As the saying goes, whether a video is hot or not all depends on a good title!
The phenomenon of clickbait has been around since ancient times. Just look at ancient book titles, full of words like "spring," "jade," or "gold," and you'll get the idea.
You might say, "These are low-brow tactics used by writers." But that's not entirely true.
Take, for instance, the article titled "Fu Zi's Lustful Ambitions," written by Song Yu, a disciple of the renowned Qu Yuan. You'd likely assume it's filled with scandalous content.
However, the piece is actually Song Yu’s plea to the King of Chu, recounting how a man named Fu Zi accused him of being handsome and having questionable morals. Song Yu then details his own righteousness and lack of lust.
If that's considered somewhat related to its title, what would people think upon seeing a book titled "The Cultivator's Guide," written by Zhuangzi?
You'd surely assume Zhuangzi is teaching you how to cultivate your health. But in reality, it's about how to slaughter a cow without wasting any part of its value.
And nowadays, clickbait is even more prevalent.
Titles like "A Story of 3 Women and 105 Men" or "Tap Water is Full of Dihydrogen Monoxide" are still somewhat amusing.
Later clickbait began to follow a strict template, prefixing titles with phrases like "Big News," "Urgent Notice," "Spread Immediately," "Understand After Reading," "Nationwide Sensation," "Too Shocking," "CCTV Just Exposed," "Everyone with an ID Must See," "Top Secret Filming," "We Can Never Eat Again…" the list is endless.
Among them, the most famous are the creators of the "shocking" format, the uC-series online media, which became synonymous with clickbait.
Ahem, I've strayed a bit. Let's get back on track. After changing the title, the video's click-through rate began to skyrocket. Many viewers, seeing the new title, couldn't resist clicking to watch it.
Thus, very quickly, this content, which was merely a repost of Weibo's official account news with a changed title, surpassed the official account's viewership accumulated over several days in just one hour.
Of course, if this were a true clickbait title with no substantial content, that would be the end of it. But this was not mere clickbait; it provided entirely new content from the television series "A Wandering Journey." That makes all the difference.
Initially, the audience was mostly excited and didn't find the videos particularly strange. After all, movies often have deleted scenes or unreleased content, which is usually included in Blu-ray DVDs as a "complete edition" or "unreleased content collection" to entice viewers who have already seen the movie to purchase the DVD. This is a very common commercial strategy.
However, soon, many people started to notice that something was amiss. As more and more 2-minute clips were released, these segments seemed to be continuous, forming a substantial portion of the movie's plot that was completely absent from the theatrical release.
That in itself was not the main issue. The problem was that as various short videos accumulated online, the total content from Weibo exceeded 200 minutes.
This was absurd. A movie is only 180 minutes long, and now the unreleased content was over 200 minutes.
And these weren't just ordinary movie snippets; they were meticulously crafted scenes with special effects, all of which were new and unseen in the theatrical version.
200 minutes of unreleased footage, at least 60 million USD in new special effects. How on earth do people make movies like this?
Consequently, discussions about how much unreleased footage of "A Wandering Journey" was being put online quickly emerged. Everyone was astonished by the film's incredible scope, leading many to return to the cinema to rewatch the movie and check if their memory was failing, if these scenes and plots had actually appeared in the theatrical version.
————————
"Hey, Huang Pi Hou Zi, they say you're great at math, but can you arm wrestle me? Like a man!" Liu Changge looked at the black man's arm, which was thicker than his thigh, and shook his head in fear. This elicited roaring laughter from the entire room. Everyone in the classroom was laughing at Liu Changge, seeing him as nothing more than a fragile chick!
This situation caused Liu Changge immense pain, but there was nothing he could do. This was the reality for a Chinese person in an American classroom.
He had arrived in the United States two weeks ago, but from the moment he arrived, he had been bullied by many people at school. Especially after he received an 'A' in all his subjects, becoming the best-performing student, the bullying intensified.
Unlike schools in China, where students often bully those who perform poorly, in American schools, it's the high-achievers who are bullied. This is because, in the eyes of almost all their classmates, good students are nerds, and nerds are useless. Only those who excel at football or baseball are respected by society!
Seeing the surrounding laughter, Liu Changge clutched his head in pain. Just as he was about to silently endure it, someone suddenly shouted, "Hey, stop that! Weibo has updated with three short videos. This is all new content, never seen in the movie!"
A girl exclaimed loudly. The surrounding students immediately gathered around. Liu Changge curiously looked over and saw the girl holding a mobile phone, which was playing a video and emitting various sounds. The people around her were all gathered around it, and no one was paying attention to Liu Changge anymore.
Liu Changge felt relieved. He looked at the phone that seemed to be playing a movie and couldn't help but exclaim, "America is truly the beacon of humanity. Their technology is so advanced that they can even create mobile phones that can play movies!"
"Yes, this phone can not only play videos but also connect to the Atari network. It's the fastest among all mobile networks!" another person whispered nearby. Liu Changge recognized the voice as Vincent's, an Indian student who was also one of the most bullied students in the school. Before Liu Changge's arrival, he had been the top student.
"This phone is so advanced, what brand is it? Motorola? Or Nokia, or another brand?" Liu Changge asked curiously.
"You don't even recognize this phone? It's the Tianxing 5!" Vincent asked, surprised, then realized, "Oh, I remember. You're from China, and China is generally poor. You probably can't afford a Tianxing 5 phone there!"
"These phones are too expensive. If you want to get one directly from a blind box store, it costs about 2000 dollars on average, and the boxes are all snatched up as soon as they're released. For redemption in stores, you have to make reservations months in advance with points."
"The worst part is that most of these phones end up on online marketplaces, with prices driven up to 2500 dollars. Those jerks at Tianxing, why don't they increase production? Or stop selling phones to those damned scalpers? I've been begging my dad for my Christmas presents three years in advance, but I still don't have a chance to buy one!" Vincent complained.
"If only I could have a Tianxing Five, then everyone would want to be friends with me, and no one would dare bully me. I wouldn't be in such a terrible situation anymore!"
"Tianxing 5? That name sounds familiar!" Liu Changge muttered. Although his family had spent a lot of money to send him abroad to study, going straight to high school after junior high, he had always refrained from having a mobile phone for the sake of his studies. It wasn't until he arrived in the US that he bought a Motorola RAZR, mainly for contacting his family. Therefore, he wasn't very familiar with domestic phone brands, only vaguely recalling the Tianxing 5 brand as being particularly familiar.
"Oh, damn it, it's over already in six minutes?" While Liu Changge was chatting with Vincent, the crowd gathered to watch the movie dispersed, muttering to themselves.
"Yeah, this short video just cut off at the part where Li Qiang and Zhao Hao were fighting. What will Zhao Hao's expression be when he realizes his opponent is a cultivator!" one of the students who had been bullying Liu Changge said, looking unsatisfied.
"Of course, he'll kneel down and beg to be his disciple!" Liu Changge couldn't help but interject when he heard the question.
"What did you say?" He hadn't meant to speak, but after doing so, he found everyone staring at him.
"Why are you all looking at me? I didn't say anything wrong..." Liu Changge said fearfully.
"If you don't understand, don't spout nonsense!" a white student shouted, charging forward with a clenched fist. "This is the latest short video, how do you know what happens next?"
"Come on, this is the plot from the third or fourth episode of the TV series. I've watched it several times, how could I not know what happens next!" Liu Changge exclaimed.
"What? A TV series?" Many students in the class were stunned by this news.
That afternoon, several students from the class uploaded the day's events to their Weibo accounts, stating that a Chinese exchange student in their class claimed that all this content was actually plot from the TV series of the same name, "A Wandering Journey." This series, they said, only aired in China and lasted over 2000 minutes, several times the length of the movie!
As soon as this news broke, the entire internet reported: "Shocking: A Wandering Journey is Actually a TV Series!"