朗读版：如果生活被碎片化成无数个表情包，还24小时不下线…… | CGTN周末随笔

刚入行新闻的时候，手机才普及到翻盖。电视记者赶上突发新闻，还得犹豫一下要不要拿手机来拍，生怕一不留神画面就变成踏着五彩祥云的俄罗斯方块。现在，已经很难见到哪天的电视新闻里没有一两条“网友供稿”了。

当年，“侯总”通过电视购物成为直播带货界的上古传奇，每日痛心疾首一小时推销 “八心八箭”，让“998”先于“996”家喻户晓。但不知道带货效果好不好。

视频主要以电视节目的形态存在时，随着载体偏安你我家中一隅。人不在家，就看不着，所以有“黄金时段”一说。现在，手机让视频如影随形。从公共交通到公共厕所，无处不可见缝插针地看一条短视频。据说，功放的手机已加入韭菜馅儿包子和咸猪手成为地铁公害。

从突发到带货，崇尚极简主义的短视频都有用武之地，彻底填补了碎片化时间的消费空白。抖音快手上的作品，十几秒钟的篇幅足以支撑叙事的起承转合，从看完视频到写下弹幕，地铁还没过一站地呢。前些日子《哈利·波特》重映时看到“巫师卡”的第一反应：“这不就是Gif嘛”——莫非微信表情包就是短视频的登峰造极？

随着手机越来越潮，拍摄门槛越来越低，记录和消费的群体界限也越来越模糊。用户自产自销的视频背后是庞大的流量，更不用说行为数据的潜在价值：我们用短视频记录生活，生活则反过来把这些短视频变成了关于我们的“表情包”。那么多美国公司会对TikTok垂涎三尺，应该不只是想了解我们如何撸猫或者去哪里完成说走就走的旅行，它们还想知道为什么用户会在某刻某地做某事。

作为沟通方式的短视频已经跨出了娱乐范畴。直播和不断拓展的移动互联网带宽，让视频带货，视频问诊，视频教学越发稀松平常。或长或短，或直播或录播，越来越多的生活元素都有了视频化的可能。如果真的普及了谷歌眼镜之类的可穿戴拍摄产品，我们可能会进入一种没日没夜“不下线”的视频化生活状态——想想你为家中的“猫主子”装的摄像头。

视频化全天候在线的时代如果真的来了，还在码字儿的我是不是再也没有机会加鸡腿了…...

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Sidelines | Life-streaming

Sidelines is a column by CGTN's Social Media Desk

In restaurants, on the subway, at home, it's hard to escape the sound of short clips playing on smartphones. There is little doubt that this video genre has become ubiquitous and unavoidable.

Those working in broadcasting might have once questioned the raison d'etre of the new darling of the social media world. After all, the clips don't follow the linear logic of news reports and scenes are sliced and diced to create a narrative that doesn't surrender to chronological order. And then there's the fear that the rapid expansion of social media's arsenal could come at the expense of TV viewership. 

It's undeniable that people everywhere are increasingly drawn to this format. And as the fandom for short videos grows, so do their detractors. Viewers have no qualms about watching these videos out loud, without any earphones on – and that's causing nuisance and trouble. Authorities in Shanghai imposed last week a ban on subway sodcasting, the practice of playing music through phone speakers in public.

From sponsoring Japanese TV drama to partnering with British show Strictly Come Dancing, the global success of TikTok, which pioneered short-form videos, attests to the power of this format. While it takes a feature film 80 minutes to reach its climax, a TikTok clip can tell a complete story in 15 seconds.

Short videos have crossed the boundary of entertainment into the wider territory of everyday life. Thanks to the ever-present and ever-evolving smartphones, these seconds-long clips are now a staple of our digital conversations. They are also an upgraded version of the traditional photo albums, where our memories, more vivid now than ever before, are stored in the cloud, shaping our present and creating our past, and along the way informing our identities.

The crusade that U.S. President Donald Trump has waged against TikTok is further evidence of the social network's significance. Its vast reach and influence is one thing, what it can harness is another. Users see the clips on their phones as "snapshots of life," but IT conglomerates such as Microsoft and Oracle that are drooling over the acquisition of TikTok call them "behavioral data." Now that the roles of consumers and providers of the same product are blurred, the data being produced and consumed is multiplying, forming a virtual goldmine.

The popularity of short videos is just one of the success stories of technology mediating the action of seeing. Another telling tale is Zoom. The rise of the American online teleconferencing firm has proven that virtual communication is an acceptable, sometimes even preferable, alternative to meeting face-to-face – the default option for human interactions since times immemorial. This consensus has started to take root before the coronavirus pandemic, which probably explains why the firm has been faring well in the stock market since 2019.

It's not difficult to imagine that the human mind will grow more accustomed to various forms of reality as the technological tools at hand become an extension of the body. True as this argument may sound, there is another side to it. We are also being reprogrammed by the instruments we've invented, socially, if not biologically as well. "Flashbacks," for example, is one term that the invention of cinema has brought into our vocabulary.

Via omnipresent videos – short, long, live, recorded – produced and stored in our smart devices about our lives, parts of our daily existence could be turned into raw materials before being repackaged as goods and placed on different platforms for visual consumption, for which our attention and time are the new currencies. The internet's fast expanding bandwidth renders the logistics of this kind of products seamless. Production and consumption could be done in the blink of an eye.

If wearable products with built-in cameras such as Google Glass become as popular as smartphones, we may never lead an offline life again. Reality and virtual reality as we know them today could be merged into one, turned into a succession of scenes available for streaming to anyone who wants to watch.

The benefits of new technologies are easier to notice than problems. The latter often takes longer time to manifest, and the best time to start considering the side effects is probably when something new is causing a hype.

What is a telltale sign that something is creating a buzz? For one, your phone will keep beeping.

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