I've been following the vlog about the journey to the West for the scriptures, and I've reached the 80th difficulty.
The era when vlogs were used to record real life may be gone forever.
With the support of AI, recent vlogs on Douyin have gradually deviated from the present time and space, becoming a series of time - travel short dramas. You can follow the Tang Monk and his disciples on their journey to the Western Paradise and follow the eighty - one difficulties like chasing a serialized story. You can also experience the Battle of Red Cliffs firsthand and flee with Cao Cao on the Huarong Trail. You can even go to the scene where Su Shi wrote "A Night Visit to Chengtian Temple" to see if Zhang Huaimin was awake.
In today's era when AIGC content is all the rage, this can't be called an imaging revolution. However, the emergence of AI vlogs at least makes people wonder: To what extent can the real content ecosystem we produce day after day be "replicated" by imitators?
There are daily vlog updates on the journey to the Western Paradise. Image source: Douyin @Pumpkin Jun
Reborn: I Can Be Wu Chengen Too
When Wu Chengen passed away, he might have thought that through the continuations of later generations, his "Journey to the West" would have more than a hundred chapters. But he definitely didn't expect that in the new era, each of the four disciples would be holding a selfie stick on their long - march - like journey.
"Guys, who can understand this? It's the 996th day of our journey to the Western Paradise. We just rescued the master from the monster's mouth and then set off again," Monkey King complained while holding the phone at the front of the team.
Of course, not only Monkey King. You can also see vlogs about the journey to the West shot from the subjective perspectives of the Tang Monk, Piggy, and Sandy. The Tang Monk tells his lingering fear after escaping from danger, and Piggy always lies in a comfortable position in front of the camera... "Journey to the West" is deconstructed into dozens of seconds of individual narratives in AI vlogs, allowing viewers to "follow the updates" of the eighty - one difficulties without leaving home.
Image source: Douyin @Pumpkin Jun
Video creators have also added more modern chapters to this classic masterpiece. In one of the works, the group passed through Yunnan and happened to catch the Torch Festival of the Yi ethnic group. The disciples were almost dragged to dance, and Piggy even wanted to go for a drink. With a turn of the camera, Sandy was receiving warm blessings from the Dai people at the Water - Splashing Festival. This is clearly the editing logic of a travel blogger. It's just that AI blurs the boundary between "Journey to the West" and contemporary life and uses its excellent rendering function to present these "combination of reality and fiction" vlogs on the short - video platform all at once.
From "The Monkey King: Hero Is Back" to "Black Myth: Wukong", "Journey to the West" has always been a popular and ever - fresh IP in domestic literary and artistic creation. And the AI vlogs about the journey to the West also seem to be a content trend or a traffic - attracting entry point. In some vlogs, the journey to the Western Paradise passes by an "XX Auto Repair Service Center". Only after being confused do you realize that this is an advertising video for an auto repair shop account.
Tutorials on how to standardize the production of vlogs about the journey to the West are everywhere on WeChat and Douyin. One can imagine what kind of adventures the four disciples will experience in contemporary society.
Image source: Douyin
It's not just "Journey to the West" that has been remade by AI. Classic masterpieces such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Investiture of the Gods" are also on the list. As long as you can think of a famous plot, you can experience it in vlogs. You can join the Wei army in the Three Kingdoms era or fight against Cao Cao with the Wu army. Even the Battle of Zhuolu between Huangdi and Chiyou 4,600 years ago has an AI war correspondent taking you to the first - hand scene.
"Those born in the 1980s watched whatever was on TV. Those born in the 1990s searched for what they wanted to watch. Those born in the 2000s create what they want to watch."
Today's creators no longer need to be literary giants like Wu Chengen. AI tools allow people to infinitely extend and continue the original work based on its world - view, and everyone can have their own "parallel universe" of interest.
From "Recording Reality" to "Creating Reality"
The original intention of vlogs was to "record reality", but the powerful generative ability of AI is subverting this. Today's AI vlogs on video platforms are just borrowing the shell of the handheld camera and self - shooting form.
Tutorials have greatly lowered the threshold for producing AI vlogs. Once there is a new idea, it will be quickly imitated, and a large amount of homogeneous content will emerge. Vlogs are no longer satisfied with just recording but have started to create new immersive "realities".
The "virtual reality" in AI vlogs may not seem as high - end as VR, but the popularity and imitation of this content form also have inevitable reasons under commercial logic:
Firstly, the first - person perspective turns users from onlookers into participants, allowing them to deeply experience the scenes in history and masterpieces. Secondly, classic IPs have a wide public cognitive basis. People can easily recognize the characters and the plot background at a glance, eliminating the cost of creating an IP and educating users. Moreover, classic IPs themselves have numerous branches, details, and "what - if" scenarios. For example, "What would happen if the Tang Monk stayed in the Daughter Country" has always been a popular topic for secondary creation among netizens. The richness and complete world - view of classic works also become a vast amount of material for AI creation.
For the vlog niche, this is naturally the demise of reality. Bloggers who like to share their unique experiences and lifestyles may not have thought that today they are competing for attention with content like vlogs of Empress Dowager Cixi visiting the Summer Palace, vlogs of Terracotta Warriors visiting Shanghai, and vlogs of inner - sect cultivation.
Image source: Douyin @AI Shilaihai, @Just Lean on the Wall Teacher
The current content ecosystem is a mixture of real records, AI - enhanced reality, and pure AI - fabricated content. Internet archaeologists thousands of years later may be confused when looking back at the content of this era: What kind of reality did these people live in?
After watching too many AI vlogs, it's like opening a Pandora's box. In front of the accurate "guess what you like" recommendation algorithm, the amount of real - person content I can see has visibly decreased in recent days, and I'm about to be completely immersed in the "Journey to the West universe" or the "Three Kingdoms universe".
Of course, this kind of creation is also a fun deconstruction of tradition, which is more fragmented and in line with contemporary aesthetics. After all, each generation has its own way of reading the Four Great Classical Novels (not many people have really read the original books word for word). In the past, it was picture books, TV dramas, animations, comics, and picture books. Now it's AI vlogs' turn.
Short - video creators have gradually incorporated many contemporary emotions and internet memes into the Journey to the West universe. In some works, it's already the 996th day of the journey to the Western Paradise, but Monkey King still hasn't completed his KPI of fighting monsters, and Piggy is too tired to go on and just wants to go back to Gao Laozhuang to get a stable job... This is also a kind of reality built on virtuality.
With the support of low production costs, ordinary people have gained more and more "interpretation rights" of the Four Great Classical Novels. "Journey to the West" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" no longer have to be classic narratives focusing on the protagonists. Even someone like Benberba can have a name and the right to shoot vlogs. In the classic battles of the Three Kingdoms, viewers can no longer strategize from a god's - eye view but will be substituted as a panicked and fleeing soldier.
"This is what Douyin was originally about. Anyone can record their lives, including soldiers of the Wei State."
Image source: Douyin @Modern Xiaohui
The "Eighty - One Difficulties" of Content Creators
Initially, people might have paid attention to AI vlogs about the journey to the West because of their novelty and the freshness of the technology. But now, they are increasingly being regarded as ordinary film and television works for appreciation.
AI can write the subsequent plot of the Tang Monk staying in the Daughter Country and produce technically mature vlog images. It can also depict the loneliness of Monkey King during his long time under the Five - Element Mountain and even simulate a world - line where he overthrows the Buddha and doesn't go on the journey to the West. A copy of "Journey to the West" is broken into countless fragments by selfie sticks and the first - person perspective. Every user who can use AI tools can add their own annotations to the original work.
Generally speaking, AI vlogs are more compact, more dramatic, and have more exaggerated visual effects than traditional vlogs. Traditional vloggers rely on their personal charm and life experience to stand out, but such "irreplaceability" is also at stake in the AI era. Since vloggers also package their lives, why should we still pursue the authenticity of vlogs? AI vloggers have no creative bottlenecks. They are always energetic and at the center of dramatic conflicts, providing the most exciting experiences for viewers.
In this era, any sense of seriousness thrown into the Internet will be quickly dispelled. Currently, the vlogs about the journey to the West are still evolving. The Tang Monk has started a live - streaming food show of vegetarian meals, and Monkey King has started promoting peaches at the Queen Mother's Peach Festival. It won't be surprising if they participate in the Double Eleven promotion in a while.
Image source: Douyin @North of the North Third Ring Road, @Kitten Latte
A year or two ago, for content using IPs like the journey to the West and the Three Kingdoms to attract abstract traffic for their accounts or brands, real people had to be hired to play the roles. But now, this labor cost has been saved, and even cosplayers are almost out of work. AI can easily render thousands of troops in the background. Even Zhang Yimou may not be able to find so many extras.
We are happily consuming the "reality" in AI vlogs, while the value of real - person content is being challenged like never before. All deconstruction serves traffic, which is the tight - hoop spell for content creators in this era. Tutorials are being produced in batches. Although we seemingly have infinite freedom of interpretation, in fact, those who learn step - by - step to make vlogs about the journey to the West don't have the ambition for content creation but just want to get some traffic from the AI content pool to relieve some real - life survival pressure.
Our "eighty - one difficulties" are also real, just cleverly hidden behind the screen.
Perhaps the current world is also an AI - made vlog. In this universe, we are following the eighty - one difficulties on short - video platforms, not realizing that we are also in this era - wide crisis of authenticity, just like the "True and False Monkey Kings". But in reality, there is no Monkey King to help us distinguish the true from the false, and even we ourselves are gradually no longer concerned about this.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Hedgehog Commune" (ID: ciweigongshe). Author: Towel, Editor: Director. Republished by 36Kr with permission.