ByteDance has found its own WeChat

By Zhou Zaian 

When we analyzed Douyin several years ago, we once mentioned that while Douyin's success is certainly attributable to the innovation of the full-screen swipe interaction, from the perspective of content ecosystem, it has opened up a brand-new content supply and unlocked the creative productivity of the general public. 

Take the joke-style content that was popular in the early days as an example, a large number of grassroots creators are far more capable of producing joke comedies than formal professional teams, such as internet celebrity Xiao Yangge and others. Behind this is the lack of creativity of traditional comedy programs. 

Therefore, the rise of joke-style content online actually stems from the fact that traditional comedy TV programs have become less and less appealing, and behind this lies the talent gap formed after a generation of comedy masters represented by Zhao Benshan are no longer active on the stage. 

Of course, if we dig deeper into this, it is the numerous constraints brought by TV program production and TV program regulation. Short-video formats like Douyin broke these constraints, thus unleashing productivity. 

Today, a similar story is actually unfolding once again. 

You can find that the security guard at your gate and the owners of the small shops downstairs have started to binge on Red Fruit short dramas in their spare time, instead of scrolling Douyin or Kuaishou. 

Of course, if analyzed from the content structure, the production of short dramas pays more attention to the dramatic structure, with complete character settings and plot conflicts, and hooks that keep the audience watching continuously, forming addictive viewing habits. 

But in fact, the short drama format is relatively simple. We usually divide content into "time-saving" content and "time-killing" content. The two were previously integrated on the Douyin platform, and short dramas are obviously "time-killing" content. 

Nowadays, Douyin is gradually diverting "time-saving" content to channels such as Douyin Selection, while "time-killing" short dramas are diverted to Red Fruit. 

But in the final analysis, the reason why users are increasingly fond of browsing Red Fruit is obviously that — Douyin is no longer as attractive as it used to be. 

Of course, we should also pay attention to two other points: First, the emergence of AI tools has improved the creation efficiency of animated short dramas, and AI short dramas are one of the most fiercely competitive tracks in China's AI boom this round; Second, the boundary between series-style jokes and short dramas is essentially blurred. For example, you can also regard the previous videos shot by Xiao Yangge as a certain type of short drama. 

Our point of view is that the decline of the stimulation level of Douyin's content has led to the rise of Red Fruit. ByteDance has accommodated the migration of content user demands within its ecological matrix, just like Tencent used WeChat to accommodate the social users who migrated from QQ. 

Therefore, in a sense, ByteDance has found its own "WeChat". Just as WeChat ended the social war in the mobile Internet era, Red Fruit has ended the content war in the mobile Internet era. Obviously, Red Fruit is more like a mobile TV station, and I will not be surprised if there are program formats such as variety shows and interviews in it in the future. 

Of course, on the one hand, the decline of the stimulation level of Douyin's content is certainly due to the improvement of the audience's threshold, UGC has begun to give way to PGC, and professional content factories that have fully mastered the rules of short video production have entered the market, once again crushing amateur creators. 

But on the other hand, what is more important is that Douyin, as a national-level short video platform, is now subject to increasingly strict content supervision. From cracking down on content that violates public order and good customs to the Qinglang Campaign, regulators have set increasingly higher requirements for Douyin (we believe that Douyin has far more content sensitivity points than text carriers such as official accounts), which leads to the spillover of part of the content. 

Just as the supervision of TV programs previously led to the wild growth of Douyin's content, the content supervision of Douyin has led to the wild growth of Red Fruit. In fact, you can find that the proportion of various official media in the daily recommended content of Douyin is getting higher and higher. Now it is more like a news and information platform, and official media need to and must seize this public opinion position. 

This will most likely also happen to short dramas, because Red Fruit has already gained sufficient user scale and influence, which will lead to the fact that short dramas will inevitably be subject to strict supervision in the future. This is exactly what is happening. 

From removing vulgar, violent and extreme short dramas from shelves to requiring short dramas to be produced with licenses, all these are the strictening and standardization of short drama supervision. 

In fact, human nature is like this. Extreme and novelty-seeking content is definitely not the mainstream values that need to be promoted in the public opinion field, but people just can't help wanting to watch them. 

Therefore, a very reasonable speculation is that after short dramas are subject to strong supervision, they will also become increasingly "less attractive", just like today's Douyin, but Red Fruit has already secured its position as the top player in the short drama track. For ByteDance, the war of short dramas has come to an end. 

-END- 

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Communication Gymnastics" (ID: chuanboticao), written by Zhou Zaian, and authorized for release by 36Kr.