[New Three Cultures]
Original title: Online articles, online dramas and online games are popular overseas (quotation)
"New Three Kinds" of Culture, "Going to Sea" and Brilliant (Theme)
Worker's Daily - Zhao Huan, reporter of China Industrial Network
Editor's Note
In recent years, the new carriers represented by online literature, online drama and online games have created a "Chinese style" around the world, known as the "new three kinds" of culture going to sea. From "going out of the circle" to "going out to sea", and then to becoming popular overseas, what is the broken circle password of the "new three kinds" of culture? The cultural news page of Workers' Daily will launch a series of reports to focus on the story of "new three kinds" of cultural sailing.
In the first half of this year, the Netflix series of the same name adapted from Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel Three Bodies was officially launched, covering more than 190 countries and regions around the world, attracting the attention of netizens at home and abroad, and demonstrating the unique charm of China's IP to the world. Not only "Three Body", but also more and more Chinese made online articles, online dramas and online games have exerted full influence on the world stage. Innovative cultural expressions have made Chinese culture a splendid world fashion.
"Foreigners also like to see the 'tyrant'"
From 16 Chinese online articles such as "My Son in law", "Earth Era", "Big Country Heavy Industry" and so on, to 9 works such as "Xu You Ten Thousand Light", "Tiandao Library" and so on, the number of online reading in English has exceeded 100 million, and the international appeal of Chinese online articles has become obvious.
"Foreigners also like to watch 'tyrants'!" Jiang Fei, who studied in Britain, told the Workers Daily. Among her classmates, many are fanatics of China's "hegemonic general literature". "They will also catch up with various types of novels at Start International (the overseas portal of Yuewen Group), such as fairy swordsmen, folklore, science fiction, etc., and I often recommend them." It shows: "At present, there are more than 20 kinds of translated languages of online works in China, involving more than 40 countries and regions in Southeast Asia, North America, Europe and Africa. Online works are becoming an important part of the overseas communication system of Chinese culture."
Sahil, a French boy named "Star" in Chinese, once shared an online play on the social platform and discussed the trend of the story with netizens: "I have stayed up late for two days and can't stop watching it. I recommend it to my friends who haven't seen it yet." This play that made him "reluctant to stop" is the suspense adventure online play "19th Floor" produced by Mango TV.
The domestic suspense drama "Beginning" landed on the American video website Netflix, the exclusive overseas distribution right of the film and television drama "Celebrating the Past Years" was pre purchased by Disney, and "Tian Geng Ji" topped the iQIYI Thailand Station and Japan Station... The online drama is very popular overseas. Now, the popularity of domestic mini dramas has also driven the overseas market for the first time. The reporter learned that in January 2024 alone, the total number of mobile downloads of an application called ReelShort in Apple's and Google's app stores would reach 6 million. This software was created by a Chinese company and specifically targeted at the overseas mini drama market.
The overseas performance of online games is also outstanding. It is understood that among the top 50 game publishers in 2023 announced by data.ai recently, Chinese game manufacturers Tencent, Byte Beat, Mihayou and Netease entered the top 10, accounting for almost half of the world's top 10 games. The popular online games of Mihayou, "Original God" and "Collapse: Star Dome Railway", are among the best online games of "Sailing to the Sea".
"Chinese Style" Becomes a Breaking Code
"On the way to Heidelberg, I met a German boy about 20 years old, found that he was a loyal player of the original god, and talked with me about the roles and plots along the way. The original god is really popular in Germany!" Zhang Shilun from Zhejiang once studied in Germany, and he shared with reporters the experience of running into game partners abroad. Zhang Shilun told the reporter that the German brother said that many of his friends played "Primordial God", "they think the Chinese elements in the game, such as Chinese kungfu, lion dance, are very interesting."
The reporter learned that during the Chinese New Year in the Year of the Dragon, the original god was also simultaneously updated. The "Sea Lantern Festival" in the original God world is synchronized with the Chinese Spring Festival, and global players can experience a strong Chinese flavor in the game world. "I think the reason why" Original God "is so popular abroad is that foreign friends have a strong interest in Chinese landscape, Chinese architectural art, and some traditional opera music, which can be immersed in" Original God "," said Zhang Shilun.
Professor Ding Hanqing, vice president of the School of Journalism and Communication of Beijing Normal University, said in an interview with the Worker's Daily that the "new three types" of culture are popular overseas, mainly because the market supplies a large number of cultural products in these three forms, and the probability of some works that meet the tastes of foreign users is high. At the same time, the "new three kinds" are popular cultural products with a large consumer base. "In addition, the profound and unique traditional Chinese culture has also attracted many audiences. The embedding of Chinese elements in the 'new three kinds' has objectively promoted the overseas spread of Chinese culture," Ding Hanqing said.
Web articles are no exception. The Research Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature pointed out that China's online literature works have formed 15 major categories and more than 100 sub categories, with cities, western fantasy, oriental fantasy, game competition and science fiction becoming the top five theme types. Among them, in the oriental fantasy genre, many writers are influenced by Chinese traditional culture, and have a strong "Chinese style" in theme setting, character roles, and the core of their works. "Inserting some traditional Chinese culture, folklore, historical stories and so on into the works in a timely manner often attracts overseas readers," Ni Ke, who has been an editor of overseas online articles for four years, told reporters.
Similarly, the reason why China's online drama has made a breakthrough overseas is, to a large extent, that its unique cultural background has attracted overseas audiences. Station B pushed "Guochuang" animation to the sea, and set off a boom with overseas institutions. A few days ago, Station B reached a cooperation with Fuji TV Station of Japan to set up the exclusive channel of Station B Guochuang to broadcast animation works from China. This is the first time that a domestic video platform has reached channel cooperation with mainstream Japanese TV stations to achieve national innovation and development. "Animation is a work that transcends age, color and race. In the future, we hope that our original content will be based on the world from the day of production." Li Ni, vice chairman and COO of Station B, said at the 2023-2024 Guochuang Animation Work Conference.
"Going to sea" should also be brilliant
As online culture, online drama and online games continue to expand the global market, cultural products are gradually becoming a new medium for Chinese cultural exchanges with foreign countries. At the same time, some creators of micro skits admitted that how to achieve localization in line with local conditions is the biggest challenge that micro skits encounter when they go abroad. "Take some popular online skits for example, Southeast Asian audiences, Japanese and Korean audiences, and European and American audiences like different types and want different 'immersion'."
In this regard, Ding Hanqing believes that when cultural products carrying Chinese traditional culture are spread overseas, the first thing to achieve good communication effect is to have "visibility", that is, to effectively reach the target population. At the same time, cultural products need to be able to move people and cause emotional resonance and widespread recognition of consumers in different cultural backgrounds. Ding Hanqing said that in order to impress people, cultural products "going to sea" need to pursue uniqueness. "Cultural capital, producers, producers, etc., who undertake the mission of" going to sea "of culture, need to make more efforts to create unique products with inherent thickness."
Ni Ke also told reporters that at present, the type of "Sailing" web articles is relatively single, and the homogenization problem is serious. "Probably the types are ancient fantasy, urban love, sweet articles, cool articles, and so on. Although it is easy and eye-catching, overseas audiences will get tired of seeing too much."
Ding Hanqing said that the problems such as homogeneity and single type existing at this stage are expected to be corrected in the process of survival of the fittest in the market. After all, when users reject homogeneous content, producers who provide high-quality creative content are likely to win.
"Helping the 'new three kinds' of culture to spread more brilliantly overseas can not be separated from the guidance of the competent department." Ding Hanqing suggested that the competent department should use the special funding program for international communication as a lever to help the production and dissemination of outstanding works that promote Chinese culture, and play a role as a vane.
