IN a video less than a minute long, people wearing masks act out a psychological concept in a skit about an angel, a landlord and a farmer. The moral of the story is to look beyond what things appear to be.

The clip, which is on China’s popular short video platform Douyin, also known as TikTok, attracted nearly 2.2 million likes, and Human Observatory, the account that posted it, gained over 800,000 followers over the next few days after posting it.

Short video platforms such as TikTok have increasingly become places for sharing knowledge as more bloggers post informative yet entertaining clips.

“We have been running this account for less than a year,” said Li Nan, who heads the operation team for Human Observatory. “It is only recently that we have seen a rapid increase of followers.”

The members of Li’s team are temporary and currently there are less than five of them. However, the account now boasts nearly 6 million followers.

Since this year, knowledge-sharing videos have increased in popularity on Douyin. According to ByteDance, Douyin’s parent company, the creators of science-popularization content with over 10,000 followers on the platform surged 767 percent in the first six months this year. Their more than 1.3 million clips have been viewed nearly 168 billion times.

Earth Village Guide, an account dedicated to the subject of astronomy, gained over 9 million followers; Modern Nature, which shares knowledge about nature, has over 2 million followers; and Ma Weidu, a famous Chinese collector, attracted over 5 million followers by generating content about ancient artifacts.

On Kuaishou, another short video platform, over 3.6 million popular science videos were posted in 2018, gaining 8 billion views and 15 billion likes, according to a joint study by the platform and the China Research Institute for Science Popularization.

“Short videos bridge the gap between common people and science and technology. It makes knowledge more vivid and approachable,” said Kuang Yanyun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Many people know from the videos that science and technology are everywhere in our lives,” Kuang said.

Some bloggers think it meets many people’s innermost impulses, such as curiosity.

“I think my videos are popular because they stimulate the curiosity and loneliness that we once had in childhood and lost when we grew up,” said Pan Yabo, who runs a mystery-exploring account.

Pan’s most popular video is about evidence that points to the possibility of an alien civilization.

“It is very satisfying for me to share knowledge about the universe and possible alien culture,” Pan said. “In the past, people often disregarded these claims as unrealistic, but now more people are paying attention.”

Some attribute the popularity of these clips to the heightening expectations that people have for short videos.

“Early on, most of the videos on these platforms are bloggers dancing to music, and people may have gotten bored from watching too many clips of the same type,” said Li Naiyu, a member of the Human Observatory team.

“Now, as people have more contact with short videos, they wish to see more on subjects that interest them and something deep and ‘useful,’” Li said.

(Xinhua)