Cultural revitalization

The countryside has long been notorious for a lack of diversions such as sporting events and plays, which are cultural mainstays in larger cities with wealthier residents. The issue has appeared in the crosshairs of authorities seeking to revitalize rural areas — one stated aim of the campaign was to diversify the rural cultural landscape and help preserve some of its intangible cultural heritage, which is fading rapidly due to the lack of successors to aging masters.

Short video apps have joined the mission to enrich the cultural and sporting realms in rural areas. They have emerged as a major vehicle for promoting rural sports events such as Village BA, a wildly popular basketball competition launched in a rural part of Guizhou province that features amateur players, mostly farmers. By July, competition-related content had been viewed more than 300 million times on Kuaishou, and views of all rural sports events on the app totaled more than 500 million.

Liu Anxin was one Village BA player who gained online fame by vlogging his involvement in the event. The 18-year-old is from a rural part of Guizhou, which until recently was home to some of the country's most intractable poverty. He started sharing clips of himself practicing dunks in 2021.

"I received many encouraging words from my viewers, and more importantly, I made friends with some really good players whose advice helped me hone my skills," said Liu, who is currently applying for a place at a sports university.

The exploding popularity of Village BA and his passion for the sport enabled Liu to become known more widely. His near-perfect dunking skills earned him an invitation to a match in Guizhou that had almost 20,000 spectators in the stands, and millions more watching online and on television. "I was overwhelmed by the thunderous cheers from the audience," he said.

Kuaishou says more than 200 million of its users have an interest in content related to intangible cultural heritage, such as the clip on making cattle bone mahjong tiles. Many of the masters are tucked away in rural areas.

Qubiwuli, an ethnic Yi student-singer from a remote part of Sichuan province, is breathing new life into fast-disappearing Yi folk songs by remaking them with pop music elements — such as accompaniment with guitar and other modern instruments — and performs them before the camera. His six-member band, all high school classmates, has more than 180,000 followers on Kuaishou alone. "Many of our works were inspired by songs passed down from mouth-to-mouth by village elders," Qubiwuli said. "Older people are usually very shy and would not burst into song when they are sober. Therefore, I would trick them to sing by bringing them liqueur and then remember the tune by heart."

The economic and wider benefits promised by short video creations are being viewed by major tech companies as a way to fulfill their social responsibilities. For example, in January, Kuaishou launched a village broadcaster training program and promised to divert internet traffic to vloggers making rural-related content. Kuaishou said that in the first half of this year it had trained 100,000 rural residents to conduct village live broadcasts on the platform, equipping them with the necessary skills to livestream rural life, and promote sales of farm produce or traditional handicraft techniques. The effort has created 250,000 jobs in about 25,000 townships nationwide, the company said.

Timeline

2018: Kuaishou launches a project to divert internet traffic on the app to 100 rural entrepreneur vloggers in a bid to promote development of the rural economy.

2019: Kuaishou starts a program to help grassroots officials spread farming know-how using means including livestreams and short videos.

2020: Kuaishou launches a series of online sales promotion activities to help ease the pain felt by some food-growing areas due to COVID-19-induced restrictions.

2021: ByteDance, which owns short video app Douyin, works with authorities in Lishui, Zhejiang province, to conserve ancient hamlets. As part of the program, Douyin influencers with large followings are invited to introduce such villages to their followers.

2021: ByteDance trains farmers and farm produce distributors in more than 100 counties across the nation to host livestreaming sessions.

2022: ByteDance encourages livestreamers to create content on topics such as local specialties, traditional customs, breathtaking scenes and farming activities.

2023: Kuaishou launches a village broadcaster training program and promises to divert internet traffic to vloggers making rural-related content.