Well, here's the thing.
I got up early in the morning and sat at my desk. I originally planned to open Bilibili to find some topics and check some materials. Isn't the news about the iPhone Duo screen cracking quite popular recently? So I typed 'apple' into the search box, and then I saw this—
Shock Apple, worth $1 million each, the Hermès of fruits. One bite can evolve your Gourmet Cells. View count: 5.639 million.
My eyes: You've watched this episode countless times. If you click on it, you'll be hard-stuck for 12 minutes and 43 seconds. You haven't settled on a topic for this week yet. If you keep wasting time here, you'll really end up just writing about yesterday's weather forecast.
My brain: Ignore the risk, proceed with access.
Then, the familiar AI voice, so common it made my ears callous, rang out, reciting the lines I had long since memorized—
These apples suffer torment from birth. To enhance their deliciousness, gourmet hunters do their utmost to frighten them, such as throwing grenades or firing rocket launchers. The more cruel the method, the higher the deliciousness—machine gun spraying is level 3, rocket launcher bombing is level 4, and to reach level 60 or above, nuclear bombs must be deployed.
Gourmet Hunter Alou shouted at an apple, and its Shock Level easily reached 27. For every level before 60, the Shock Level increases the apple's value by 500,000 yuan—meaning Alou earned 13.5 million with that single shout...
When I came to my senses, 12 minutes and 43 seconds had passed. I wanted to stop and exit in time, but to make matters worse, I forgot to turn off auto-play last night after watching anime, so the system automatically jumped to the next video—
The man carefully cut the tofu into cubes, then used an air knife to chop the green onions. Although these were simple ingredients, after being personally trained by Yujiro Hanma, a delicious bowl of tofu and spicy soup was ready.
"Hey! Get up and eat!"
As if responding to some signal, Baki struggled to get up from the ground. Thus, the strongest father and son on earth sat around an imaginary table in front of tens of thousands of people.
Just now, Yujiro ended this father-son battle, which had lasted for hours, with a loving bear hug kill. At this point, Baki's body was severely damaged. Seeing Baki lying motionless on the ground, Yujiro lost the desire to fight. But just as Yujiro turned to leave, he felt something kick his body—unbelievably, Yujiro was kicked by an illusion conjured by Baki's wild imagination...
I've watched this cheap animation segment, commonly known as 'Rolling Log Tofu Soup,' countless times, but I couldn't resist watching it again... When I came to my senses, auto-play had taken me to the underground labor facility of the shady financial corporation Teiai—
A man who performed high-intensity physical labor in a dirty environment for a month received only 91,000 Beiruka on payday. Beiruka is the currency used underground, worth only one-tenth of a yen. The man needs to work here continuously for 15 years to pay off his debt. His only hope is a one-day outing ticket exchanged for 500,000 Beiruka. So, while other workers spent money on beer and skewers to enjoy themselves, the man turned away and endured painfully.
Just then, the class monitor unfortunately picked up a can of beer and walked up to the man, telling him that desires need to be vented and that this can of beer was on him. After one sip, the man, who hadn't had beer in a month, burst into tears. The dam of desire collapsed instantly—when he came to his senses, he had already squandered 40,000 Beiruka in a drinking spree...
That's how it is. Like Kaiji Ito in the previous clip, when I came to my senses, I had already binged heavily.
These mysterious anime clips, sharing formulaic AI voiceovers and men's formulaic scripts, are aggressively harvesting audience attention on platforms like Bilibili and Douyin. Once you accidentally click in or stumble upon them while scrolling through vertical videos, you'll immediately be hard-stuck.
Some call this a civilian Unlimited Void. Clicking in lets you experience the pleasure of having garbage information furiously bombarded into your brain. It's said that Gojo Satoru was sealed in the Prison Realm because someone played the above-mentioned Toriko, Baki, and Kaiji clips right in his face.
Some call this Kernel Corn's butter. Even the Football Zombie and Gargantuar would be controlled immobile if they passed by—but I'd say, the control duration isn't that short, and the control effect isn't that soft.
However, these anime clips have a more common and apt name—Cyber Flypapers.
Once stuck by this thing, you will be forced to watch some, fight some air, resurrect some ancients, climb over some prisons, reveal some tattoos, frighten some apples, heal some severed arms, eat some sushi, search for some thick soup, cut off some ears, chug some beer, roll some dice, play some pachinko, buy some rice crackers, and fight some colds in mysterious short animations...
If you have impressions of all the 'some' mentioned above, congratulations, you're done for in this life, just like me.
Speaking of which, the Galaxy editor-in-chief cut me off—so, is this why you stared blankly at AI-dubbed anime clips all day at your desk, without finding a topic or writing an article, and didn't even play any games?
(Man sighs)
Sigh, there's no helping it. Even gods and dogs would watch two episodes.
Thus, the topic for this issue became this. I can't happily roast the iPhone Duo with everyone anymore. Very regrettable. Sumimasen.
Seriously, have you noticed that compared to those clips with millions of views, the original animations of these cyber flypapers are often lukewarm—at least at this current point in time.
As a long-running shonen anime adaptation with 128 episodes, Toriko remained relatively obscure under the shadow of Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece, and its later power scaling issues also affected its reputation. Baki gained fame as the 'most free manga in history,' but its animation deterred many viewers due to its low budget. As for Kaiji, it's an even older work, with its first season dating back to 2007, while the latest 2.4 Billion Escape arc has been delayed indefinitely due to Nobuyuki Fukumoto's procrastination...
However, these works, which at first glance seem to lack viral potential, can be transformed from mediocrity to magic by clippers who only apply formulaic scripts and AI narrations. Many people have never even watched the full episodes of these anime, but by watching clip after clip, they have memorized the essential parts backwards and forwards.
The most representative example is the Bilibili uploader 'Wuhuan Manjian.' He almost perfectly fits the previous description of a formulaic clipper. For five whole years, he furiously updated Toriko clips daily, repeatedly clipping the same scenes. He clipped the 'Shock Apple' scene a total of 19 times—among these 19 clips, 13 surpassed one million views. The earliest and highest-viewed clip has currently reached an astonishing 7.9 million clicks.
After simple addition, I calculated the total views contributed by the 'Shock Apple' clips to 'Wuhuan Manjian'—57.421 million. This number is more than double the final trailer views of Black MYTH - Steam Edition: Wukong. The total views he gained from this repeated clipping method have exceeded 2.17 billion, several times that of ordinary top 100 Bilibili uploaders.
Obviously, this phenomenon is a bit perverted—but on second thought, it's not hard to understand.
On one hand, the segments shown in these clips are indeed the most essential parts of the original anime.
In Kaiji, Kaiji Ito's rule-breaking meal is arguably one of the best eating scenes in the history of animation, comparable to the baked beans scene in Quick Gunman.
After a month of exhaustion, his body finally ingested cold, slightly bitter beer. His inner longing for freedom was instantly overwhelmed by infinite indulgence. To experience that criminal-like pleasure again, Kaiji began making excuses for himself—first convincing himself that spending money on drinking should only happen on special days, and since today is payday, he should splurge; then he tricked himself into thinking his original savings plan was too strict, so he should leave himself some leeway and save later...
When I came to my senses, I had already fallen into the class monitor's trap. My slight hope for a day off had been worn down by desire, leaving me to muddle through with my exploited wages.
As for Baki's Rolling Log Tofu Soup, it indeed perfectly showcases the wild imaginations of the Hanma father and son and the author Keisuke Itagaki, reaching heights of imagination and freedom that human civilization may not understand for another hundred years.
On the other hand, these 'flypapers' are mostly either episodic or feature segments that are relatively independent within the plot. They only require a sentence or two of铺垫 from the clip narrator to dive straight into the theme and quickly capture the audience's attention. Furthermore, this approach avoids many flaws of the original work—in clips that are only a few minutes long, defects like power scaling issues, lengthy exposition, and cheap production are difficult to manifest.
Although this format indeed lacks much context and greatly diminishes the original work's emotional pacing and plot setup, it does present the most essential parts of the original footage in the quickest and most direct way. Its virality is therefore understandable.
However, this only explains why they went viral, not why we keep clicking on the same videos and getting stuck on the same clips repeatedly. A more reasonable explanation might lie within ourselves—perhaps what we're seeking is just a predictable, easily obtainable sense of satisfaction.
For example, when I return home exhausted after a long day and drag my tired body to take a shower, I usually choose to open a video to relieve boredom. However, at this time, I am distracted and not fully engaged. If I open videos I've never seen before, I risk missing exciting segments and frantically wiping my hands with a towel to rewind. Instead, content with nearly zero acceptance threshold, where I can even automatically complete the next step in my mind, is more relaxing.
Another example: In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and most people were in social isolation, the view counts for classic old shows like Friends and The Office showed an astonishing upward trend. They surpassed all current seasonal series at the time, topping the streaming platforms' download and view charts.
Regarding this, media psychologist Pamela Rutledge stated in an interview with NPR—the predictability of these series is exactly what caused their view counts to surge. People know all the plots of these classic series, so they don't bring any uncertainty or pressure during viewing. The more fatigued, stressed, and uncertain people feel, the more their brains crave predictable rewards and satisfaction.
It's the same on our side. During similar periods, the view counts for My Own Swordsman and Home with Kids surged dramatically. The magical ability of cyber flypapers to repeatedly attract clicks works on roughly the same principle.
I'm not sure if the creators of those anime clips are aware of this—but they certainly noticed that these 'cyber flypapers' have astonishingly high view counts. Following the principle of 'if it works, use it to death,' they repeatedly clipped the same scenes over and over, and audiences tirelessly watched them again and again.
For viewers, watching these 'cyber flypapers' is essentially like a brain massage. The light, airy AI narration slips smoothly over the cerebral cortex, washing away the misery of a day's work or classes, leaving only the simplest, purest pleasure... Honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. If we really need the dopamine brought by this repetitive experience, let's just openly embrace it. After the brain massage, post a meme in the comments section, like getting hit in the face by a Kernel Corn or Gojo Satoru being sealed in the Prison Realm, and enjoy a moment of good mood. It couldn't be better.
The premise is, don't get hard-stuck like I did when you have a DDL execution line chasing you from behind...
