How did Chai Jing’s documentary on smog become so popular?

The internet sensation Duang and skirts are still hot, and Chai Jing’s smog investigation has taken over and dominated the WeChat Moments.

On the morning of February 28, People's Daily Online published a special feature on "Chai Jing Investigation: Under the Dome" and an article interviewing Chai Jing, which sparked public attention to the documentary and discussions on smog.

At noon, "Under the Dome" was launched on major video websites such as Tencent Video, Youku , and LeTV. After the broadcast, it attracted the attention of netizens. Starting in the afternoon, social networks such as WeChat Moments were flooded with Chai Jing's smog investigation.

Why is this documentary so popular? As a former CCTV host and well-known journalist, Chai Jing is well-known in the industry. She has produced reports on pollution control for a long time, such as "Shanxi: Cutting off an arm to fight pollution", "Behind the accident", "Investigation on the rights protection of pneumoconiosis patients", etc., and has rich experience in reporting on environmental pollution issues.

Environmental pollution affects everyone's health, and the severity of the smog problem has been known to the public in recent years. However, ordinary people do not know where the smog comes from, how it is formed, and what are the deep-seated reasons behind it.

In order to film Under the Dome, Chai Jing visited many pollution sites to find the source of smog, and traveled to China, the United States, and the United Kingdom to seek lessons and experience in air pollution control. The film starts with three questions: "What is smog? Where does it come from? What should we do?", and explains to the audience in an easy-to-understand way the hazards of smog, its causes, the difficulties in controlling it, and the lessons learned.

The complex data are often summarized in simple and popular words, and even conveyed to the public in the form of animation. Such a low-threshold documentary does not feel obscure and difficult to understand.

The documentary is in the form of a speech by Chai Jing, which was actually recorded in January. According to Wang Tao, a reporter from Southern Weekend who was at the recording site, this was a "secret" speech: "At 11 pm on January 27, 2015, Chai Jing, dressed like a mother, gave a perfect speech in a white silk shirt, light-colored jeans, and flat leather shoes. There were countless cameras and a large black screen, but no one posted on Weibo or Moments the entire time. I sat on the floor of the small theater and watched the speech quietly and secretly with hundreds of people."

In a public speech at the premiere of the documentary in January this year, Chai Jing said, "This is a personal grudge between me and the smog," and she had not thought of making it public. However, as the investigation deepened, she felt that "as a journalist, I have the responsibility to make it clear to everyone, without sensationalizing or evading, and try to make it as clear as possible."

Regarding the cost of shooting this investigative video, Chai Jing revealed that she shot it at her own expense, spending almost 1 million yuan, mainly from the royalties from her previous book.

As of 20:30 last night, the documentary had been played more than 35 million times on various online platforms. How do we understand this number? When the second season of "House of Cards" started, the number of hits in a week was only around 20 million. The popularity of "Under the Dome" has surpassed many popular TV series.

As of 9 a.m. this morning, the playback data of "Under the Dome" counted by major video websites were: Tencent Video 74.26 million; LeTV 10.63 million; Youku 10.06 million; Sohu Video 2.03 million; iQiyi 1.09 million; Phoenix Video 690,000, Tudou 63, with a total playback volume of 99.39 million.

As of press time, the number of views of "Under the Dome" has already exceeded 100 million.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.