Selling slapstick by cellphone
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Updated: 2004-05-16
There
was a survey that showed a high percentage of young Americans got their daily
dose of news from late-night talk shows such as "Late Night with David
Letterman." This was quite a shock to media experts.
Fifth medium
Pundits
call short message services (SMS) "the fifth medium," presumably
after print, radio, television and the Internet.
Cheng
Mei, a professor of journalism at Renmin
University of China, calls it an exaggeration, but there is no denying that
this is fast becoming a unique yet vital tool for communication.
A
survey in February revealed that an average SMS user sends 14.9 messages and
receives 15.5 every week.
In
aggregate, as many as 150-200 billion short messages were sent last year
throughout the nation, making up about half of the world's total. This was up
from 1 billion in 2000, 18.9 billion in 2001 and 90 billion in 2002.
The
exponential growth was further accentuated by special occasions, such as the
annual Spring Festival and last year's SARS (severe acute respiratory
syndromes) outbreak, when a torrent of greetings jammed the airwaves, causing
intermittent deadlocks.
For
example, China Mobile alone sent 7.8 billion messages during the big holiday
from Chinese New Year eve to the seventh day when the holiday ended.
With
the average charge of 10 cents for each message sent, last year telecom and
Internet firms racked up a neat 15-20 billion yuan
(US$1.8-2.4 billion) in total revenue. Since much of the cost is sunk in fixed
assets, this has added a great deal to their bottom lines.
There
is no sign that the trend is slowing down. There are about 200 million cellphone users and 80 million Internet users in the
country. About 20 per cent of the SMS business comes from the Internet. For
portal sites like Sina, Sohu
and Netease, about one-third of their revenue is
generated from this business.
So,
what are SMS users getting through their forever changing but always trendy cellphones - besides news snippets, weather reports, stock
quotes and all the "How are you" salutations and remembrances?
To
be precise, 51 per cent of respondents cited jokes as the most common SMS
content in a recent survey. Not bad at all as a separate category. Compare it
with greetings at 66 per cent, random chatting at 60 per cent and talking
serious business at 59 per cent.
Young
people are crazy about SMS communication. As many as 95 per
cent of this demographic group prefer it to any other means. That makes
thumb-tip pressing almost a fashion statement. An elderly gentleman sighs:
"I've only recently learned to surf the Net and use email, and the young
crowd have already moved to a new platform."
SMS scribes
The abundance of SMS output is leading to a lot of
redundancy. So many people forward their favourite
messages by group mail that one may receive the same messages several times.
"I got some 200 New Year greetings, many of them identical," recalls
a
"I
got a sore thumb from deleting all of them. In the end, Happy New Year sounded
totally cliched and insincere."
Li,
a 20-something who works at a multinational firm in
The
scope of communication is broadening, yet our time is getting more precious.
That's why we need expressions that are fast, short yet with a personal
touch."
That
is where commercial production of SMS comes into play. Like Hallmark Cards,
Inc, some telecom and Internet firms in
It
is estimated that
Some
of them are full-time employees, but most are "special contributors"
who are paid by how much they can write and how popular their messages turn out
to be.
For
example, anyone can join Sohu's short message scribe
club. After paying 2.5 yuan, or 30 US cents, to
register, one gets a personal code and can post his or her contributions.
Whenever
a message is "bought," the writer gets a quarter of the proceeds,
presumably 2.5 RMB cents on average. Multiply 2.5 cents by thousands and you've
got a pretty well-paid job going.
Some
companies have designed very complicated pay scales, with the writer's take
varying according to different brackets of user popularity for each message.
Overall, media experts put the monthly income of a full-time short message
writer at 4,000-5,000 yuan (US$483-604). Some star
writers earn much more because their compositions tend to attract the highest
number of customers.
Well-paid job
Su
Renyu works for Guangzhou-based Tom.com as a short
message scribbler. His biggest dream is to produce messages that are so catchy
that they are turned into slogans for the masses.
The
28-year-old has worked on his craft for two years. Some of his earlier pieces
have become sort of classics, such as this lottery winning notice:
"Congratulations on winning our grand prize. Please pick it up at a bank
near you. And please don't forget to bring your gun and your mask."
Su
says the main strengths required in a short message writer are a strong sense
of humour and an acute awareness of trends. In terms
of writing style, brevity is not only the soul of wit, but an absolute must.
The
maximum number of Chinese characters for one message is 70. "Actually 60
is the optimum length," said Su. Readers have little patience for thumbing
down several screens before they get to the punchline.
This
is like asking Dave Barry to write in haiku style.
While
many professional short message writers complain about the lack of copyright
protection, as their creations are often plagiarized by other firms, Su is
quite philosophical about it.
"A
good message is a product of collective wisdom. It goes through constant
refining when it whizzes from one person to another. There can be infinite
variations."
In
a mad pursuit of originality, some people have resorted to adult-themed
witticisms.
Since
this kind of content is not allowed in any other medium, the cellphone screen, with its private viewing, has become an
ideal platform to get provocative and even "down and dirty."
The
real threat, however, is scams shrouded in award notices and other enticements.
Harassment and commercial spamming are other kinds of things that people hate
about SMS.
"SMS
should bring benefit to the society, not harm it," comments Guan Xinping, professor of sociology at
So,
a short message writer must have a sense of responsibility when producing
messages for public consumption." There are media reports of laws and
regulations in the drafting stage that will set some standards for this
profession.
But
people also caution that the unique creativity in the area must not be stifled
in the process.
Quick. We need an equivalent of
"Don't throw out the baby with the bath water."
Popular cellular
jokes
2004-05-15
A mouse is gloomy because he cannot find a girlfriend. Finally he
convinces a bat to marry him.
While the mouse is giddy over his conjugal coup, his friends laugh
at him for his lack of taste.
"What do you guys know? At least she's an air
stewardess."
I called your cellphone three times.
The first time, I got: The user has turned off his phone; the
second time: the user is out of the service area; and the third time: the user
does not have a cellphone.
Sorry, I sent you "I love you" by mistake. If you accept
it, you can store it; if not, you can send the three words back to me.
D advises B: A pregnant woman should not wear a tight belt.
I introduces K: This is my girlfriend,
and boy, she can kick.
When 9 sees 6, he is quite contemptuous:
What's so cool about standing on your head?
Weather report for the new year: You'll
encounter a rain of money, the wind of fortune, the mist of friendship, clouds
of bliss, thundering satisfaction, and the lightning of ecstasy.
A naked man takes a taxi. The driver happens to be a woman, who
stares at him intensely.
"What are you looking at? Have you never seen a naked man
before?" the man said, apparently annoyed.
"I'm wondering where you've hidden your wallet."
A pair of lovers go to apply
for a marriage licence.
"Have you had your premarital check-up?" asks the counsellor.
"Yes, of course, I checked. He has a house, a car, everything
he says he has," responds the woman.
A swimming coach goes shopping and sees a stunning woman. She
greets him, and he realizes that she is one of his swimming students.
"Gee, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on."
A boy gets a scolding from his dad. Upset, he goes to mum to
complain: "Mum, what would you do if someone gave
your son a hard time?"
"I'll also give his son a hard time."
"Why were you fired from your job at the crematorium?"
"I asked the relatives of my client whether they'd like him
medium or well done."
My advice for computer users: Delete yesterday's troubles, select
today's joys, set up tomorrow's happiness, store your eternal love, cancel the
world's hatred, paste your wonderful mood, copy the intoxicating scenery, and
print out your best smile. Let every day be your happy day.
Wireless wit wins
praise
2004-05-15
Of all of the
wannabe funny boys, one has emerged as the "king of SMS jokes."
When Dai Pengfei won a coveted
"Apprentice" award on a reality-TV show in March, leading to a
100,000-yuan-a-year job offer from Net263.com, he was promptly christened
"
"This is my gift," says Dai, calmly. "What I
compose is not jingles. They usually have a serious message. I must get a
reader's attention with only a few words. That is hard."
So hard that he flatly rejected his employer's demand to
produce 60 messages each month. "I can only
do 30. Beyond that there is no guarantee of quality. Think of it. I've only
completed about 1,000 messages since 2002."
While living comfortably on just one message per day, Dai admits
that most writers would have a hard time scraping up enough to support
themselves simply by creating short messages. Even if one could, it would
induce high blood pressure. "But it would be nice to do it as a hobby that
can bring in a little pocket money."
To capture the ever elusive muse, Dai makes a point of recording
all the bright bits of conversations and happenings around him that may inspire
him when he puts pen to paper, or puts finger to keyboard, to be more accurate.
He bought an 8,000-yuan (US$967) MD recorder and uses it everywhere, even when
he rides the bus. "My friends keep away from me as if I were a sleuth,"
he laughs.
Dai says that a good short message writer needs to keep abreast of
what's happening in society, especially in cellphone
and Internet user circles. On top of that, an encyclopaedic
storehouse of knowledge is also necessary.
"Listen to what people say and observe them in meticulous
detail. And when you write, try to adopt a new perspective while going over
your observations."
The final thing that he mentions is patience. "Writing is a
lonely career. You have to endure the agony of creating something
original."
Dai Pengfei has amassed a collection of
40 disks that he has recorded on all kinds of occasions. And he has taken notes
that total 3 million Chinese characters. "This is my source of
creation," he says, and it is augmented by all the reference books he has
amassed.
Dai Pengfei started his comedy writing
career in 1999 when he was hired as a scriptwriter for a
Maybe the following message, which is among his better-known
pieces, reveals something about our national fascination with keeping in touch
via the cellphone screen:
A baby fish asks his mother: Who are those people sitting on the
river bank all day? What are they doing?
Mother fish explains: They're anglers fishing for us. They enjoy
reeling in the same empty line every time. They're so hooked on us that, in
fact, we've caught them.