Vlogs highlight love for hometowns

A short video made by a young man from Yunnan province has gone viral on the internet thanks to his dialects and the phenomenal background music. The video has not only garnered billions of clicks in weeks, but also prompted many celebrities to imitate its style.

The video owes its popularity to three factors. First, it features representative ethnic characteristics, as the vlogger is a member of the Lisu ethnic group from Yunnan, home to many ethnic minority groups. The song's repetitive lyrics have made it interesting and prompted people to hum it, and the vlogger's ethnic identity and his Lisu dialects have got viewers, including those from his hometown, excited.

The video has mesmerized netizens, with many even imitating its style to promote their own dialect and hometown, which fully display their love for their hometowns.

Second, many netizens' sense of identity drives them to search for others from their hometown, so they can launch and participate in online activities to share their experiences and feel proud of their roots.

A large number of people in China migrate from their hometown to other places for work, and many of them struggle to adapt to the host city. Facing socio-cultural challenges, they tend to seek out other people from their hometown in order to communicate with them and feel at home. The internet has become an ideal channel for such people, because it can help them get psychological, even economic, support from their fellow hometown residents and adapt to the new environment.

The vlogger whose video has gone viral is a migrant who works in a big city and makes videos to relieve his daily stress. His video has gone viral because it promotes the culture of his hometown and resonates with many netizens.

Third, although some people have criticized the video for its poor quality, many have found it entertaining, even though the definition of entertainment and people's attitude toward it change with the times.

Besides, a popular video can make viewers curious about the vlogger. For example, Tamdrin, whose name in Mandarin is Ding Zhen, is a 21-year-old member of the Tibetan ethnic group in Sichuan province. Not only did his video go viral in 2020, but thanks to his good looks, he has also been appointed to promote tourism in his hometown through short videos. He remains popular on the internet, and his life has changed due to the original video clip.

Anyone who has access to the internet can make and upload videos on social media platforms, and vloggers can communicate with their viewers to decide what to shoot for their next video. Thus anybody can become an online influencer and have millions of followers so long as their videos are innovative in content and visuals.

But which subjects can increase the chances of a video going viral? And why do people make short videos?

As to the first question, videos can be made on food, travel, songs, dance, acrobatics, and by imitating and/or caricaturing famous people. Generally speaking, people make videos, instead of writing micro blogs, because visual content evokes more response, and reaches a wider audience.

Videos also help a person better connect with the audience. It's very difficult to convey emotions only through words. Videos bring that barrier down. With videos, it is difficult for the audience to misunderstand one's meaning because the audience takes cues not only from the words but also from a person's facial expressions, the volume and pitch of the voice, hand gestures and more.

And since an increasing number of people nowadays prefer going on video platforms than watching TV, vloggers have a greater chance to get clicks and become popular, or promote and/or sell their products. More importantly, videos can help a person better convey local characteristics and peculiarities to fellow residents.

Furthermore, local governments and State-owned enterprises can help social media influencers to apply their creativity to promote tourism and brand awareness. Fortunately, many local tourism authorities have realized that the integrated development of traditional media and new media helps build a more efficient communication system, and make publicity more effective. And many enterprises are encouraging their employees to become vloggers, by providing them more support.

Do you plan to make a video to introduce your hometown to more viewers?

The author is a writer with China Daily.