Short and sweet, the new craze for the video generation

RECORDING REAL LIFE

For many young Chinese, vlogs are a new fashion and the trendy and cool videos encourage them to create their own style and story.

Vloggers themselves are major characters in their videos, recording daily experiences, editing and adding subtitles and music to make personified records of their lives.

"The most important feature of a vlog is authenticity. You can express yourself in an exaggerated way or process your video in an artistic way, but you can't abandon reality," says Sun Dongshan.

He has made more than 150 vlogs since 2016. "No one in China was shooting daily vlogs at that time," he says.

"Shooting vlogs brings you a brand new experience," Sun says, adding that even if they feature a familiar spot or person, having the camera present makes it feel like something new.

"I don't plan my vlogs. It is about recording and keeping the authenticity," Si Ling says.

Since she started posting her videos last year, she has gained more than 40,000 followers on the video site bilibili, and her videos have racked up more than 3.6 million views.

Being from Taiwan, Si Ling says everything on the Chinese mainland is new to her and she often feels surprised and curious. Through making vlogs of her daily life, she says she can share her experiences with her parents and keep them up-to-date on her life in Beijing.

She believes the vlogs not only record her daily life but also bear witness to her growing up. Vlogs satisfy the viewer's curiosity about other people's lives, showing how they deal with things and manage the consequences, she says.

Chen Kangna, a vlogger who is passionate about travel, says his original intention in shooting a vlog was to capture some of the interesting moments that often happen unexpectedly.

Vlogs represent reality and sincerity, rather than fakeness and performing, and it is easy for the audience to tell whether what they see is authentic, says a content specialist at the social network group of Tencent, who asked to be named as Hans Yang.

Vlogs reveal the details and trajectory of a person's life and, as an element of social contact, provide a way for others to understand them, he says.