With over 700 million views, why are “awkward” street interviews so popular?

Recently, a "very new" street interview has become popular. How "new" is this street interview? Why can street interview content always come up with new ideas? This article uses the video of a Douyin blogger interviewing a video as a typical case to explore the secrets of Douyin content traffic. It is recommended for those who are interested in Douyin short video operations.

"What do you think love is?" "I don't understand that."

"What's the most outrageous thing in life?" "You interview me."

"Do you support the Brazilian team?" "I really regret getting married."

In the past month or two, a "very new" type of street interview has become popular.

The reason why it is "very new" is that the interview content is mainly "abstract, nonsensical, and awkward". The interviewer "does not care about other people's lives" and "randomly tortures a passerby" and asks all kinds of strange questions. The interviewees range from humans to animals to still life. When faced with the interviewer's abstract questions, they are either petrified on the spot, or "talk nonsense", or the answers are ridiculous. The seemingly awkward interview atmosphere presents a kind of funny feeling that makes people intoxicated, which makes many netizens watch with relish.

It is understood that this abstract street interview mode originated from the Japanese rapper Miyachi. At the end of October this year, Douyin funny expert @于小惠 began to intensively create localized nonsensical interview content, which then caused a trend of imitation across the entire platform.

Up to now, the topic #This is a very new interview has been played more than 700 million times, and the topic #SuperInterview has been played more than 5000W times . Many creators have attracted a lot of attention for themselves with their unexpectedly "awkward" street interviews.

1. This is really a new type of interview

Let us first appreciate how new this popular street interview is.

Take the leading account @于小惠 as an example. The account released its first nonsensical interview video on October 29. After the video was released, it received 187,000 likes thanks to the "legal but sick" questions and answers in it.

In the video, we see Yu Xiaohui stopping an elderly couple and asking them, "The Premier League invites you, will you go?" "Which do you prefer, basketball or football?" The elderly lady kept saying, "No, no, no." The elderly man said with a look of disgust, "I can't even afford to live."

@Yu Xiaohui Tik Tok video screenshot

He asked a young lady standing at the door of the store, "What are you doing here?" The young lady replied calmly, "I'm a cashier."

@Yu Xiaohui Tik Tok video screenshot

He was also seen interviewing an older woman who was live streaming on the roadside: "If I give you 10 million now, will you still do this live streaming?" The older woman, who was dressed up in fancy clothes, said righteously: "I will! Because this is my career. I will use my own strength to defeat those who look down on me. I believe my life will be colorful! Colorful! I will take the lead! Move forward courageously!" The output of a series of wonderful quotes made Yu Xiaohui, who originally occupied a dominant position, look helpless and bewildered.

@Yu Xiaohui Tik Tok video screenshot

Of course, some passers-by avoided Xiaohui, which brought a different kind of laughter. Starting from this video, Yu Xiaohui updated a series of nonsensical interview videos one after another.

Looking at the questions asked by Yu Xiaohui, they are strange and imaginative , such as "How often do you celebrate the Chinese New Year?", "In which city do you think triangles are sold the most?", "If you are given 10 million, would you choose to change your partner?", "What is the difference between a spirited young man and a guy from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai?", "What do you think about living off a woman?", "Which Sanya do you think Sanya is?", "What do you think is the relationship between Christmas and eggs?" and so on. There are endless nonsensical and abstract questions that open up your mind.

@Yu Xiaohui Tik Tok video screenshot

At the same time, the interviewees who appear in the video are also of various kinds, including grandpas and grandmas who are taking a walk, uncles and aunts who are setting up stalls on the street, fashionable men and women walking on the street, toddlers who are just learning to speak, as well as street sculptures, manhole covers on the roadside, passing puppies, etc.

With these strange questions, Yu Xiaohui, who is funny in her own way, had a "violent collision of souls" with all kinds of passers-by, and created many "speechless but funny" interview scenes. Watching their "awkward" and outrageous conversations has gradually become a favorite of the majority of users . According to Kas Observation, after launching the "Super Interview" series, the number of fans of @Yu Xiaohui has also increased significantly.

@Yu Xiaohui Tik Tok video screenshot

After @于小惠 gained a lot of attention with her nonsensical interviews, more and more creators have joined the team of "this very new interview". They have different styles, ask more strange and nonsensical questions, and have inexplicable but addictive street conversations with more types of passers-by, thereby harvesting wave after wave of traffic.

Image source: TikTok

2. Diversified Street Interview Content

Street interviews are not new on TikTok. Before this kind of awkward street interviews became popular, street interview accounts continued to emerge on major short video platforms, and from time to time, accounts with distinctive styles successfully emerged with clear positioning and personalized street interview content, gaining a lot of attention.

For example, the long-popular @外果仁研究会 focuses on interviewing foreigners living in China. Since its inception, they have insisted on "breaking barriers, eliminating stereotypes, and becoming a bridge for cross-cultural communication." In the videos they release, Israeli guy Gao Yousi will conduct street Q&A with people from different countries around a theme in each episode. The audience can not only understand the daily life of ordinary individuals from different cultural backgrounds, but also fully feel the sparks of collision between different cultures on the Chinese stage.

@Foreign Fruit Research Association Tik Tok video screenshot

@别闹了美越, which calls itself the "first English street interview channel", has seen a rapid increase in followers on Douyin since the beginning of this year. The biggest feature of its street interviews is that it randomly interviews pedestrians on the streets of China in English, and creates a linguistic chemical reaction through the different responses of pedestrians.

In January this year, Meiyue was "sanctioned" by a passerby in the streets of Hangzhou when he was interviewing her in French. Since then, the account has released a series of videos of passersby being "made fun of" by various language experts. Passersby such as German, Spanish, and Japanese experts took turns to "attack" Meiyue, making the street interviews that originally satisfied users' curiosity even more interesting, and thus quickly gained popularity in a short period of time.

@Don't make trouble, American and Vietnamese TikTok video screenshot

@街小卤蛋, who has only updated 15 works on Douyin, mainly focuses on the student group in street interviews, focusing on showing the hobbies, specialties, living habits, mental outlook, etc. of the post-00s group. The overall video looks full of youthfulness and positive energy. Although only 15 works have been updated, it has accumulated 2.86 million fans on Douyin, and its growth rate is very fast.

@街小卤蛋TikTok video screenshot

There are also some street interview accounts that add more explosive parts besides the interviews, such as @六六街访, @达瑞街访, etc. Their interviews are basically centered around emotional issues. After throwing questions to the interviewees, they often further guide the interviewees to call their friends, exes, or boyfriends. For example, they call their best friend of the opposite sex to confess their love, call their ex-boyfriend to talk about getting back together, etc. The eye-catching actions and the dramatic plots presented during the phone calls make many users enjoy watching them.

Although the script is obvious, this street interview account still attracted a lot of attention.

Screenshots of @六六街面试 and @达瑞街面试 on TikTok

In addition, we have also seen some "alternative" street interview accounts, such as @冰淇淋, which currently has 776.3W followers. It has changed the content model of other street interview accounts that use passers-by as interview subjects, and instead uses the protagonist, Xiao 7, as a "fixed passer-by."

At the beginning of each video, the interviewer who does not appear on screen will ask her a question related to folk customs and culture, such as "Where does a good destiny come from?", "Is it better to say age in lunar years or in actual years?", "Do you know the origin of the Dragon Raising its Head on February 2nd?", etc. Xiao 7 will explain the causes and consequences of these questions clearly through storytelling, and the overall explanation is easy to understand.

The essence of the video is actually popular science knowledge, but because it is covered with a layer of "street interview", the format becomes more interesting, easier to attract users' attention and arouse their curiosity.

@LemonXiao7 Tik Tok video screenshot

3. Why are “awkward” street interviews so popular?

Overall, different interviewees, different street interview subjects, different street interview themes, and different street interview formats have created a variety of street interview content in the short video ecosystem.

Kass has previously analyzed many times the reasons why street interview content continues to be popular.

In summary, street interviews have a wide range of topics to choose from, and most of them are close to the daily lives of the general public. In random interviews with passers-by, users can, on the one hand, see the unique views of different individuals on different issues, thereby satisfying their own "desire to voyeurism" and curiosity, and arousing their inner analysis of others and self-examination. On the other hand, they can also gain different kinds of fun from the unpredictable interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee.

So, compared with traditional street interviews, why can this new "awkward" street interview accumulate so much traffic in a short period of time? Kas believes that the core reason is that while satisfying curiosity and the desire to pry into private lives, the uncertainty and entertainment attributes of this type of street interview are more obvious.

In the videos they released, we cannot predict what kind of nonsensical questions the interviewer will ask, nor can we predict how the interviewee will react. In fact, we cannot even predict what kind of interviewees the interviewer will choose. It is not uncommon to see them interviewing passers-by one second and turning around to talk to roadside sculptures or stone pillars the next.

From the interviewer to the interviewee, and then to a series of interview processes, this type of street interview is full of uncertainty with obvious nonsensical implications. The entertainment effect and fun are greatly maximized , and it provides an emotional outlet for urbanites who are under heavy pressure in life. Therefore, many users are shocked by the awkwardness of the interview content on the one hand, but can't help feeling funny on the other.

In a series of seemingly unserious interviews, some philosophical answers pop up from time to time, touching the hearts of users, which further enhances the watchability and appeal of the video.

Since the rise of street interview content, various content types have emerged. Creators try to create differentiated highlights for their accounts from the perspectives of region, language, theme, and interview group.

We cannot predict how long this "very new" nonsensical interview will be popular, but what is certain is that the street interview track still contains great opportunities. As long as we can find a new entry point, it is possible to lead a new trend.

Author: Yue Yao

Source: WeChat public account "Kas Data"