Ideas are mysterious things.
Sometimes theworstones smell like solid gold, sometimes theprofit-driving powerhousesmasquerade as giant turds.
Telling the difference, it seems, takes a certain measure of psychotic genius.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
laughed alternate reality me, Who hired this asshole?
Someone institutionalized that chaos, and whats worse, they did so with great success.
The feature is calleddanmu(), and its the hottest thing going in Chinese streaming media UI.
The name is apt.
It does kind of feel like your sense of UX decency is being pelted with explosive rounds.
Or rather, its like trying to watch TV while having multiple personality disorder.
Or like sitting in a movie theater with 300 day-traders in the middle of a stock market collapse.
I am not the only one who feels this way.
And yet, Chinese video sharing platforms cant add the feature fast enough.
Danmu configs panel allows users to adjust color, size, transparency, placement, and scroll direction.
When did this abomination happen?
From Japan, you ninny.
The concept wasnt born in a vacuum.
Its like, yes, youre watching the show.
But youre also watching the show watching itself.
Spoilers abound (< He dies in the end!)
and ASCII art is common.
Its super fun right?
No, it is not fun.
It is the absolute worst.
It is the worst thing there is.
But Saber was not to be swayed.
Hes thinking of basing his next 20% project app around adanmufunction, in fact.
What makes it great, he says, is the sense of community.
If the audience is really on point, thedanmucan end up being way more interesting than the show itself.
A perusal of Zhihu (Chinas Quora) and forumthreadsturns up an overwhelmingly positive response from respondents.
This thread asksDoes anyone thinkdanmuare super annoying?
The only real question is why.
Chinas loneliness epidemic
I have a theory.
So what?
As always, the numbers are easy to scrape together, the concrete why less so.
I guess I feel like UI elements cant be assessed out of context.
Its like trying todetermine dinosaur skin pigmentationby staring at a pile of fossils.
I think I get it now.
Im not a fresh-faced Chinese college student, but I get the appeal.
(https://triviumchina.com) Shes been lurking around the Beijing tech scene since 2004.
Stay up to date with Schaefers posts on Twitter.
Also tagged with
