The Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon has ended, and the "workers" have returned to work one after another, but this generation of young people still seems to be "unsatisfied".
As the saying goes, "in ancient times, there were New Year's goods to welcome the New Year, and now there are electronic equipment bags". They replaced the red-hot Spring Festival couplets with digital new clothes, indented huge gift boxes into the cloud or memory cards, and replaced paper red envelopes with richly patterned WeChat red envelope covers, while New Year's greetings freed up the brain-racking "Happy New Year" copywriting ......
The traditional concept of New Year's goods has been redefined. Nowadays, during the Spring Festival, young people also do "New Year's goods", but they are no longer just those heavy chickens, ducks and fish, fried and stewed things, but also trendy "electronic New Year's goods".
Visiting relatives and friends during the Chinese New Year is no longer a hot thing for young people, except for the indispensable visits, young people seem to prefer to stay at home and build a new festive atmosphere with a string of **.
What to stock upon? - The new "Chinese New Year three-piece set".
What is e-New Year? In particular, it refers to those virtual goods that provide the emotional value of "festive" during the Spring Festival, such as New Year's red envelope covers, New Year's themed mobile phone wallpapers, New Year's greeting emojis, "Jifu" game cards, B station membership cards, etc., which can be called "electronic New Year's goods".
The previous "New Year's three-piece set" was new clothes, new shoes, and new hairstyles, and the current "New Year's three-piece set" may be New Year's red envelope covers, New Year's emojis, and New Year's games.
New Year's red envelope covers and New Year's emojis have become "essential artifacts for Spring Festival socialization" - young people are obviously not satisfied with only receiving red envelopes, but also like to express joy and gain a sense of participation by sending red envelopes.
New Year's games not only refer to some video games, but also include cooking dramas on platforms such as station b and iQiyi, and brushing small **, these games or**, etc., there is also a saying called "electronic mustard" - that is, during the Spring Festival, when visiting relatives and friends on the way or when the elders chat at home, it can be used to pass the boring time "next meal".
Enter "electronic New Year's goods" on the search platform, and you can see a lot of posts related to red envelope covers, mobile phone wallpapers, emojis, and dramas suitable for Chinese New Year cookers.
For example, Qiuzi (pseudonym), a young man who loves to play games, bought PS5 and many games this year, and specially bought a hard drive with a capacity of 2T to hold these 80G-100G "New Year's goods". She said: "The Chinese New Year is to make yourself happy. For me, the New Year's goods of the new era are this kind of electronic products, and they are all indispensable New Year's goods during my Chinese New Year. ”
How to play? -- The whole people fall in love with the "fresh and convenient experience".
Nowadays, during the Chinese New Year, eating is no longer the most important and enthusiastic thing, and young people pay more attention to the richness and variety of spiritual life.
Their entertainment activities during the Chinese New Year are no longer watching TV and playing mahjong for the older generation, but mainly "chasing fans" and "playing games". The so-called "electronic New Year's goods" are naturally related products that serve these activities.
Game enthusiast Hu Jia (pseudonym) said in an interview that during the Spring Festival, the activities she is most looking forward to are not going to temple fairs and watching TV shows, but to participate in the "Sea Lantern Festival" in the large-scale video game "Genshin Impact", so there must be new characters in the game and new mobile game wallpapers in the "electronic New Year".
She feels that traditional entertainment activities, including TV shows, have lost their appeal to her, and she prefers to watch fireworks with netizens in the virtual world, participate in various colorful celebrations, and even feel a stronger "New Year's flavor" in games than in the real world. Therefore, on Chinese New Year's Eve in recent years, she will deliberately launch the game and go to the "festival" with the characters in the game.
Hu Jia said that as long as she has a mobile phone in hand, she can feel the "New Year atmosphere" at any time, and she can also experience the different "New Year flavors" of people in different parts of the world.
Qiuzi's "electronic New Year's goods" list also includes "collecting WeChat red envelopes". She said that some personalized WeChat red envelope covers have become an emerging social must-have. "My friends love to collect red envelope covers, and every time they collect a new one, they will send me a red envelope, although it is only five cents in it, but the heart and fun are priceless to me. ”
In Hu Jia's "electronic New Year's goods" list, emojis are also the "top priority". She said that last year she made a New Year's greeting emoji with her cat's **, and this year she is also planning to use some emojis made by new AI technology to greet the New Year.
She also mentioned that many friends will design and set up their own version of the Moments background picture, WeChat signature, etc., these small details make her feel a strong festive atmosphere. "Nesting in the quilt and greeting the New Year with emojis is more suitable for young people who like to stay at home - they don't have to go out to get cold, and they don't have to worry about being asked about marriage by relatives in person. ”
Driven by young people, "electronic New Year's goods" have also been popularized to the older generation. Hu Jia said that she taught her grandmother, who is nearly 70 years old, how to use WeChat to send New Year's money. Her New Year's greeting emoji has also become the focus of family collections. She feels that these "electronic New Year's goods" are also a fresh and convenient experience for the elders.
Why? ——Online Chinese New Year is "more free and more self-contained".
The reason why "electronic New Year's goods" are so popular is not only because of their novelty and convenience, but more importantly, because these virtual products meet the needs of young people for personalized and private space in high-frequency and high-pressure social activities.
Qiuzi believes that the Spring Festival holiday is the best time for everyone to relax and reward themselves, and the "electronic New Year's goods" just allow young people to find their own way to celebrate in this traditional festival.
She said: "My parents usually buy New Year's goods as food or decorations for the whole family, but the 'electronic New Year's goods' I purchased are purely for myself. I don't tell my family about the games I bought or the game membership card. For me, these are a way to enjoy myself during the New Year, to reward myself for a whole year of hard work. Maybe it's because my generation is so good at rewarding themselves that 'e-New Year' is so popular. ”
Hu Jia feels that the excitement in the "virtual world" seems to be closer to him. Living in a city, sometimes there are restrictions on wanting to experience a certain traditional atmosphere, such as fireworks, temple fairs or fairs, which can only be found in one place, unlike electronic gadgets, which can be carried around and enjoyed at any time.
She believes that "electronic New Year's goods" can bring her a sense of "more freedom to celebrate the New Year online". "If a game or activity isn't as good as it could be, you can switch at any time; If you don't want to send a red envelope to someone or don't want to receive someone's red envelope, you can also choose not to send or not accept it, while in reality, it is not so easy to 'escape' from relatives. She said that playing games does not delay her meals and communication with her family, holding her mobile phone, she can participate in family gatherings while playing, and can also "reunite" with family members who cannot be reunited in real life in electronic devices.
Perhaps, whether it is setting off fireworks in the game, posting love packets on social **, or sending and receiving red envelopes with different covers through the mobile phone screen, the unique way of celebrating the New Year of the younger generation actually represents the progress of science and technology, and the different ways do not mean that they have reduced their emotional investment and enjoyment of the festival.
Young people enjoy the traditional New Year's goods at home, and at the same time, they also enjoy the new "New Year's flavor" brought by the "electronic New Year's goods", and they can easily shuttle freely between the real and virtual worlds, and perhaps get "double the happiness".
Text |Reporter Chen Xiaonan: |Information** (except for attribution).