“Everyone interviews everyone”, what people want to hear

Since last year, a number of video podcast programs have been launched, with Lu Yu, Dou Wentao, Yu Qian and others setting up the microphone and becoming interviewers. The interviewer and interviewee are often interchanged, and it seems that every celebrity has to be interviewed and questioned repeatedly. "Everyone interviews everyone," a joke expressed the audience's fatigue.

Yang Yi, a veteran podcast industry practitioner, jokingly estimated that "maybe only 200 people" in China can truly express openly and benefit from public expression. With so many video interviews running at full speed, these people will inevitably be "used up" quickly, and then another round will begin. Liu Hailong, a professor and communication scholar at Renmin University of China, said that according to Boorstin's definition of celebrity, celebrities themselves do not have much professionalism or knowledge and are in a state of being over-packaged and over-exposed. Now, everyone has discovered that these celebrities form a small circle. People have already heard their stories. When they come out to tell them again, everyone will impatiently leave.

What cannot be denied is that today’s video podcasts have indeed created a lot of new content for the Internet world. For example, compared with the long-lasting talk show "A Date with Lu Yu" in the TV era, the series of interviews conducted by Lu Yu today has gone in a completely new direction. Today, in this era of social networks where celebrities have been exposed in all directions and people are no longer curious about celebrities in one direction, everyone has different expectations for an interview. They hope to gain empathy and inspiration from it, and find the answer to their own lives in other people's stories.

Therefore, the flow of interviews has begun to be linked to the output quality and emotional concentration, and golden sentences are bonus points. Those who are better at expressing will often receive more attention than celebrities. In other words, in this era there are more people who are famous for their ability to express themselves. The three most-played programs of "Chen Luyu·Slow Talk" are interviews with cross-border celebrity Jiang Sida, media personality Yi Lijing, and "ALS fighter" Cai Lei and his wife Duan Rui, far exceeding those of film and television stars. The audio-only podcast "Flowers in the Rocks" is even more obvious. The most played episodes are interviews with psychological counselor Zhang Chun, Ph.D. Chen Guo and others, which are much higher than interviews with actors and singers.

The reason why talk shows can regain popularity in this era is because they meet the current spiritual needs. At a time when reality is becoming more and more complex, uncertainties are increasing, and concepts are emerging one after another. On the one hand, people need someone to explain reality to us, so some people with professional knowledge background and independent opinions play this role through interviews; on the other hand, people also hope to hear people in the same situation share their experiences and feelings, and gain understanding and resonance from them. In this context, the medium of podcasts assumes this function.

Some researchers say that podcasts are the most intimate medium and describe this relationship as “friends in your ears”. One listener poetically described the charm of podcasts as "there are always a few islands for you to dock when you are lonely." In an increasingly atomized society, podcasts are serving as a social meal replacement for contemporary youth. You don’t need to plan time and travel across half a city to find friends to chat with. You just need to put headphones into your ears, and someone will whisper into your ears, talking about the things you care about.

Following this logic, video podcasts that will begin to emerge in 2025 will be the meal replacement of deep chat. Watching two people you are already very familiar with sit face to face on the screen and have a long conversation that lasts for two or three hours, it feels like you yourself have participated in this long afternoon tea. In life, such long and in-depth chats are already very rare.

If you don't have the expectation of learning anything new, and just use it as companionship or background music, these long talk shows can be a great time filler. As soon as some video podcasts are updated, many viewers will rush into the comment area after taking a look at the duration and leave a message: "Great! I feel relieved when I see it is three hours." They may have a two-hour commute every day, or are about to embark on a long trip, and a lot of time needs to be filled. They can't watch short videos and AI short dramas all the time, right?

At a time when AI videos are about to become ubiquitous, let us cherish the time when there are still people willing to sit down and perform and chat.