If we talk about the hottest event in the gaming community recently, it's undoubtedly "Defending Super Earth." After all, global players going against the official script and uniting to protect "Shanghai Fortress" sounds very dramatic. Later, this event combined with many past regional meme jokes, creating some astonishing content. Even the "Cena Captain," who wildly performs using Shanghai's stereotypical regional impressions, shouted "I can Cena this all day," transforming into the real Captain Shanghai and joining the battle...
But for us rural folks on remote planets who tune in to Super Earth news on the radio every day, defending Super Earth feels too grandiose. An excellent superhero, a true XX Captain, doesn't just need to punch aliens and kick space carriers; more importantly, they must defend everyone's daily life. And such superheroes have indeed appeared now, many of them.
Although she's also called Captain Shanghai, she's on a completely different track.
First, let's introduce "Captain Anhui." Every time he appears, it's like Xiao Yan from "Battle Through the Heavens," focusing on saving people at the last second. Whenever this forty-to-fifty-year-old man, who looks like a second-grade elementary student, is bullied by several older students, the situation always develops to the cliché "critical moment." Only in the split second before the slap hits the victim's face does Captain Anhui make his move.
But Captain Anhui's entrance is not cliché. The camera cuts, and Captain Anhui, wearing body paint as a costume, appears in an exceptionally flamboyant pose accompanied by intense and oppressive music. Whether it's the style of his "costume" (if you can even call it that) or the weapon he carries, it's clearly referencing Marvel's "Captain America." The classic line "I can do this all day" has been localized to "Wo guan gen ni K1 tian" (I'll deal with you for a whole day)—excellent translation, love from Anhui.
Despite this, the background music when this captain appears isn't the "Captain America" theme, but it is related to superheroes. This "du du lu du du du—" soundtrack comes from the moment Peter Parker puts on the black symbiote suit in Tobey Maguire's "Spider-Man 3." Thinking about it, it matches this Captain Anhui quite well.
—He is both a friendly neighborhood hero stopping school bullying and has a contrasting side. And this phrase "yes oh yes," learned from who knows which website but arguably his life's greatest achievement, is probably a缩影 (microcosm) of his Dark side.
In short, Captain Anhui often descends from the sky right when you need him most. Whether it's school bullying, child trafficking, stopping drunk driving, or helping the elderly, he appears in these dangerous scenarios close to our daily lives, protecting the Earth from a more subtle perspective. This has opened up a brand-new track for countless captains that followed. The abstract and kitschy hero entrance scenes have ultimately become a classic short-video format recently. Although most of the time their motto is "Can't help with big problems, but can make small problems bigger," the antics they pull off are truly entertaining. For a while, heroes sprouted up like carp crossing the river, with countless "XX Captains" appearing on screen, covering all regions across the country, and new members keep joining. No wonder they use the Spider-Man soundtrack; now it all connects—Spider-Man is all about the multiverse.
Of course, this gameplay also has a flavor of self-mockery within regional stereotypes. As everyone knows, regional joking on the internet happens in seasons. In previous seasons, various old-school teams scored points in different ways, such as social shaking, Qinghai shaking, MC shouting, song parodies, four-person groups... These dazzling forms made it hard for people to judge quality. But in this season, people rarely reached a consensus, choosing to compete fairly on the same track, which can certainly be considered progress.
Standardized character and process design leave no room for formulaic point-scoring. To stand out, it tests the captains' true skills. People choose the same "XX Captain" skin based on different locations and wield their most unique local stereotypes, throwing them through the screen at your eyes—kids, our reverse OnlyFans has opened early.
For example, who is the pinkest among all the captains? It has to be my Captain Sichuan. The pink heart logo paired with a confident beard adds extra charm to his already flamboyant entrance pose. The top contender on Chengdu's must-eat list has thus jumped into the superhero track. The chrysanthemum shield in his hand eliminates all doubts; even if you don't listen to his opening line "Laozi Shudaoshan" (a Sichuan dialect pun), you will definitely know this captain's origin.
As for Captain Xinjiang, he chooses naan bread as his shield. Traditional vibranium shields no longer meet Captain Xinjiang's needs. Naan can be used for defense, eaten in emergencies, and placed on the chest to protect both pectoral muscles and privacy, making it much more modest than Captain Anhui's body paint which only covers two points.
More importantly, this Xinjiang Captain is quite touching because his IP location is actually in Xinjiang. Why is this touching? Mainly because so many captains log in from different locations. Just like Sichuan Fanta was actually born in the Northeast, these captains often ignore their own local jurisdiction and go enforce laws in other people's territories.
Imagine if you weren't satisfied watching Captain Anhui and clicked into his profile to savor more of his series' over-the-top acting as a connoisseur. You would definitely discover something magical—this Captain Anhui's IP location is actually in Henan.
Even more strangely, not just Captain Anhui, but also Captain Shandong and Captain Jiangsu come from Henan IP locations. This makes the actual Captain Henan, who should logically have a Henan IP, seem out of place. After all the fighting, the heroes and villains are really the same group of people. They take turns being the captain and the villain; in one video, they're a heroic captain fighting for justice, and in the next, they're a villain beating up grandmas. The roles are clearly defined. Perhaps the only constants are the elderly man playing an elementary school student and the young girl playing someone in their sixties or seventies.
This also explains why a large number of captains, such as Captain Henan and Captain Sichuan, have Anhui IP locations—so, is this Anhui people's revenge against Henan people?
This mysterious relationship is not limited to Henan and Anhui. Over time, you can even trace a logical chain: Captain Sichuan is in Anhui, Captain Anhui is in Henan, Captain Henan is in Jiangsu, and Captain Jiangsu is in Anhui. These captains have forcibly created a displacement reaction, ensuring that every province has its own captain while also sending each province's captain to fight elsewhere. Truly, good deeds are praised by all, praised left and right, until the captains bloom with smiles.
Ultimately, the fun brought by the captains even made people feel inferior for not having their own captain.
After all, these captain series short videos have long become a source of pure entertainment. People enjoy watching these captains film "hero entrance" videos, appreciating this low-budget mini-drama that is both abstract and bizarre yet still contains a simple sense of justice. They know what they're filming, we know they know what they're filming, and they know we know they know what they're filming... The original stereotypes have been completely dissolved into elements of entertainment. The high-intensity antics have also weakened the impact of offensive regional jokes. In fact, on the internet, if you mock yourself first, others lose the path to mock you—it's quite an entertaining phenomenon, isn't it?
Of course, the above is just aside. The XX Captains, becoming a trend and constantly emerging, have provided great entertainment for everyone. Even without discussing various stereotypes and regional discrimination, it's quite interesting. They don't have the ability to fight aliens, nor do they depict grand scenes; they simply keep filming those "light of righteousness" hero entrance videos, "defending humanity" and "defending the Earth" from a more grounded perspective. Suffice it to say, no matter where you are, the spirit of superheroes will be with you.
However, for me, why haven't I seen the Captain Freljord I want to see yet? Is it because "There are no captains in the Northeast, only generals"? But recently, I suddenly realized—the brothers of Freljord are busy picking bottle caps out of their food.
