Dig, dig, dig: Nursery rhymes change, but boredom remains unchanged

During the May Day holiday, the children's song "Little Garden" swept the short video platform and quickly became popular. This children's gesture song, which was known for its "innocence" and "cuteness", seemed to have a "money smell" under the infiltration of traffic and the temptation of realization, causing heated discussions among netizens. This article analyzes the reasons why the children's song became popular and the reasons why it caused controversy. Let's take a look.

"Dig and dig in the little garden, plant little seeds and grow little flowers..."

During the May Day holiday, the children's song "Little Garden" swept the short video platform and quickly became popular.

("Dig, Dig" video content)

With over 100 million hits on the entire network, and multiple versions of the song being created through constant meme creation from the public to the official, this nursery rhyme and several performers are at the center of huge traffic:

Working man version: I work in a small company, climbing up and down, earning a very small salary, and I have to spend frugally.

Dentist version: Use a tiny needle to poke and poke in your mouth, and use tiny pliers to pull out the tiny tooth.

Some people were healed by the clear eyes of the "beautiful kindergarten teacher" and became her fans, some fell in love with the simple melody and joined the children's song carnival, and some were puzzled by the popularity of this "sentimental song".

While netizens were still happily "digging and digging", one of the kindergarten teacher performers had already started a live broadcast and became an Internet celebrity.

The children's gesture song, which was known for its "innocence" and "cuteness", seems to have been tainted with the "smell of money" due to the infiltration of traffic and the temptation of monetization, causing heated discussions among netizens.

1. Digging and digging: adults healed by children's songs

The sudden popularity of this nursery rhyme is an unexpected "miracle". While people are "digging and digging", there are many different opinions on the reasons for its sudden popularity. There are many related questions on the Zhihu platform alone, which have been viewed by tens of millions of netizens.

(Question from Zhihu)

The reason why the children's song "Little Garden" became popular is similar to other "TikTok hits": catchy melody, simple lyrics, and good-looking performers... In addition, "Digging Digging Digging" has a strong creativity, and this space for multiple adaptations and secondary creations has laid the groundwork for its explosion. From the working people's version to the national team version, anyone can dig out their own piece of sky in Digging Digging Digging.

Although "Wa Ya Wa" has become a hit on the Internet, the negative comments cannot be ignored. Many netizens do not understand why such a "boring" and "meaningless" children's song has suddenly become popular?

Children's songs are a way of learning that combines education with entertainment for children. Generally speaking, the content is easy to understand and the melody is catchy. The main audience is preschoolers. Most of the people who promoted "Wa Ya Wa" to the altar on social media are adults, which makes the popularity of this children's song more subtle: rather than saying that everyone is puzzled about why the pop song "occupies" the Chinese music scene overnight, it is better to ask why adults are willing to support a children's song and make it the traffic crown in the carnival?

Some netizens believe that adults resort to nursery rhymes because of the fast pace of life and high work pressure. The gentle smile of performer Mr. Huang and the simple melody of the nursery rhymes just soothe the souls wasted by reality.

(Comments from netizens at Station B)

"Stress needs to be healed" seems to be a reasonable attribution, but this superficial reason seems to have gradually become an abused "excuse." Under the names of "de-stressing" and "healing", various phenomena seem to have gained their rationality and legitimacy.

It is undeniable that children's songs create a "carefree" fantasy for adults, allowing people to return to their childhood state in just a dozen seconds, that is, the psychological "comfort zone". So don't adults have corresponding ways to relieve stress? Why can only infantile children's songs achieve healing?

In the field of online culture, infantilization refers to the tendency of adults to act like children, which is mainly manifested in the superficiality and fragmentation of thoughts, simplification of thinking, etc. Some people say that the popularity of children's songs among adults is a "downgrade of social spiritual consumption", which points to an appreciation ability that is not compatible with the state of mind. Adults are obsessed with "children-oriented" songs and show an unusual enthusiasm for "cute" language and shallow content.

(Weibo netizens discussion)

Looking back at a series of “TikTok hits” that have taken over the Chinese music scene, the difference in the mental state between adults and children seems to have completely disappeared. From babbling children in kindergarten to adults in their twenties, they are all repeating the same simple lyrics and music.

The proliferation of infantile culture not only presents a sense of absurdity, but also a sense of "chaos" with blurred identity. Just as Lin Qingxuan said: "Children have no time to be children, teenagers have no mood to be teenagers, and adults have no space to become adults. Life is confused, chaotic, ambiguous, and confused." This may be the current situation of "regression" in the spiritual and cultural field of adults. Under the sweep of infantilization, popular culture has become vulgar, and profoundness has been submerged in shallowness.

On the one hand, people miss the Chinese music scene 20 years ago. Netizens who have been waiting for the concert for a long time used AI Stefanie Sun to create multiple songs to evoke nostalgia. On the other hand, the children's song "Little Garden" has become popular on the entire Internet, bringing about a trend of infantilization. These seemingly contradictory phenomena may reflect the confusion and chaos in the cultural field.

(Videos related to AI Stefanie Sun on Bilibili)

Among various opinions, the popularity of children's songs may have its rationality, and people's lives occasionally need childishness, but the heated discussion about Dig Ya Dig seems to point to a more difficult problem. People don't understand where this "carnival-like" and "infantilized" cultural atmosphere comes from, but they have to be swept up in this carnival and become a ripple.

2. Controversy over the monetization of Dig, Dig: Everyone can be famous for 15 minutes

Users @草莓壳 and @毛葱老师 were the earliest uploaders of the "Little Garden" video, but the one who really set the Internet on fire was @音乐老师花开富贵, who was called "Teacher Huang" by netizens. His single video received over 5 million likes and the total number of video views exceeded 100 million.

(Data from Teacher Huang’s video account)

After becoming famous, Huang quickly started live streaming and tried to sell goods. It was said that the gifts he received in just one live streaming session were equivalent to more than 2 million yuan, and he "earned a house". Many MCN agencies rushed to sign him. Later, some people speculated that Huang would quit his job as a kindergarten teacher and prepare to be a full-time internet celebrity.

This caused even greater controversy. Some people thought that "Teacher Taozi sings for children, while Teacher Huang sings for the male audience in front of the screen." Some netizens expressed great dissatisfaction with Teacher Huang's popularity and profits, believing that she was "utilitarian", "fawning" and "contrived", while Teacher Taozi, who still sticks to her duties as a kindergarten teacher, is "kind" and "natural".

(Comments from Weibo users)

Under some of the comments full of "female competition", there may be another layer of dissatisfaction among netizens - two people doing the same thing, but with completely different fates. As Andy Warhol predicted, "Everyone can be famous for 15 minutes, and everyone can be famous for 15 minutes." Success in this era is full of uncertainty, and we seem to be able to passively accept the manipulation of traffic. In contrast, the image of Teacher Taozi with a plain face has undoubtedly become a self-projection of an honest worker, while Teacher Huang has become a representative of "lucky" and "reaping the traffic bonus."

Some people feel sorry for Teacher Taozi, asking why, as an early performer, she failed to realize her profits, while later imitators made a lot of money? But some people also feel sorry for Huang, saying that it is not illegal to make quick money by relying on luck. What is wrong with that?

(Weibo netizens discuss)

Behind the debate is a conflict and collision of values. It seems that there is nothing wrong for an ordinary person to seize the opportunity to make a quick buck when huge traffic comes. On the contrary, it proves the saying that "timing is more important than hard work". However, the scene of Teacher Huang singing a nursery rhyme in the live broadcast room to thank the "sponsor" always makes people feel a little weird. Perhaps it is the huge gap between the ease of his success and the meager efforts and his huge profits that makes people puzzled, or perhaps it is the misalignment between the purity of the kindergarten teacher profession and the flattery of the live broadcast celebrity to thank the sponsor that makes people sigh.

(Comments from Weibo users)

@反骗老陈, who used to wear a police uniform and had a loyal and friendly image, became a big internet celebrity with more than 5 million fans on Douyin with the phrase "Have you downloaded the anti-fraud app?" Faced with huge traffic, Lao Chen resigned from his police job and started a self-media. However, in just two months, he went from being the respected "Officer Chen" to the ugly "Chen Zi".

Upon closer inspection, there are many similarities between the two: Lao Chen attracted the attention of netizens because of his identity as a policeman, while Teacher Huang became famous for her title of "beautiful kindergarten teacher"; both of them went from being unknown to becoming famous overnight; facing the temptation of traffic and monetization, will Teacher Huang follow the path of @反骗老陈?

The answer may still need time to verify. The debate over aesthetic standards and the lament about the uncertainty and absurdity of the fate of the traffic era are intertwined in this heated debate, and "digging, digging, digging" has also become a carrier for the collective emotional outpouring.

3. Digging and digging: fighting for the power to say no

As more and more hot search terms about "Little Garden" are added, and the debate continues to heat up, some people are beginning to feel tired of it, thinking that this thing is "outrageously boring" from beginning to end.

(B station netizens discussion)

This is a strange paradox. The popularity of "Little Garden" is closely related to its "relaxing and relaxing" attribute. Something used to kill boredom ultimately brings about a new kind of boredom, which seems to form a metaphor for some kind of social life.

People constantly reject boredom and fill all their free time with all kinds of fragmented and noisy things, but in fact they are just putting themselves into a new state of boredom.

Schopenhauer said, "Life is a pendulum swinging between pain and boredom: when you work for survival, you are in pain; when your basic needs are met, you will be bored." But what makes people tired of "Digging and Digging" is not the boredom of indignation after basic needs are met, but a kind of boredom of over-entertainment and over-positivity.

In The Disappearance of the Other, Han Bingzhe proposes a kind of "unrestrained gawking," arguing that "today, perception itself takes on a form of binge-watching, namely, 'unrestrained gawking,' which refers to the consumption of videos and movies without time limits."

(Weibo netizens discuss)

Many netizens used the word "boring" to comment on the series of videos of "Wa Ya Wa", and said that everything from the explosion of popularity to the controversy was "inexplicable", and they still don't understand who loves to watch and make this song popular. This attitude may be interpreted as a resistance to this kind of "lethargic" excessive entertainment. People don't want to just stare blankly until they lose consciousness.

In fact, in the Douyin platform's poll on "How did you make the children's song 'Wa y Wa y Wa' become popular?", the number of people who voted "nice to listen to" and "healing" accounted for 66%, which is already the majority, while those who chose "indifferent", "boring" and "no attitude" were a minority. From this voting result, perhaps it is meaningless to argue about the logic of the popularity of "Wa y Wa y Wa". Some people like its innocent and simple melody, some like the performer's warm smile, and some just follow the trend and dig a few times.

(Voting related to TikTok)

The latest Weibo trending search shows that Mr. Huang has turned off the reward function in his live broadcast room. Will this incident, which has created dozens of trending search terms across multiple social platforms, come to an end? While adults are arguing endlessly, "Little Garden" seems to have long ceased to be as simple and innocent as the world in the children's perspective of "what kind of seeds you plant, what kind of flowers you will get".

Russell once said that diversity is the source of happiness. Popular culture and high culture coexist, but there is no difference between them. However, popular is not vulgar. At a time when noisy and shallow vulgar culture has "won a great victory", people's fatigue with "digging and digging" is not due to their disgust for nursery rhymes, but perhaps just to fight for the right to reject vulgarity and excessive noise.

(The above pictures are from the Internet)

Author: October Kannozuki

WeChat public account: Zhizhu.com (ID: covricuc)