Douyin's "blind box" has become more and more popular with 4 million fans in 3 months

Have you ever opened a blind box? The most attractive way to play a blind box is the unknown and uncertainty. Recently, there has been a trend of opening blind boxes in short videos, but this blind box is not the same as that blind box. It may be your old classmate, a passerby on the street, or a meal in a restaurant. This kind of gameplay has also attracted many viewers. Let's take a look.

In just three months, @在下辉子, who turned “old classmates into blind boxes”, has more than 4 million fans.

On July 15, @在下辉子 officially launched the "Old Classmates Blind Box" series with his first love as the opening. In each video, he would first shout out a fixed opening line: "Those who scored the best in the college entrance examination, how are they doing now? Ten years after graduation, I made my classmates into blind boxes. No matter where you are, I want to go see you." Then he would blindfold himself and use a toy gun to randomly "hit" an old classmate from the huge painting hanging on the wall, and then visit them on the spot and record their current living conditions ten years after graduation.

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

Huizi graduated from Benxi Senior High School in Liaoning Province, a key high school with a first-class admission rate of over 90 % all year round, which has cultivated batches of outstanding students. Among Huizi's classmates, except for Li Xueqin, who is well-known to the public, almost all the other classmates are top students. What kind of life will these superior children have 10 years after the college entrance examination? It is undoubtedly full of curiosity and expectation.

It is worth noting that @在下辉子's first work was published on April 22 this year, but it was not until the launch of the "Old Classmate Blind Box" series on July 15 that the account really ushered in its own rapid growth period, and in just three months, the account gained 4 million followers . So far, the series has updated 17 videos (excluding hidden works), and many videos have exceeded one million likes.

After Huizi became popular, accounts with content began to emerge one after another. Among the accounts, some of them also achieved good results in increasing followers. Why is the "Old Classmate Blind Box" content so popular? How many other ways can blind box content be played?

1. "Old Classmate Blind Box", attracted 4 million fans in 3 months

How will a person grow and change in 10 years? This question is full of curiosity and imagination even for an ordinary person, and it is even more exciting for a top student. Huizi's work positioning accurately meets the user's expectations.

The opening character of the "Old Classmate Blind Box" series is Huizi's first love. She was admitted to the University of International Business and Economics in the college entrance examination. After graduating from undergraduate and master's degrees, she worked in an Internet company for four years and recently changed jobs.

Before officially meeting his first love, Huizi briefly reviewed his story with his first love: they had been together for less than half a year, their grades both declined, and naturally they had no more interactions after that, and the last time they spoke was 10 years ago.

When they met again 10 years later, the first love came rushing over from afar, and the first words he said when he saw Huizi were, "Long time no see, you're so fat." The light-hearted banter instantly eliminated the awkwardness of not seeing each other for ten years, and the two began to chat naturally about their current situation.

Following Huizi's lens, we also gradually understand the life status of our first love over the years:

The reason why I quit my job was because of physical fatigue and anxiety. Now I don’t know what I want to do. If I have the opportunity to do nothing, I really don’t want to do anything. I think the current society is very strange. It is obviously getting better and better, but people are getting less and less happy. My mother has not yet come to terms with the college entrance examination and believes that her daughter should be better... When we parted, my first love left me this sentence: "But I just don’t want to be compared anymore. No one can force me to compare with others in the future."

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

Judging from the entire meeting process, the state of first love was not very good, but it was precisely this real, frank and undisguised exchange of ideas that aroused empathy, thinking and discussion among many netizens.

After this video was released, it received 789,000 likes and 50,000 comments. The "Old Classmate Blind Box" series of content kicked off, attracting more and more users' attention. In the videos that Huizi released next, we were able to witness the diverse lives of more top students:

Li Xueqin, a graduate of Peking University, first became popular with her short videos, and later became famous in a talk show. Now she has become a public figure who frequently appears in variety shows. Talking about the past 10 years, she said: "It's like sowing a handful of seeds, and everyone fell into their own soil and lived their own lives."

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

Xiao Rui, who went straight from undergraduate to doctoral program at Peking University Law School, is the only student in Huizi’s class who is still studying. Ten years ago, he was a typical good student, calm and steady. Ten years later, he has tattoos and manicures, as if he has entered a belated "rebellious period", shuttling back and forth between freedom and confusion.

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

A Jing, who graduated from Beijing Normal University with a bachelor's degree and Carlos III University of Madrid with a master's degree, now works in a top law firm in China. In high school, she was a transparent girl sitting in the first row in a small town in Northeast China. Ten years later, she is sunny, confident, and exudes vigorous vitality.

Through Huizi's lens, we can also see someone who graduated with a doctorate from the University of British Columbia, became a debater on QiPaShuo, and then started a business in Shanghai; someone who graduated from Peking University Law School, entered the system, and later became a full-time mother. She has just returned to the workplace and become a trainee lawyer. Compared with ten years ago, she has the courage of a mother and still retains her former romance; there is also someone who didn't like physical education in high school, and after graduating from South China University of Technology, she joined the local media and has now become a vibrant sports reporter...

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

Overall, although these classmates who have been superior to ordinary people since high school have their own brilliant resumes ten years later, different confusions and bewilderments also follow them. The presentation of this real state undoubtedly allows the audience to glimpse more possibilities in life and provides a certain reference significance and reference value. In addition, Huizi's thoughtful and in-depth copywriting during interviews and summaries has triggered many users' multiple thinking about issues such as time, choice, mentality, and life, and thus transformed into continued attention to the account.

It is worth noting that among all the "blind box" content released so far, the protagonist of the video with the highest number of likes is a "disappeared" classmate Ashu.

In high school, Ah Shu was sunny and cheerful, and was well-liked by her classmates. However, because she failed the college entrance examination, she cut off all ties with everyone out of inferiority. When they met again ten years later, Ah Shu, who stayed in Northeast China, had started a family and worked as a teacher in a public institution. She went to bed at 10 o'clock every day, had a stable job, and lived a comfortable life. Although she had experienced twists and turns, she still loved to laugh and gradually let go and accepted her "ordinariness", happily enjoying her own life in her own little world.

@在下辉子TikTok video screenshot

As of press time, the number of likes for this video has reached nearly 4 million, far exceeding other videos. Some comments said that the reason why people like this video is because "people are more likely to empathize with this kind of plainness and reality nowadays." Regardless of the reason, Ah Shu's life choices and living conditions have undoubtedly brought users a new feeling and thinking.

2. The “Imitators”

@在下辉子 is not the first person to create the "Old Classmates Blind Box" content model. Before him, the account @王赢不输 started creating the "Challenge to Find Junior High School Classmates 10 Years Later" series of content at the beginning of this year. Because the content is very interesting and entertaining, and it evokes many people's youthful memories, although the account did not go viral, it also attracted a group of fans. Until @在下辉子 became popular with the more topical "学霸同学", the content format of "Old Classmates Blind Box" began to be imitated by more people, but among the imitators, only a few performed well in data.

@王赢不输TikTok video screenshot

Some of the more prominent accounts include @酸菜鱼儿.

"What is it like to be admitted to a 985 university at the age of 15?" This is the fixed opening line of @酸菜鱼儿's videos. If Huizi's classmates are the best among their peers, then @酸菜鱼儿 and his classmates who came from all over the world to the junior class of Xi'an Jiaotong University 8 years ago are even better. @酸菜鱼儿 focuses the camera on the living conditions of these geniuses 8 years later.

In the first video he released, the protagonist Ma Wenhe entered the Xi'an Jiaotong University Junior Class at the age of 15, published an SCi paper at the age of 20, and went straight to Shanghai Jiaotong University for a doctorate at the age of 21. His resume is extremely outstanding. After meeting the blogger, Ma Wenhe first took him into the teaching building and introduced various chemical substances like a treasure, and then took him to the laboratory and performed an experiment to change the state of gold nanoparticles.

Although he is only 23 years old, Ma Wenhe has a kind of maturity and stability that does not belong to this age. He said: "Everyone will eventually fight against the mediocrity in life", and "Don't be swayed by the utilitarianism of society". In the words of the comment section, although his words are not so profound, they are very philosophical.

@Sour Cabbage Fish Tik Tok video screenshot

The unusual experience and the thoughts beyond his peers made this video of Ma Wenhe attract a lot of attention. After that, @酸菜鱼儿 opened two more "blind boxes" of students from the junior class. Although there were slight deviations in their personal experiences, the two protagonists were geniuses without exception. In addition to showing strong learning ability, their conversation, thinking and mentality were also more mature than their peers, which impressed many users.

@Sour Cabbage Fish Tik Tok video screenshot

Up to now, @酸菜鱼儿 has updated three videos and has 256,000 followers.

Another account that has received a lot of attention, @东软鹿涵, also uses the form of opening blind boxes to record the current life of high school classmates 8 years after graduation. But unlike Huizi and @酸菜鱼儿, this account focuses not on the chosen ones, but on "those who did the worst in the college entrance examination."

The classmates who appeared in his videos are basically college graduates who stayed in their hometowns after graduation. Some of them are elementary school teachers, some have opened online stores, some work in gas companies, and some are railway line workers... Compared with Huizi and @Sour Vegetable Fish, the current life situation presented in @东软鹿涵's videos seems to be more down-to-earth, more real, and closer to the lives of ordinary people, which is easy to resonate with users. Therefore, the data performance of the first two videos is quite impressive. But perhaps it is precisely because their lives are "ordinary and real" and too homogeneous that users gradually lose their sense of freshness, and the data performance of the account's later videos has declined significantly.

@东软鹿晗TikTok video screenshot

3. The more you play, the more you spend.

Before the "Old Classmate Blind Box" series of content became popular, "opening blind boxes" had already become a very popular form of creation.

As early as 2021, @小鱼海棠, who was "motivated to take photos with 999 very handsome boys", began to open blind boxes and "look for" handsome boys in different places such as basketball courts, campuses, subways, parks, shopping malls, and gyms, and invited them to take photos with themselves. The different types of handsome guys that appeared in the video gave the audience a sense of visual satisfaction, and also gave everyone a secret expectation of "what the next handsome guy will look like". @小鱼海棠 also quickly gained fans in a short period of time by opening blind boxes and catching handsome guys.

Last year, @二百者 also started the "Blind Box Store Exploration" game. Through the 200-yuan fixed-quota challenge, he checked in at food stores across the country and co-created with merchants, setting off a challenge trend of "I eat whatever the store sells."

@二百者也TikTok video screenshot

On the one hand, users can witness the various "200 yuan packages" matched by different merchants with the mood of opening blind boxes, and thus feel the specifications and styles of different merchants; on the other hand, they can also see the interaction between the humorous and down-to-earth protagonist and various bosses and service staff, and feel the rich atmosphere of fireworks. Under the influence of multiple factors, the account began to gain followers rapidly, and the number of fans is now close to 15 million.

On February 28 this year, @好梦一天游 appeared on the street with 100 yuan and randomly "caught" passers-by. The selected people could choose to take the 100 yuan immediately or make a wish in front of the camera, and the traveler would do his best to fulfill every wish made by the stranger.

From helping a girl who had just broken up to take down the love locks that she and her ex-boyfriend had hung on Qiandao Lake to now, Youzi has successively fulfilled 62 wishes, including helping others to work for a day, helping long-distance couples meet, and helping besties prepare wedding gifts. Everyone who dares to express their wishes in front of the camera can always gain satisfaction and touching moments beyond imagination.

@好梦一天游TikTok video screenshot

The logic behind the "short video blind box" is to sell a sense of surprise, satisfaction, pleasure, and expectation, which can quickly arouse the curiosity of the audience . It is not surprising that this content format has become popular. On the premise of having these characteristics, @在下辉子has also injected more emotions into the video, evoking the user's youthful memories, and can also arouse people's deep feelings and thoughts about life by showing the diversity of life, thereby generating a deeper emotional connection with the account, which is also the reason why Huizi can quickly become popular.

@在下辉子's "Old Classmate Blind Box" is still opening, and what new gameplay will the subsequent short video blind box bring? It's worth looking forward to.

Author: Yue Yao

WeChat public account: caasdata (ID: caasdata6)