the entertainment new media events, "appreciating ugliness" brings people pleasure far above aesthetics and curiosity.

Liao Wen defined "appreciating ugliness" in "Psychological Evolution from the Perspective of Appreciating Ugliness"-

Appreciating ugliness is a subtle psychological behavior. People often have a special psychology called "emotional contradiction" with mixed feelings for ugly things, which will produce a sense of pleasure. Aesthetic subjects will have feelings of surprise, fear or disgust for the process of "appreciating ugliness", and they will be vented, purified and cultivated from the psychological behavior process of "appreciating ugliness".

A few years ago, Brother giao participated in a famous rap program. /"China New Rap"

From contempt to following the trend, Cao Wanjiang was not the first person to be pushed into the spotlight in the era of pan-entertainment. His popularity inevitably reminds people of the familiar faces on the Internet: Brother giao, who plays an important role in the local video industry, Teacher Guo who has been banned, and high-quality human men with oily heads … They once created a wave of entertainment, gradually faded out of the audience’s field of vision, and finally became the epitome of the past online carnival.

How long will Cao Wanjiang be popular?

In "Hello Saturday" broadcast last week, Silence Wang brought Cao Wanjiang’s famous song "You’re getting married" to the stage of variety show, which was another hit. On Tik Tok, the video has gained 830,000 likes.

This divine comedy ushered in a new round of exposure. /Tik Tok @ Hunan Satellite TV screenshot

We don’t know how long Cao Wanjiang will be popular, but it is foreseeable that the Internet will recreate one Cao Wanjiang after another.

The Secret of Music documentary, Liang Huan, 2015-12-14.

2019 China Musician Report, Professor Zhang Fengyan from School of Music and recording arts, Communication University of China, 2019-11.

New Media Events: Mechanism, Function and Legal Regulation, Sun Yongxing, July 2013.

Author | Risep

Proofreading | wee hours

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Original title: "Cao Wanjiang exploded, and the ugliness was also rolled up."

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