Why Shanghai burlesque failed to become popular?

The "Shanghai dialect crisis" faced by Shanghainese has had a huge impact on Shanghai's burlesque and one-man shows. Local opera and folk art cannot be separated from local dialects. This is a relationship like water and fish. Over the years, Shanghai one-man shows have appeared on CCTV, the Spring Festival Gala, and even participated in some variety shows. However, once they give up their performances in Shanghainese, the effect will never be produced. A survey shows that among middle and high school students in Shanghai, the proportion of family communication using Mandarin is much higher than that of Shanghainese. Faced with the Shanghai teenagers who “can basically understand but can’t speak well”, the influence of comedy and one-man shows is naturally declining.

The second is the communication medium. The development of mobile Internet has completely changed the communication model of Shanghai burlesque and one-man shows. One-man shows in Shanghai were first spread through radio waves. Over the years, turning on the radio to listen to cross talk and one-man shows has become a habit of Shanghainese people. Going home from school and having dinner while listening to the radio is a normal life for many people born in the 1970s and 1980s during their childhood. Interestingly, "Turn on the Radio" has also become a classic one-man show in Shanghai. However, the popularization of mobile Internet has posed unprecedented challenges to radio and television. The impact on Shanghai's burlesque and one-man shows, which are highly dependent on radio and television, can be imagined.

Script content again. The "gimmicks" of Shanghai burlesque and one-man shows are not gimmicks. Similar to "shaking the baggage" in cross talk, Shanghai burlesque and one-man shows throwing out jokes are called "gimmicks". However, the speed of communication in the current Internet age has greatly increased. In just a few hours, a news hot spot can trigger many netizens' own jokes. For example, this Rio Olympics has made people experience the comedy skills of "masters among the people". This speed of dissemination is difficult to match with traditional comedy and one-man show script production methods. In the era before Internet communication, the production of "gimmicks" not only relied on screenwriters and actors themselves, but also found materials from some ancient joke collections. For example, many jokes in "Laughing Lin Guangji" were used in one-man show performances. Become a brilliant "gimmick". In today's networked society, this situation may not happen again. In March this year, Zhou Yikai, an 84-year-old veteran comedy writer, lamented at an art seminar: "What if we don't catch up with the situation? Even ordinary people are more 'funny' than you professional comedians."