There were three videos on his phone. The first two opened instantly.
Both were less than a minute long. Ma Yuanyuan's was still spinning, its transfer progress bar stuck somewhere in the sixties.
He watched the first two first.
The timing was precise. As soon as the drums came in, the shots cut to the beat. Murals on the walls, couplets hanging in the archway, people walking past the camera, smoke billowing over the barbecue stalls. Both had filmed Li Le cutting fruit. His knife rose and fell, the flesh split open, and it landed right on the downbeat. Clean and crisp. One ended on the words "the bustle of everyday life," while the other framed the whole Starlight Night Market through the archway and slowly pulled back.
They had clearly both done this before and knew how to edit. They weren't experts, just well practiced!
The videos were frighteningly similar in content.
Short-video platforms weren't just entertainment tools. They were more like schools. Anyone who wanted to make something happen there would take the initiative to learn how to film, edit, post, and make money. The platforms were happy to teach them, too. As far as the platforms were concerned, the more creators, the better. Content was king, after all! The platforms made big money, but they couldn't produce all that varied content themselves.
But eight out of ten students taught by the platforms turned out much the same. They learned from one another and copied one another. Those who cleverly mixed something of their own into the copying were often the ones who ultimately made money. In industry jargon, that was called getting results.
Why they could attract traffic was what learners really needed to study.
Ma Yuanyuan's video finally finished transferring.
Wang Xiaoliang pressed play.
She had