In recent years, "new farmers" in rural areas have emerged constantly, and short videos of sitcoms with rural production and life as the content source have developed explosively. A mobile phone, a bracket, villagers, and neighborhoods in the street... The familiar rural scenes, sounds, and feelings of childhood were put on the screen, attracting netizens all over the country to "chase the drama".
The 52nd Statistical Report on the Development of Internet in China released by China Internet Network Information Center shows that by the end of June 2023, the number of urban Internet users in China has reached 777 million, and the number of rural Internet users has reached 301 million. The number of online short video users was 1.026 billion, accounting for 95.2% of the total number of Internet users. This has provided the necessary audience foundation for the rise and development of online rural sitcoms. One of the advantages of rural sitcoms is their interpretation of rural production and life, which has strong local characteristics. For example, in Bijie City, Guizhou Province, there is a rural youth who plays many roles, speaks Guizhou dialect, and interprets the diligent aunt who cleans leaves in front of the door in the morning after rain, the daughter-in-law of the village who sits at the door to eat noodles, and the old lady who works in the mountains. Some bloggers not only perform by themselves, but also lead their parents and villagers to participate in the performance. The three "post-90s" in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, vividly portray such rural practical problems as high bride price, difficult marriage, left behind children and so on in the play. In these sitcoms, farmers become the protagonists, and the daily life of the village becomes the story, so that farmers can display themselves in a larger stage.
Of course, the rural sitcoms that have become "phenomenal" are not just the self entertainment of rural residents, and a considerable part of its audience are in cities. Why can the "rustic" village attract a group of city visitors on a daily basis? The author believes that this is because rural sitcoms not only give netizens an experience of rural scenes different from modern urban life, but also show the contemporary and beautiful countryside's different era charm. For a long time, when it comes to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, it is the traditional backward scene and appearance of "facing the loess and facing the sky", "two cows in one mu of land, wife and children hot kang head". Until now, some urban people still have such a "stereotype". But in fact, the current agriculture, countryside and farmers have already changed their appearance. Agricultural production is mechanized and intelligent, and the rural environment is clean, tidy, refreshing and harmonious. "New farmers" use their own strengths to refresh the traditional rural production and lifestyle. It is precisely because of the local "drama" that rural sitcoms express these "great changes in mountain villages" in an original ecological and artistic way, reverse bridging the information gap between urban and rural areas, and becoming an important window for more urban people to understand and love the countryside.
The "fire" of rural sitcoms is not completely self serving, nor accidental. We should see the profound impact of top-level design, policy environment, etc. on the development of this industry. In 2021, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the "14th Five Year Plan" for the Construction of Public Cultural Service System, incorporating the rural online celebrity cultivation plan into the urban and rural cultural benefit project, and attracting a large number of outstanding talents to join the rural online celebrity team. A large number of rural beauty, food and good things have become popular under the promotion of rural online celebrities with both positive energy and large flow. These rural sitcoms performed by rural online celebrities reveal the unique beauty of the countryside that has not been explored, and realize the flow realization. They have played a significant and positive role in digging regional cultural and tourism characteristics, developing rural characteristic industries, enabling and building beautiful villages.
It should be noted that the "fire" of rural sitcoms is also the result of following the laws of the market, and they are interdependent and mutually successful with the short video online social networking platform. Rural sitcoms came into being at the historic moment, which actually conformed to the user cultivation strategies of these platforms. When the existing user groups of the platform that originally only focused on urban users are nearly saturated, it will naturally turn its vision to expand the rural market and encourage and support rural creators to upload their own content. As the online presentation of rural production and life, the creation of rural sitcoms is naturally encouraged and supported. It can be said that the short video network social platform is an important driver of the popularity of rural short videos.
Rural sitcoms should continue to be "popular" to avoid declining attraction or even a flash in the pan. There are still many areas to be improved and efforts should be made. At present, rural sitcoms have obvious advantages, mostly presented in dramas, with clear main lines. Because most of the performances are familiar to villagers, the actors' acting skills appear smooth and natural, the content is updated quickly, and the fan absorption rate is high. However, some works also have the tendency of plagiarism and vulgarization. Therefore, the more it is like this, the more we should stabilize the bottom line requirements of positive energy, and guard the boundary between law and morality. We cannot simply pursue "flow is king". The creators should consciously improve their creative quality and ability, and create more works of high altitude creativity, elegance and quality. At the same time, relevant departments and short video platforms should take their own regulatory responsibilities and social responsibilities, check the guidance and quality of rural sitcoms, promote the transformation of rural sitcoms from the barbaric growth stage to the mainstream and high-quality stage, realize the standardized development of the industry, and let more viewers see the vitality and infinite hope of the countryside from rural sitcoms, Take this as a breakthrough to attract more people to understand the countryside, come to the countryside and stay in the countryside.
