Elderly UP hosts "occupy" Station B

Are elderly UP masters pursuing their dreams on Bilibili? New changes in the blogger group. How does Bilibili attract elderly UP masters? Why do the elderly turn to Bilibili? This article details the phenomenon of elderly UP masters pursuing their dreams on Bilibili, and analyzes the reasons behind it through case studies. Recommended reading for those who are interested in the operation of Bilibili.

Some time ago, "The Legend of Zhen Huan", which was "remade" by a group of grandparents with an average age of over 60, became popular on Bilibili.

This clip reproduces the famous "blood test to identify relatives" plot in "The Legend of Zhen Huan". The "concubines" and "emperors" played by aunts and uncles look more kind and less scheming.

Although there were occasional stumbles when speaking the lines, the well-done costumes and props, the exquisite filming, and the happy expressions on each "actor's" face after their attentive performance all attracted the support and praise of many young people.

Before this group of elderly actors became famous, Bilibili, a platform once regarded as "young people's stuff", has already entered the lives of many elderly people. Elderly UPs are growing into an emerging force in Bilibili's creative ecology, attracting the attention of many young people.

01 The elderly version of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" became popular

According to observations, the elderly version of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" was uploaded to Bilibili by the son of one of the actresses, with the caption "Completing my mother's dream of becoming an actress". The high quality of the short film quickly attracted many netizens to like and repost it, and the aunts' "dream-chasing" journey also allowed more young people to feel the liveliness and loveliness of their elders.

Screenshot of the video from Station B

At the end of the video, all the performers expressed their feelings about the filming in front of the camera. Most of the aunties said that they had dreamed of becoming an actor since they were young, and they were very excited to have such an opportunity to fulfill their wish. According to The Paper, the planner Peng Kai (the son of one of the aunties) said that the original intention of holding this event was to satisfy the curiosity of the elders about new things and to break the public's stereotypes about the elderly.

However, after the video was distributed to various short video platforms and quickly became popular, it also triggered a public discussion about the copyright of the short film. Cao Ping, the producer of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", said in an interview that the legal affairs department of the drama had sent a formal letter to the broadcasting platform to request the removal of the video, but would not hold the aunts responsible, and expressed understanding of the aunts' original intention to remake the work. According to Kas's observation, the original version of the video has been removed from all platforms.

02 Elderly UP hosts pursue their dreams on Bilibili?

The popularity of the elderly version of "Empresses in the Palace" may be accidental, but the continuous emergence of elderly UP hosts on Bilibili proves their desire to integrate into short videos and the enthusiasm and love of young users for them. Kas observed that the elderly UP hosts currently active on Bilibili can be roughly divided into three categories.

The first category is old professors who already have a certain degree of social fame. For example, Professor @戴建业老师 of Central China Normal University became famous for his magical interpretation of poetry, Academician @欧阳自远, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an astrochemist and geochemist, and Professor @汪品先院 of the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences of Tongji University...

The content they posted on Bilibili is mainly about popular science knowledge, and phrases such as "Thank you grandpa for the popular science!" "Hello grandpa", "Hello teacher", "I have learned something new" and so on appear frequently in the barrage.

Screenshot of B station personal homepage

On the one hand, thanks to the prosperous medium and long video ecosystem of Bilibili, these "difficult knowledge" can be better interpreted under such conditions compared to short videos of one minute in length; on the other hand, the knowledge area has always been Bilibili's advantageous area, and the site has accumulated good knowledge content genes.

Especially after the knowledge area was established as an independent partition, the development of knowledge content on the site has been rapid. So far, Bilibili has formed a relatively complete knowledge content system.

The second category is old craftsmen who have special skills and work diligently. Many traditional crafts that were almost lost have been reproduced in the hands of these elderly "treasure UP masters".

For example, Grandpa Yin of @尹世传统蛋糕 is dedicated to showing everyone how to make various Chinese pastries that have rarely appeared in front of us in recent years. Ice cream that clears away heat and relieves internal heat, soft and sweet egg yolk cakes, and happiness cakes that symbolize health... These traditional pastries that sound familiar or unfamiliar are all reproduced under Grandpa Yin's skillful hands.

In addition to explaining the specific methods, in the video Grandpa Yin also briefly explains the origin and meaning of the current pastries, shares with everyone the culture hidden in the food, and sometimes chats with fans about family matters, like an ordinary elder in life, allowing fans to feel more of the fireworks in life.

The friendly Tianjin dialect is less formal and more warm. Many people left messages saying "Grandpa, your accent sounds great", "Support traditional Chinese pastries", "(The video style) looks comfortable, slow and enjoyable, just like going back to my childhood and watching my neighbor's grandfather make pastries".

@尹世传统蛋糕B station video screenshot

Another elderly craftsman, @阿木爷, has brought my country's ingenious and magical traditional woodworking skills to the public and has long been popular with his high-quality content. According to incomplete statistics from Kas, he currently has more than 4 million fans on major domestic short video platforms and 1.43 million fans on YouTube, winning the love of many foreign netizens.

@阿木爷’s videos mainly show everyone the magical mortise and tenon structure. This technology, which can connect multiple parts together for many years without nails or glue, condenses the wisdom of countless ancient craftsmen. And Amu Grandpa will also use this technique to make various "new" toys.

For example, he recently made a mortise and tenon football, which is made of nearly a hundred pieces of wood. Among them, design, cutting, grinding, polishing... every step of the production is completed by Grandpa Amu himself, making it more unique and precious. The mortise and tenon technology, a craft that has been passed down for thousands of years, has also been innovated in Grandpa Amu's hands, giving it a new vitality.

@阿木爷B站 video screenshot

It can be seen that in the hands of these craftsmen, the traditional skills of the Chinese nation are inherited and developed, and they are also actively using short videos as a means of communication to let more people understand and learn about our traditional culture.

The third category is the "old naughty boys" who choose topics that are close to life and can be serious or lively.

Among them, we can see that the 90-year-old up-host @敏慈不老, who holds the record for the oldest blogger so far, will also "struggle" in the second level of "羊了个羊"; @吉公爷_You Benchang will still happily say "Dear kids", and in an instant it seems as if he has returned to those summer vacations when he was watching TV and waiting for the old naughty boy Jigong.

There is also @周大爷不受老 who always wants to experience the life of young people. Even though he is pranked by his nephew again and again, he never admits defeat. The words he utters subconsciously always make fans laugh.

The eggs were replaced with ostrich eggs, and when cooking, they joked that the eggs were spit into the pan; when seeing a big sausage as thick as a pillar, he immediately put it on his shoulder and used it to cosplay as a rocket launcher. The daily life of the bad-tempered grandfather and his "unlucky" nephew allowed netizens to see the n+1 mode of getting along with the elders, but what moved people the most was always the young heart of the grandfather.

@周大爷不服老B站 video screenshot

Unconsciously, the boundary between the old and the young began to "blur". They got rid of the inherent labels such as "traditional" and "conservative" given by the Internet and became more vivid images.

03 How attractive are the elderly UPs?

Previously, Douyin also had the emergence of silver-haired influencers such as @时尚阿姨团, @只穿高跟鞋的汪大师, and now, more and more grandparents are logging on to Bilibili, proving that their influence is further expanding. So how can these middle-aged and elderly people stand out in the fiercely competitive short video track and gain a place on the platform where young people gather?

According to relevant data, my country currently has a population of over 250 million people aged 60 and above, while there are only 96.8 million Internet users aged 60 and above. That is to say, more than 150 million elderly people are on the brink of the information age.

At a time when the number of Internet users is approaching saturation, how to capture these age groups with relatively low Internet penetration rates may be the key to attracting new growth for each platform. Therefore, the continuous generation and development of this type of content can be said to be welcomed by the platforms.

Secondly, according to Kas’ observation, the age range of fans of many elderly UP hosts is concentrated between 18 and 35 years old, proving that their content is loved and welcomed by young users, and their audience has not deviated from the main force of platform users.

This is not difficult to understand. On the one hand, wisdom accumulates with the years, and young people can always get some new knowledge and new inspiration from the life experiences of their elders. Because of their different personal experiences, each elderly up has unique characteristics that are difficult for others to imitate and surpass.

Whether it is the ordinary stories in their life experiences or the seemingly ordinary handicrafts, they are all precious treasures that cannot be replicated by others. What is commonplace for the elderly can be a brand new experience in the eyes of most young fans.

On the other hand, the combination of the two seemingly contradictory words "elderly" and "Internet" always produces some wonderful chemical reactions and creates magical effects.

Originally, the behavior of the elderly taking the initiative to approach the Internet and transcending the generation gap formed a huge contrast with everyone's stereotype, which easily attracted the attention of young people. Their sincerity and simplicity happened to be the emotional factors that are most lacking on the current Internet.

Kas observed that many elderly UPs set the background of their works in rural areas. This special location setting can easily touch the soft part of the audience's hearts, and thus make them more fond of the account and the work.

@This is Liu Dae’s video screenshot from Station B

In addition, the activeness of these elderly UPs may have more far-reaching significance for many of the elders around them.

A Zhihu netizen left a message saying that her grandmother is over 80 years old, she is lonely and pessimistic, and always feels that she is old and useless. Some time ago, the grandmother was very surprised to see many "grandmother-generation" UPs active on Bilibili. She hopes that netizens can recommend some more bloggers aged 60+ so that the grandmother can better feel the positive state of her peers.

This grandma has some similarities with the experience of the well-known food UP host @结巴老爹. The "abb" master @结巴老爹 was originally an ordinary food factory worker. After retirement, he felt that his life became "empty" and he felt that he had become a useless person. His mental state was very bad for a time.

At the suggestion of his son, he began to try to become a food UP host, and his humorous and optimistic personality and extraordinary ability to entertain people also successfully helped him find a second spring in his career and have a more colorful retirement life.

@Jia Ba Lao Daddy B station video screenshot

In Kas's opinion, when the screen is full of handsome and beautiful boys and girls, these suddenly appearing grandparents fill the aesthetic gap of users, contrast with most of the content on the platform, and give the audience more freshness.

As competition becomes increasingly fierce, making changes and innovations in the "appearance of the person" is a good idea for creators who want to enter the short video industry.

Author: Jiangbei

Source: WeChat public account "Kas Data"