Reports on News | #洞见Break Down
By White Bear
In 1971, David Bowie released his third studio album, The Man Who Sold The World, in the United Kingdom, and on the cover of this album, he bid farewell to a small curly blond hair of his own and replaced it with a long, curled hair, wearing a silk satin dress with black boots, which caused a huge sensation at the time.
The era of Glam rock began, David Bowie is one of the representatives of Glam Rocker, in the 70s of the last century, ostentatious costumes, exaggerated and dazzling makeup, blurred gender differentiation and swing dance-like musical rhythms, is a kind of young people's psychological emotions of catharsis and natural expression.
David Bowie's third studio album, The Man Who Sold The World
In China, there is a group that has received an online evaluation that "broke the situation of China's visual trend that has been stagnant for many years and opened a new page for China's non-mainstream", they are "killing Matt".
Wilde once said, "A man either becomes a work of art or wears a work of art." This statement is amply confirmed by David Bowie. Killing Matt tends to explode heads, smoky makeup, loose clothes, ripped suits... It's different from the alternative unruliness of Glam rock.
In 2008, Killing Matt swept the country like a virus, and it became the memory of countless post-90s generations, widely popular among immature middle and high school students, and adults criticized it. To this day, the discussion and controversy about killing Matt has never stopped.
Kill Matt popular pictures
In 2017, in the character interview program "Talking to Strangers", the host Xiaonan talked to Matt's "godfather" Luo f*cking, which was the first complete understanding of killing Matt. At the same time, documentary filmmaker Li Yifan is also ready to start filming Killing Matt. From Shenzhen to the southwest, he searched for Matt in 14 cities along the way, a visit that lasted two years.
As of 2019, Li Yifan has completed a total of 67 interviews to kill Matt and 11 online interviews. In December 2019, #纪录片 "Kill Matt, I Love You" was finally officially released at the Guangdong Times Museum of Art. Compared to previous character interviews, this is a more detailed and detailed grooming operation about killing Matt.
Screenshot of the "Kill Matt, I Love You" documentary
Where did matt go back then, what kind of heart was under the colorful hair, and what kind of dilemma did they face? Walk into this "Kill Matt, I Love You" with Rolling Stone to find out.
1
A personal history of killing Matt
"Kill Matt, I Love You" documentary poster
"I've been looking for them for 4 or 5 years, and I've been looking for them since I heard the name Kill Matt and I knew about this group." Documentary filmmaker Li Yifan said in his speech about the documentary.
Later, in 2016, Li Yifan finally met Luo f*cking, the founder of the Matt family, under the introduction of his friend Manyu, which made him excited, "I have been looking for Matt to kill, and I did not expect to find the godfather who killed Matt directly when I looked for it." ”
He rushed to Shenzhen to find Luo f*cking, who had already cut his hair short, but what Li Yifan did not expect was that the founder who had founded the huge Matt family and the Lingqi network did not seem to be suitable for chatting with Li Yifan in person.
Kill Matt Godfather Ro f*cking © "Kill Matt, I Love You" documentary
"I think he had something to say to me, but he was particularly frightened, and I don't know why. We were 3 people going together, Luo f*cking told my other two friends to walk away, and then he opened an hourly room in a hotel and talked to me alone. It was summer, the air conditioner in the hourly room was still broken, and in the end nothing was negotiated, but we left WeChat for each other. Li Yifan said.
After a few days, Luo f*cking asked Li Yifan what he really wanted to know. Li Yifan thought for a moment and replied, "I want you to tell yourself what it is to kill Matt." ”
At this end of WeChat, Luo f*cking did not have the restraint and fear of the last meeting, and he was more accustomed to the chat method that did not meet on the Internet. He expressed his willingness to chat with Li Yifan, and it was through Luo f*cking that Li Yifan met more members of the Matt family who had killed them, came into contact with them and walked into their real lives.
The film crew took a group photo © with Kill Matt
So the documentary looks very trivial, similar to the usual chatter with friends, rather than the formal grandeur of a regular documentary, it is like an impromptu performance, the narrator can say what he thinks, extremely everyday.
This is also Li Yifan's temporary adjustment after the end of filming, "Because making a documentary is like this, you have to have a central character, and my director's point of view will follow this central character to string together all things to form contradictions and conflicts, which is the best effect." ”
But soon Li Yifan found that the killing matts that Luo f*cking knew were only online, and these people had almost no intersection with his real life; Luo f*cking racked his brains to contact several killing Matts, but the other party refused to shoot.
Li Yifan gave a speech © on documentary
The reason for refusing to shoot is precisely because since 2013, Killing Matt has been labeled vulgar by the whole society, they are not only beaten and scolded, but also "special treatment" in other places, and over time, they are afraid of mainstream society. "That fear is a fear that goes deep into the marrow, and they can say they are afraid of anyone." Li Yifan said.
Finally, thinking about it, Li Yifan decided to present the documentary in its current form, with no central characters, no contradictions and conflicts, and he gave the right to speak to Matt and let them tell themselves.
2
Reacquaint yourself with Killing Matt
Li Yifan said: "After filming this documentary, I can be regarded as re-acquainted with Killing Matt. "In fact, the same is true for the public.
The word "smart" is derived from the English "smart", is Luo f*cking found in a chance, when he was pursuing fashion, in Google Translate, he typed out the word "fashion", the corresponding English is "smart", Luo f*cking does not know this word, clicked on the small speaker next to the English word, the speaker emitted the sound of "Smart", Luo f*cking felt that he still owed a little, changed to "kill Matt".
Kill Matt's unique font
Luo f*cking did not know what glam rock was, born in a small town, he actually wanted to become a professor, but the cultural level terminated his ideals, he wanted to be famous, do some influential things, at the age of 14, he completed this wish, on the Internet, Luo f*cking is the founder of Kill Matt.
Then there was a viral epidemic: the Killing Matt family group on QQ, colorful hair, selfies at a 45-degree elevation angle, a large number of Martian texts and non-mainstream pictures invaded the network, and at that time, who could not sing "I miss you" would be immediately isolated.
If you want to apply for admission to the Matt family, you must go through a series of rigorous and complex "review" procedures. Li Yifan once tried to quietly break into the inside of Killing Matt, but he failed to pass the review because of hairstyle problems, not to mention the "review" of the QQ space after that.
The hairstyle of Killing Matt has always been criticized by the mainstream public, but the upright hair is the most important symbol of Killing Matt, and it is also an important feature to distinguish whether a person is really killing Matt. A killer Matt who returned to Mengzi in Yunnan from Dongguan recalled the situation when he returned home, and on the way back for three days and three nights, he was holding this hair, and he did not dare to move, afraid that the hair would fall out and the relatives in his hometown would not be able to see it.
There is a saying in Shipai Town that "it is not to kill Matt who blackens", in their hearts, this hairstyle is not out of place, but on the contrary, it can bring them great energy.
"It's so messy outside, we're too simple to be bullied by others, so we got this hairstyle."
"This hair gives you the courage to act as if you were a bad boy, and in our impression, a bad boy cannot be bullied."
"Loneliness, just thinking about getting your hair off, attracting others, making people feel very unique." 」
Killing Matt not only loves his unique hairstyle, but also loves the culture of Killing Matt from the bottom of his heart. In their hearts, this is a big family similar to a new utopia, here will not be lonely, here is very free, here can control the self.
3
Factory people who can't get a foothold in the city
Such a huge group, where do they all come from? And where is it concentrated?
The documentary "Kill Matt, I Love You" has a lot of factory footage. Through the interview with Matt, it is not difficult to find that most of matt kills are almost all left-behind children, and their parents left their hometowns very early to work in big cities, leaving themselves in the village.
Basically, after junior high school, they will also leave their hometown and start their own part-time work in the factory in the town. The factory is surrounded by a living environment similar to an urban village, the upstairs is full of low-cost housing and small hotels, the downstairs is all small factories, glass and walls are pasted with various recruitment notices for short-term workers and daily salaries, and the machines in the factory are roaring, leaving a strong smell of engine oil on the body when they come out of the factory.
Since 2007, Matt has entered the factory to work, and colorful hair and strange clothes have become a landscape in the factory.
Dongguan's Shipai Town is the place where the most killing Matt gathers, in order to better understand the group of killing Matt, Li Yifan deliberately moved to Shipai Town, under his observation, he knew that Dongguan Shi rank flow barber shop is one of Matt's favorite hair salons, they like to eat Wanzhou grilled fish, using OPPO mobile phones.
In this low-consumption industrial zone, they still have a very difficult life. Although the probationary period is only one month, it does not provide salary, and if it does not meet the assessment standards, they will leave directly; they do not even know what is social security, what is five social insurance and one gold.
For Kill Matt, they simply moved from the village to the factory, and they still know nothing about this society.
In the documentary, a dyed-purple-haired killer Matt Lengyun told everyone that at first he had just rented a house here, but after going out for a walk, he found that he couldn't find where the house was, and sometimes even got lost. Once, in the process of finding a house, he met a big sister, who seemed to be kind enough to help him guide the way, but was actually cheating money, and disappeared without a trace after "borrowing" a sum of money from him and promising to return it.
Two or three thousand yuan may not be much for the public, but for Leng Yun, it is his hard-earned money for several months.
Li Yifan and Leng Yun talk about killing Matt
Due to the tight operation of the factory assembly line, although Li Yifan found a lot of killing Matt, he did not have time to interview and shoot with them. "They work for more than a dozen hours a day, starting at 8 a.m., taking turns at noon, and immediately after eating, they start rushing to work until about 10 p.m."
And you think that these killers will be like many young people, go to eat supper and drink and come home to play games after work, but it is not. They are too busy to have any time to play games, and when they return home, there is only endless emptiness and daze. Rather than physical exertion, mind imprisonment is the most terrible. For more than ten hours a day, repeating only one mechanical task has long since separated them from society and given up thinking.
Almost everyone in the documentary reflects the fact that long-term mechanical manual labor makes them feel like walking dead, and their hearts are extremely depressed, which is another important reason why they became Matt.
4
Society in a condom
No one found out that After 2013, Killing Matt disappeared. It was as if overnight the group had disappeared without a trace, leaving only everyone's memories of killing Matt, where there was a taste of youth, but no one felt the sadness of this group.
After adding some QQ, WeChat, Douyin, and Kuaishou that killed Matt, director Li Yifan found that the push in his mobile phone had completely changed, and the algorithm kept pushing similar content to him.
"The ideological and cultural barriers between the various groups in our society are too great, and the distance between them is greater than the distance between the rich and the poor. Coupled with the fact that the current AI always chooses what you like to show you, it thinks that your group should look at you, and finally the vision of each group becomes narrower and narrower. ”
The disappearance of Killing Matt is also officially unacceptable to the public for a long time, all they get is insults and criticism, and in the end, they cannot survive in the increasingly narrow vision, they can only disappear.
In 2013, a big V user with 1.72 million followers in China shared three photos of the back of a young man with an explosive head on Weibo, accompanied by copywriting, writing: "Catch a killer Matt alive on the street", adding that his hairstyle resembles "the molecular structure of some kind of virus".
The popular video "Kill Matt Meets Wash Cut Blow" on Youku has been viewed more than 2.4 million times. When the public mentions killing Matt, it is a joke. The latest news about the "god leader" Luo f*cking is that he opened a barber shop, and some media made a big fuss here, but they did not feel that this was actually a kind of sadness.
Killing Matt is popular because some young people's upbringing and childhood experiences make them eager to express themselves and afraid of being abandoned by society. Becoming a Killer Matt is nothing more than a special protection mechanism that belongs to them.
But this society is obviously not so tolerant, although the public clamors to pursue niche aesthetics and culture, but when it really appears, it is inevitable to do a psychological struggle. Some people will choose to support themselves, while most people will still follow the trend and follow the crowd.
At the end of the documentary, a closed real estate continues to rotate in the camera, which means that Killing Matt can never escape the poisonous eyes of the public, cannot live himself, and cannot get real freedom.
Finally, the words of director Li Yifan were selected as the ending,
"Our society is really very intolerant, killing Matt is not outdated to hope to protect his own little decoration through body modification, just a little bit of heterogeneous things, almost become the whole society to think of heresy." Most of the killers thought they had made a big mistake, so they had to shave their hair, work honestly, and return to the poverty of life. ”
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Produced by | @Ning Dada
Edit | @White Bear; Design | @Sun Yi
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