"Lily, Lily." Andy's call is a bit annoying now, Emerson pats Andy's head angrily, Andy wails and yells, "Don't hit, don't hit, I've found out, I mean it." Finally Emerson stopped moving, Andy gasped, and quickly said, "Right, I mean right, right of the header." ”

Lily looked over, only to realize that on the right side of the header "Welcome to Sin City", a three-dimensional black building did appear, as if a toy model was embedded on the page, but it was black, completely integrated with the background color, and only a faint layer of light golden halo outlined the outline.

Understated and sophisticated, the hard work of the design artist can be seen at a glance, and at the same time, only the truly attentive person can see it. This kind of propaganda is unique - as if it were feared that too many people would know about it.

Lily clicked in, and was greeted by a new page with a slight change in the header sentence and the addition of the word "yours" between "Welcome" and "Sin City". There are still twelve skulls in the center of the page, and the first two are also crossed, but they are mustard yellow.

Click on the first one, only to find that there is nothing in it, only an empty black page; Lily was stunned, then went backwards and clicked on the second one, which was still blank.

"What's going on? Could it be that the page is not finished yet? Someone next to him asked curiously.

"No!" Lily, Andy, and Emerson said in unison, startling the man behind them. Although the site may seem rudimentary and lacks much content, they are certainly prepared to add new content, and they all believe that Lance is definitely not a man without purpose.

"Above, above." Emerson saw something, patted Lily on the shoulder, and then pointed to the bottom of the line "Welcome to your Sin City" on the screen, where there was a row of weapon options, a total of three weapons, guns, swords, and a pair of iron hands, which were very cleverly designed. This is something you don't see on the homepage.

Lily hurriedly moved the mouse to look, and when the mouse was placed on the weapon, a dialog box was displayed, "Create your own Sin City, write your own character story, smear your artistic talents, and upload your real life." The guns represent videos, swords represent photographs, and iron hands represent comics.

"I see!" Emerson's eyes lit up, "Lance is for us to create the background of the character's story, to present our understanding of the character, or to find the commonalities between us and the character, and to create a video or photo of our life and upload it to the website." To put it simply, it's to build a sin city in our minds, combining comic book stories with real life! ”

Everyone around was still confused, thinking that Emerson was making a tongue twister.

Emerson couldn't help but get anxious, and pushed Andy aside, Andy rolled down like a gourd by surprise, and shouted in frustration, "Hey! But Emerson didn't care at all, and stood in front of everyone, "For example, Nancy's story, have you read the original comics?" Nancy was almost kidnapped as a child, and although she was able to escape, she was later reduced to the dust and became a stripper/dress/dancer. Now, Lance is asking us to create Nancy's story based on our own ideas, or our own experiences, or our own resonances, so that this character can be fleshed out. You can use videos, you can use photos, you can use comics; It can be a story, it can be a clip, or like Nancy's trailer, it's just a scene. ”

"I see! It's pretending we're part of Sin City and then telling our story. When uploaded on the site, it can be categorized, for example, to something similar to Nancy's story, or for example, it is something like ...... "It was Lily who spoke, and she looked down at the second skull," "Muffle's story." Others thought that Mafu was a vicious person, but in fact, it was just his appearance, and his heart was extremely kind, but he was driven to a dead end by others step by step, killing many people. ”

"I think, in the trailer of Muffle just now, why can't that blood be his family? The whole world betrayed Muffer, but he didn't care, but in the end, even his family treated him as a monster and wanted to force him to death, and in desperation, he killed all his family members with his own hands. Andy sat up, forgetting the pain in his buttocks, and said excitedly, "Just like Quasimodo." ”

Andy and Lily's words suddenly made more than a dozen people around them fry, this group of college students was originally young and enthusiastic, and they were full of various views on life. In particular, they have just left school and have begun to get in touch with society, so they have unlimited ambitions for the future, but they are beginning to understand the dark side of society, and they are full of enthusiasm to change the world, and at the same time they are indignant because of the darkness of society.

Whether it's Nancy or Muffle's story, they can immediately associate their own lives, and even their own personal experiences, and the ideas in their minds can't wait to start colliding fiercely.

Emerson had other thoughts, "Lily, do you remember?" When I was in 11th grade, I made a project about school violence. ”

"Of course I do!" Lily's eyes lit up immediately, "Are you saying that we took that subject out again and made it our Sin City?" ”

School violence in the United States is world-famous, whether it is the direct violence of physical confrontation or the cold violence of verbal ridicule, it is ubiquitous on campus. Movies and TV shows are all about life, such as squeezing misfit and withdrawn classmates into the trash can for lunch, such as football players stuffing math nerds in their closets, or laughing at maverick minorities in classroom hallways.

Especially cold violence. Depression, suicide, and violent excesses due to cold violence on campus continue to rise every year, and in severe cases, the victims have even been able to shoot at the campus with guns – and far more than one.

For many students, campus is their sin city, some are Nancy, some are muffles, and some are ...... Lily suddenly began to wonder who the next character would be.

Emerson nodded repeatedly, "We can shoot it as a video." It doesn't need to be too complicated, it just needs everyone to appear on camera and show their wounds, and that's enough. ”

"And then in black and white!" Andy also ran over, looking eager to try.

"Jesus! What kind of tricks is Lance playing this time, you say? Lily could barely hold back her excitement, and her voice trembled slightly, "What style did he shoot the film in this time?" Did you see those trailers? The style is so special, it's like never seen before. ”

"I don't know, but what I do know is that this time, we're going to join forces with Lance to create the same world!" Emerson's eyes sparkled with excitement.

As a result, a group of college students who were enjoying spring break became the first people to respond to the Sin City propaganda strategy. Later, when online platforms and viral videos became commonplace means of film promotion, people carefully recalled the course of history, and then realized that although online propaganda began earlier, the "City of God" had used this method to achieve good results, but the real sense of great power came from the "City of Sin".

Not only the major Hollywood film companies, not only the news media practitioners, but more importantly, those professional researchers in cultural communication and media use realized for the first time that the Internet has become an irreplaceable part of the new century, and thus promoted the rapid development of the new media profession. Ten years later, the new media major has become an indispensable part of the journalism major, but who would have thought that it would first come from the use of the film industry.

By the time Chloe Moore, a third-year film student at Columbia University, noticed the buzz on the Internet, it was already ten days later. Chloe looked at the professor of mass communication standing on the podium with a stunned expression, and felt that she seemed to be unable to keep up with the pace of change of the times.

In just ten days, the site has received more than 1,200 videos, most of which are said to be from young people between the ages of 16 and 30, although there are no official authoritative statistics, so it is still up for debate. However, it is worth noting that this is nothing more than a promotional ploy for a movie, and now it is leading a trend, as if it were going viral and spreading rapidly. The number of page views on the website has exceeded 10 million, and the average click-through rate of the current 10 versions of the trailer has exceeded 2 million, and this trend has spread from the Internet to people's real life, not only traditional media such as TV stations, radio, newspapers, etc., including people's daily chat topics are focused on this matter. From the point of view of mass communication, this is a case that can be called a myth, and all links are perfect; But a closer look reveals that the enthusiasm of netizens for interaction is far beyond imagination, and 1,200 videos have set a new record for netizen participation on major portals. So, why? What are the particularities of the participating groups? What is the inspiration for the news media? That's what we're going to be about this week, and I'd like you to feel free to form a group and write a study with a minimum of three people and no more than eight people. Publication will take place three weeks later. ”

Chloe sat in her seat, her head already in a state of panic. Wait, what the hell is going on? Why did a movie called "Sin City" become the subject of her research report? Why is this film, directed by Lance, she has only heard now? Why did she, as a film student, only know about it today? (To be continued.) )