Zhiyang Zhang (BA) Graphic and Media Design Since Facebook and Twitter first appeared in 2006, social media platforms began evolving rapidly. Social media platforms are trendy among young people. By 2009, 72 per cent of people between the age of 18 to 29 and 40 per cent of those over 30 are users of social media sites. (Friedland, 2013) The influence of social media platforms continued to grow. By 2019, the covid-19 pandemic hit the global economy. In order to survive, a significant amount of businesses turned to e-commerce and social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. They soon became not only media of communication but also commercial platforms for advertising and trading. (Niiara, 2021) This blog will explain anti-design on social media platforms. Rather than carefully created content, audiences on media platforms prefer simple and short content. Definition of anti-design: Anti-design is a movement that rejects mainstream design values, turning the "good designs" into cheap marketing tools. So instead of enhancing the global environment, anti-design aims to increase sales. (‘Anti Design’, 2004) It is common to find on media platforms that no matter how simple and random the posts are, they can become famous as long as they follow the "trend." Trending content, or in other words, a viral phenomenon on the internet, usually refers to videos, images or articles that can reach a large number of audiences in a short period. (Christensson, 2011) One of the most essential characteristics of trending content is 'replicability'. Two thousand years ago, the Chinese started reproducing text and images using woodblock prints to share them with more people. Similarly, content can be spread and become viral as long as it can be replicated. (‘Viral Content’, 2014) In the modern age, the internet and social media have made things very easy to be repeated and shared globally quickly. The trend has become a common phenomenon in today's media culture. Since trending content is repetitive, it requires minimum effort to produce. A limited amount of new information is generated during the copy-and-paste process. Take TikTok as an example. One of the recent trends was an image of a pigeon spinning in the centre of the screen with the song "Swalla" as background music. The video does not mean anything at all but was reposted more than 840,000 times and with the highest reach of almost six million likes. (see pic.1) Similar things happened when I was running the TikTok and Xiahongshu platforms (a popular Chinese social media platform) for my internship company. Animations that took me a long time to make and images carefully taken in studios usually generate lower traffic. These posts never reach likes above 50. (see pic.2) On the contrary, random pictures taken on tubes or at home can boost up to 2000 likes. (see pic.3) The reason could be that people these days have little patience. According to data we gathered from our posts, people's average viewing time is four seconds for a 19-second long video, and images are often more popular than videos because they take up less time to read. It is plausible that people do not have the time and patience to handle complicated information. Thus, simple contents are favoured. The other reason could be that people prefer content more relatable to their everyday lives. Regarding studio pictures we have taken, people appreciate the beauty of these images but can hardly imagine owning them because they seem too elegant and distant from their lives. While by taking random pictures of the products with cellphones in their everyday routines, like on the subway or working place, people would feel related and could see how the products would fit into their daily lives.
As designers that face the general public, it is important that we listen to the voice of our audiences. We need to understand that nowadays, carefully made artwork is not always what people want on social media platforms. Sometimes we need to sacrifice the complexity and beauty of design to find a more 'down-to-earth' way of connecting with the audiences. Bibliography: ‘Anti Design’ (2004)The Thames & Hudson dictionary of design since 1900. (2nd ed.)London: Thames & Hudson. Available from:https://arts.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fthdesign%2Fanti_design%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D105 (Accessed 8 May 2023). Christensson, P. (2011). Viral Definition. Retrieved 2023, May 9, from https://techterms.com Friedland, L.A. (2013). Social Media. In V. Smith, Sociology of work: an encyclopedia. [Online]. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Available from: https://arts.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fsagesocworken%2Fsocial_media%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D105 (Accessed 8 May 2023). Niiara D. (2021)E-commerce as a tool for the development of small business. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202110601022 (Accessed: 9 May 2023). ‘Viral content’ (2014) 100 ideas that changed the web. London: Laurence King. Available from: https://arts.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Flkingideas%2Fviral_content%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D105 (Accessed 9 May 2023).
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