Being a clone in TikTok is where AI cannot surpass humans

In the TikTok, copying people and starting imitation shows are places where AI can surpass humans. On the boring and abstract road, it is full of anti-logic.

In the 2008 Spring Festival Gala skit "Unlocking", Huang Hong took out his wedding photo with Dong Qing to prove that he was the owner of the house. The locksmith Lin Yongjian shook his head after seeing it.

"Brother, this doesn't mean anything. Nowadays, technology is rising day by day. On the Internet, you can put your head on me and my butt on you. Bill Gates can kiss Yang Guifei and Qin Shi Huang can hug Britney Spears."

For the "clones" that are rampant in short videos today, Lin Yongjian's speech is simply a program document. On Douyin, you can see "Zhe Ying" and "Guan Dang" connecting to discuss the duel between Na Ying and Adam in "Singer"; "Zhong S" and "Wang Dafei" and "Qie Junye" are having fun discussing who will sleep in the middle tonight; Hannibal's imitator "Hannibal" is teaching you how to cook humans more deliciously, and Kobe's "brother-in-law" Mamba is possessed and made ten three-pointers in the live broadcast room;

Hei Lun sang "Stranded" more than ten times in one night, and the comment section said "Jay Chou is really no worse than Hei Lun"; there was also a crude Marie Curie imitator "Curie Fu Ren", who not only played with radium elements but also tinkered with sniper rifles; Patriot Stan danced to "Chicken You Are So Beautiful", and Newton's imitator "Newton" was hit by an apple again in the live broadcast room...

Compared to the once popular "Variety Show" and the "copycat stars" that the public is used to seeing, the clones on Douyin are rough, abstract, and postmodern. If "Big Brother-in-law" and "Jiangsu Long" are somewhat similar to the originals, then the imitators wearing paper masks and printing portraits of celebrities from compulsory textbooks have completely killed the competition. This means that imitation has completely separated from the original and turned into a symbolic carnival.

At first, people thought it was just an ordinary imitation show, but they didn't expect that it would start the Valhalla competition. Opening Bedofeng's live broadcast room, the top brother on the list is John Kennedy, and the second and third are Li Bai and Cao Mengde. On the boring and abstract road, it is full of anti-logic.

1. Demon, please show me the way

Two years ago, Guizhou Internet celebrity "Big Brother-in-law" was originally shooting funny clips, without much plot and even preferring the simplest "lip sync". Until one day, a demon in the comment section pointed out: "Don't shoot these, just cut your hair shorter, find a basketball court to sit on, and put a bottle of iced black tea next to you, and it will be done!"

The elder brother-in-law listened to the advice and tried it casually, and he tasted the sweetness of traffic, and went from being unknown to an Internet celebrity with millions of fans. The No. 24 jersey of the Lakers is not a jersey, but Chun Yuan's old clothes. At first, everyone thought he was just trying to attract attention. But two years later, his dribbling became more and more skilled, and even his three-pointers were very accurate. I don't know whether the elder brother-in-law's desire for Big G is really strong, or that person is finally getting used to this body.

Na Ying's imitator Na Ying imitated Jike Junyi and Little Blue Sister in "Balala the Fairies" in the early days. I don't know when I was pointed out, but the video imitating Na Ying is very similar to Na Ying in "I Want to Fall in Love" in terms of appearance, tone and expression. The recent work imitating Na Ying's invitation to "Singer" is even more closely following current affairs.

After Adam came to "Singer", Ying quickly connected with "Guandang". When the two appeared at the door of the studio, the Mango TV staff were probably panicked: "Hey! Why is the teacher still here? The live broadcast is about to start."

The imitator of Guan Dang, Zhao Jingkong, usually only does some address book jokes and Kpop dances. But now he is addicted to Adam's atmosphere and cannot extricate himself. Netizens jokingly say that he "imitates both his appearance and orientation."

Some role models don't look like each other individually, but can be deified when put together. For example, when Zhong S, Wang Dafei, and Qie Junye are connected, people will misunderstand that the Chinese Kardashian family is quarreling again. The real version will always tear each other apart, while the pirated version is unusually friendly. Qie Junye will sing "Meteor Shower" for Zhong S. When Wang Dafei was asked to compare his ex-wife with other women, he firmly chose "the mother of the children." When Zhong S goes shopping alone, people will also tease: "Qie Junye arranged to use Wang Dafei's card."

Hanniban and Xiang Yuwei are the innate saints of Hannibal and Mao Amin, the kind that God chases and feeds them. Others look alike, but Hanniban not only has the advantage of appearance, but can also play the piano. His elegant temperament and fluent English make people want to have dinner with him. I can't help but think of the description in "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "In fact, you don't look like her, but when you stand there, people think it's her for no reason."

With just a pair of black-framed glasses, Xiang Yuwei can make you remember Mao Amin's "I am the Big Sister". Even more bold, he stood at the place where Yang Yang got lost in "Flowers and Youth" and danced to Yang Yang's famous song "Rock, Paper, Scissors" in the same way as Mao Amin. Netizens directly spread rumors that "Big Sister suspected of having a crush on Yang Yang". The linkage with "Zhe Ying" was also amazing. When Ze Ying was worried about the competition, Xiang Yuwei pushed the door open and made Ze Ying blurt out "Big Sister, you are here!"

Listen to others' advice and eat your fill. In the comment section of each imitating blogger, you can see people asking for "expert guidance". Some look like Giao Ge, and netizens say that you Giao every 30 seconds between live broadcasts. Some look like Luo Xiang, and the public hurriedly asked them to stop and "delete it to avoid lawsuits."

2. Hall of Valor Mode

In 2024, Douyin officially launched the Valhalla mode. At first, people thought it was an abstract joke until the Holy Grail War broke out. The portraits of celebrities in textbooks and even in school corridors were actually printed directly into masks. Due to the natural anxiety about going to school, I feel that these mask imitators have a kind of "unreal but not real" and "not fake after being too fake".

Mask imitation and real person imitation, in terms of form, belong to "abstract imitation" and "direct imitation". The transitional form between the two should be "semi-abstract imitation". The representative blogger is Beethoven's role model "Beethoven Crazy". He sits in a dimly lit place and plays the piano with a painting-like makeup. Isn't this the "Fairy in the Painting" in the strange novels?

Those who have never seen Beethoven playing the suona can come and see him. He is definitely a "yin musician". He can be called the peak of the two major classical music in the East and the West, along with "Sun Wukong Nantianmen DJ". The live broadcast room users "Guillotine" and "Louis XVI" sent gifts one after another, which added a strong touch to the abstract art.

As for the blogger "Lu Yi Shi Liu" who imitated Louis XVI, that is 100% abstract. The domineering and tyrannical nature of this kind of imitation is that it does not require any talent. In order to maximize the fun of the meme, Hard Candy suggests that Shi Liu only show his body next time he broadcasts live, or wrap his head with a white cloth. The copywriting of the work is "The Queen of the Broken Head": "The gift given by fate has already been secretly marked with a price."

In order to be as close to the original as possible, abstract imitators are doing concrete things. The Curieuses are playing "radium", but the only drawback is that there is no accent in the dubbed film. "Oh, my dear radium. You'd better show up while I still have the patience to play chemistry with you, otherwise, I don't mind discussing physics with you."

Oppenheimer's imitator "Oppenheimer", as the father of the atomic bomb, recreated the highlight moment of "Little Boy" blasting a book. On the country road, "Little Boy" is a firecracker with words on it, and "Hiroshima" is an A4 paper. If the little boy is replaced by a real person, it will probably be more abstract. Before Oppenheimer became popular, the blogger also imitated Trump and Ding Zhen. "Those who say I smoke fake cigarettes will never smoke Rick in their lifetime." It's just smoking, do you want to make you laugh for the rest of your life?

The imitation of Hawking's "Hu Jin" is the most abstract imitation. How should I put it? Physics can't make Hawking stand up, but "gifts" can. In order to make the trick more interesting, he wrote physics questions on a small blackboard and printed a little girl on the pillow on the wheelchair. If it were in China, the descendants of celebrities would be sued in court. The representative work "Hawking's Affirmation" made the students ecstatic. Who gave me a thumbs up just now? It turned out to be Hawking!

This kind of imitation can go viral, similar to Du Fu's early rock music, which is a demystification of heroes . Humanities heroes are mainly emperors and generals, such as Napoleon, Louis' family, and Kennedy. Science heroes are mainly scientists, such as Newton, Tesla, Einstein, Marie Curie, and Oppenheimer. Almost all of the 108 generals in textbooks can be found in short videos.

3. What are people consuming?

False beauty trap: "Hey, handsome guy, are you alone?" Real beauty trap: "Idiot, why are you still as stupid as you were in high school!" Imagine when Zhu Yuanzhang was very old, a woman who looked like Empress Ma came and took out a sesame cake from her bosom and gave it to him.

People's attitude towards imitators seems to be not just a lingering attachment to their appearance, but a nostalgia and retelling of certain memories of the past. As postmodern theorist Linda Hutcheon pointed out, "The reason why postmodernism's retelling of the past is so distinctive is that this retelling has an inexplicable contradictory relationship with the texts of previous generations."

On the one hand, we realize that certain content has the power to inspire imagination. On the other hand, we also know that the ideology and style of these contents are limited. This is why Zhang Songwen's imitator "Zhang Songwu" always lives in the world of "Kuangbiao", and the background music is always Zhang Jie's "Listen". Jiangsu Long's music is always "busy looking for treasures". Xiucai's imitator "Guanzai" likes to use "My little sister sent my lover to Damendong".

These musics are texts with memories, just like hyperlinks that immediately remind the audience of the original. Baudrillard once mentioned three types of simulacra: counterfeit simulacra, produced simulacra, and simulated simulacra. The last type should be close to the abstract imitation of Tik Tok. That is, it conceals the absence of a certain basic reality and has no connection with any reality, but it can achieve a "hyper-real effect".

If "Big Brother-in-law" imitating Kobe is regarded as a counterfeit simulacrum, then putting a boiled egg on Master Kong iced black tea is a typical "simulated simulacrum". Even "Kangshoufu" is fine instead of Master Kong. All people want is a bald head on the yellow bottle, which is enough to remind people of the old friend who saw the four o'clock sun on the other side of the ocean.

In the "Debiao Century" that imitates Odebiao, there is probably no need to put bananas on the bicycle, and there is no need to pedal the bicycle. Just move your legs in the air. Seeing a thin dark figure walking tirelessly in the sunset, people can naturally get the spirit of Debiao. "If you don't know Odebiao in your life, how can you have the right to eat bananas. With a 28-inch bicycle on your waist, a black horse rides through the sky."

It should be said that the abstract content of short videos is no longer a fixed, closed, standardized, hierarchical chain caused by the regulation of "depth". Instead, it is due to the impact of breaking the order of "depth" that is full of anti-hierarchy, anti-self-sufficiency, and anti-center. In the creation of various parodies and collages, the imitators have created endless deconstructions of the center and order.

The scene in the TV series Variety Show where the White Snake traveled through the modern world on a motorcycle to look for Xu Xian was just a prelude to an abstract imitation. When the center disappears, we see Shinzo Abe shooting Kennedy, Zhu Laoba building the Hongwu and starting to fight against the Yuan Dynasty, and Mendel playing Plants vs. Zombies with peas spraying out of his mouth...

If I had smudged a portrait of a celebrity when I was in school, my teacher would have scolded me. But today he entered my mask live broadcast room and wanted to have a carnival. Today, AI has already surpassed humans in some areas of deep learning, and in the future it will even surpass humans in all areas. But in embracing shallowness, returning to sand sculptures, and resisting the determination of meaning, it should never replace us.

Human, what on earth do you want to gain from being like him/her?

Author: Xie Minghong, Editor: Li Chunhui

Source: WeChat public account "Entertainment Hard Candy (ID: yuleyingtang)"