In 2024, young people will express themselves through videos

In the digital age, video has become an important way for young people to express themselves and record their lives. As a content creation platform, Xiaohongshu awarded honors to creators for the first time, commending them for sharing their daily lives and personal insights through videos, showing the creativity and life attitude of the younger generation.

The Xiaohongshu community awarded awards to creators for the first time.

On August 30, Xiaohongshu held a creator open day event and will award creator honors to 300 creators. These 300 creators are representatives of Xiaohongshu's creative orientation and also a corner of Xiaohongshu's high-quality content.

Figure | Xiaohongshu "2024 Creator Trend Report"

With curiosity about "what is good content" and "how to create good content", we found several of these creators and tried to dig out their shining points and understand how they became officially recognized creators:

High school student @Julia_ty likes to record her life and inspiration through videos;

@图克, who sets up camp in the "green plant area", is known as the home blogger who knows the most about plants. He always holds the filming equipment with one hand, chatters about his plants in front of the camera, and educates everyone on how to grow green plants well.

Travel blogger @皮皮在蓝星球 likes to show the world through her lens and present the moments that touch her heart the most during her travels;

Always young, always loving themselves, and always daring to show the most authentic and interesting soul on social networks are also the common features of this generation of video creators.

It is not difficult to see that this group of outstanding creators point to the appearance, standards and role models of creators in the video UGC community.

Here are their true stories:

01 In the eyes of those who love to express themselves, there is no boring life

Perhaps you have thought about shooting videos for a long time, but you are struggling with how to take the first step, how to discover your own shining points, and how to shoot the most authentic self.

It is true that although the development of technology has made video shooting more convenient, how to shoot the first set of videos that best showcase yourself is often the first step to trapping an interesting soul.

In response to this, Xiaohongshu blogger @Julia_ty (hereinafter referred to as: Julia) gave the answer, "Good content naturally has its own vitality, you have to give it time to take root and sprout."

In 2022, 15-year-old Julia followed the trend and registered for Xiaohongshu, and casually recorded a Vlog in English that recorded her daily life. Everyone liked her youthful aura and was curious about her overseas study life, and even labeled her as the "cyber daughter".

Many followers who are parents lamented Julia’s growth in the comment section and thanked Julia for providing them with a “daughter’s” perspective so that they can become better parents.

Julia's Vlogs are simple and sincere, without a fixed script or a professional editing team. Many people like to see the world through the eyes of high school students through the real presentation of her videos, saying that "they seem to be young again."

Many more people were amazed at Julia's thinking beyond her age and called her "my high school teacher" in the comments.

At the age of 17, she would discuss the wilderness and track of life with others. When talking about the relationship between life and freedom, she would say, "Without a source of income, even if you get off the train and leave the track, you can only go around in circles in the wilderness of life."

She is anxious about turning 18, afraid of growing up, but also looking forward to entering the adult world: "Everyone only has one chance to turn 18. After this point, you should be responsible for yourself." "You must go through a lot, and almost forget the feeling of being 18, before you can call this life."

Gradually, not satisfied with the vertical screen recording, Julia began to seriously study shooting and post-production. Her talent was once again demonstrated, with clever camera movement and composition, rhythmic expression and emotional advancement.

Many people describe her work as "movie-like." This year, she was invited by Apple to be a director for a day, inviting her to present her own version of Apple.

Today, Julia has posted more than 150 notes on Xiaohongshu and gained millions of fans.

Julia's life seems to provide people with an "excellent" template. Just like people look up travel guides before going to an unfamiliar destination, "poor students" in life can get the progressive lifestyle they desire from Julia's life with just one click.

But Julia herself said: "I am not a completely relaxed person, but I don't do anything so deliberately either." Julia said that instead of letting everyone see that she has deliberately packaged herself, she prefers to present the trivial and positive side of life. Even if the days are ordinary, they will be bright and sunny.

Being positive, sincere and unpretentious is what Julia demands of herself, and it is also the common characteristic of every high-quality creator on Xiaohongshu.

02 The soil of love can always nourish dreams that have not yet been spoken

Of course, brave expression is only the first step for creators. Trying to find recognition and resonance is also a topic for many young people.

This is something that @Tu Ke, a home blogger on Xiaohongshu, has a deep understanding of. Tu Ke has been interested in studying insects and plants since he was a child. He likes to make specimens at home by himself, and can also identify the flowers and plants in the southern green belt that ordinary people cannot name.

After graduation, Tuke became a new media editor for a home furnishing website. At that time, self-media was just emerging, and his job was to use a set of graphic templates and fill them with content he found everywhere every day. He preferred to spend his time on things that were not related to work: such as spending a month or so to make a plant specimen, or raising a potted plant by himself and studying its growth process.

When he consciously shared these contents on different social platforms, he found that the feedback was mediocre. Some people even questioned why he, as a "grown man", spent all day studying flowers and plants?

After a long time, Tuke was frustrated for a while, thinking, "Maybe my interests are too niche, no one will be interested in these things." Over time, Tuke, who could not feel a sense of accomplishment, stopped sharing on various platforms.

At the end of 2021, a friend who worked in operations at Xiaohongshu asked him to help post Xiaohongshu notes. The other party had always been optimistic about his niche hobby and invited him to try Xiaohongshu, "even if it was just to help me complete my work tasks."

Tuke, a man of justice, decided to give it a try and updated a note on Xiaohongshu, introducing the room he had decorated in Tongzhou, Beijing, which was full of green plants.

Unexpectedly, everyone showed great interest in the various tropical plants he displayed, and fans left messages asking him how to maintain green plants at home and how to choose green plants suitable for different living environments.

The enthusiastic feedback inspired Tuke to try to answer fans' questions with videos. "Xiaohongshu is a hobby and community culture. I found that the feedback from users here is different from that of other platforms.

They would seriously discuss with me what to do when the moss dries up and what is wrong with the yellowing leaves. "Tuke even did rigorous statistics and found that the response rate for the same content on Xiaohongshu is 30%, while it may be less than 1% on other platforms.

More responses came from more and more people following him to learn how to decorate their homes with green plants. They posted pictures of the green plant corners in their homes in the comment section of Tuke and shared their personal matching experiences.

There are more and more creators in the home furnishing category of Xiaohongshu, and many of them even say that they got into green plants after being inspired by Tuke's notes. Seeing his passion being responded to by more people is also the most fulfilling thing for Tuke.

When his followers reached 100,000 and 300,000, someone suggested to Tuke that he should not focus on the niche track of "home plants". But in his opinion, the world of plants is so rich that he still has a constant source of inspiration even in the more niche field of home plants. "I share what I really love, and there is too much content to record."

Today, @图克 has more than 530,000 followers on Xiaohongshu. His experience seems to prove to everyone that interesting and useful content, no matter how niche it is, can find like-minded people in a lifestyle community like Xiaohongshu and influence more people.

03 It is impossible for me to live a routine life

If Sanmao lived today, she might look like Pippi now.

"In the process of life, no matter it is the best of the best or the most ordinary, I have to taste everything, so that my life will not be in vain," Sanmao once described the yearning for freedom in "Stories from the Sahara".

For Pipi, freedom means that no matter where he goes, he can pick up the camera at any time and directly record the "sad camel":

Pippi said that from the camel's indifferent expression, she seemed to understand the loss of the local nomadic people.

In Pippi's Vlog, you can also watch with her how the sun "jumps into the sea" at sunset, the thrilling moment of passing by lions, the grandeur and determination of wildebeests when crossing the river, and exclaim "That's nature".

These videos, full of life, are only a part of Pippi’s life over the past four years, but they also represent a new way for young people today to experience life.

In 2020, Pippi, who is studying for a master's degree at Columbia University, decided to take a gap year and spend a year traveling around the world and exploring the unknown.

During the following one-year trip around the world, Pippi felt the charm of different cultures. She saw the rime in Northeast China in winter, the flowers in Fujian in spring, got close to nature in Yunnan, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia in summer, and saw the fallen leaves in New York in autumn.

Recalling the touching moments during the journey, Pippi suddenly felt a "calling of mission" to record everything. "It is often a moment that touches people during the journey, and I want more people to feel such moments."

Like many people, Pipi often lamented that the barrenness of language could not accurately convey the beauty and touching moments of life, but she never gave up trying to record these moments. The addition of video made it easier to express these moments. With a camera and a tripod, she began to share her journey with videos on her Xiaohongshu account @PipiOnBluePlanet.

The world that Pipi saw, her heartbeat at that time, and even the cold air whistling across the grassland became vivid and alive. Soon, Pipi's video gained 1.295 million fans and 7.632 million likes and collections because of its strong vitality.

In a short video about finding a "mission", Pippi described his job like this, "I think making videos is not to move myself, but to influence more people."

Wanting to influence others is the original intention of many people to express themselves. But in reality, many young people lack the opportunity to express themselves, and they may be rejected by the outside world because of their occasional "different" expressions.

@国产无线电X is one of them. Since he was 11 years old, 国产无线电X has had a dream of becoming a star. He begged his mother to buy him a ticket to Beijing to be a trainee. He also likes all kinds of bright and trendy clothes, and enjoys showing himself in different occasions. He calls himself a "conspicuous bag".

But in real life, his eccentric personality made him unsociable, and his rebelliousness was not understood by those around him: his mother rejected his idea of ​​becoming a trainee, and also prevented him from pursuing a career in singing and dancing, and arranged for him to study science.

Before the age of 25, Guo Dan lived a life that followed the rules. Because he was not understood, he could only turn his grief into appetite, and at one point he weighed as much as 180 pounds.

The turning point came on his 26th birthday. On the eve of his birthday, he gave himself a great gift - a solo trip to Mount Kailash in Tibet. The reason was even a little absurd, because before that he followed the trend and bought an outdoor jacket, but never wore it once.

Mount Kailash is the most sacred religious site in Tibet, located in the heart of Ngari. For this circumambulation, he set out from Lhasa, took a 26-hour bus ride, and then took a tractor, and finally reached the village at the foot of the mountain after many hardships.

While hiking around the mountain, facing the open grassland, the domestic radio X couldn't help but jump towards it.

"I wanted to record myself dancing in the wilderness," recalled X. It was also during that leap of freedom that he felt the "reasonable life" that his mother had planned for him since he was 11 years old was finally back in his hands.

He couldn't help but share the Vlog of his experience of seeing the blue sky and white clouds and his insights on the 5,000-meter plateau, as well as his free jumping on the plateau, with friends he had never met before.

His jump from Mount Kailash earned him 23,000 likes, and 1,045 comments were all praising his bravery and saying, "I really like your crazy personality!" "You are so funny, I want to be friends with you!"

"I'm very happy that people continue to like me," said Domestic Radio X. He really enjoys the friendly atmosphere on Xiaohongshu and he always receives feedback no matter what he posts.

The "conspicuous bag" in his heart began to revive, and he also designed a unique and vital beginning for himself. The first scene of the Vlog always consists of him raising his hands high and making an angry "wow" sound from his dantian.

Later, he began to post various daily life videos on Xiaohongshu more actively. He quit the job he didn't like and wandered around to show himself, sometimes an exaggerated "contrived" fall by the Liangma River, sometimes a summer run after lying in bed for three days in Helsinki...

You never know what new ideas he will come up with the next second, or what kind of "diandian" interjections he will use to express his emotions.

As the largest UGC community in China, Xiaohongshu has over 10 million new contents added every day, and the contents are distributed in different tracks. But looking back at these creators who are loved by everyone, sincerity is their most common attribute.

Before photographer @Lost Lee started sharing her video creations on Xiaohongshu, few people around her recognized her talent.

It was not until she saw Pipi's videos that she felt the "longed wilderness" for the first time. With Pipi's encouragement, she also became a travel blogger. In order to capture the images in her mind, she could spend 10 days squatting in Jingdezhen to shoot ceramics, and she would also patiently wait for good weather to be able to paint.

@柴总在忙 is a hardcore handicraft worker who transforms giant sofas from waste materials. She always insists on using the most special creativity to create the highest quality content, and brings positive energy to users through vital and dynamic content.

"The feedback you get from others is very important. It helps you stay firm and keep going. On Xiaohongshu, you can often get such feedback."

Good content has its own appeal, but in order to continue to create in a healthy manner, creators also need stable returns.

Tuke recalled that not long after he shared on Xiaohongshu, he received an invitation from a well-known building block brand to customize promotional content for its newly launched succulent series of toys.

In the impression of many creators, brands and customers on Xiaohongshu are more willing to pay for content that is made with care. Therefore, individual video creators can continue to gain recognition and rewards on Xiaohongshu with healthy creation and operating costs.

When her fans exceeded 200,000, Pipi made a video explaining why her commercial cooperation offer was higher than that of other bloggers whose fans were several times hers. She said that as long as you create with your heart, the advertising content can be beautiful, touching and inspiring.

04 Postscript

For individual video creators, video expression is their way of communicating with the world and a manifestation of vitality. They use their own lenses to record real life and express their personal opinions.

From their content, we see vivid power and vitality in life. The public's love is the reason why Vlog is so popular, and it is also the driving force that encourages creators to persist in their creation.

On August 30, Xiaohongshu’s Creator Open Day event kicked off, and more than 300 creators won their own honorary title of "Acquaintance 300".

Through their lenses, these creators have recorded the true face of life, allowing us to discover those often overlooked details of life and rediscover the little happiness in our daily lives.

Maybe at this moment, you are looking at the clouds in the sky and feeling something, maybe at this moment, you are looking at the wilderness of the grassland and thinking about life, but as long as you pick up your mobile phone, you can also be the expresser of life.

These real moments and inspirations are the core of the good content we see on Xiaohongshu: useful, real, sincere, vivid and beautiful.

It is also our love for life.

Text | Yang Jia Editor | Zhuoran This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Microscope Story], WeChat public account: [Microscope Story], original/authorized to be published in Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.