Shows What He Knows

On February 14, 2019, Tang posted his first original video. It was about the anomalocaris, an extinct shrimp-like animal that lived half a billion years ago. Funny and informative, Tang’s debut immediately went viral on the site. The success hardened his resolve to become a popular science promoter. 　

Over the next two years, he posted roughly 80 original videos to his Bilibili account “FunStuff,” gaining 1.8 million followers. Many of his videos have over three million views. Bilibili named Tang among the platform’s “Top 100 content creators” two years in a row. He was awarded the 2020 Outstanding Contribution Award for Science Popularization by Guokr, one of China’s leading websites for promoting science awareness.　

Tang admitted his career change from scholar to social media star was not a “wise choice” to most people. “It seems I’ve become someone my parents might frown at,” Tang said. 　

“It’s like selling shoes. Some sell shoes only to those who already wear shoes, but some try to persuade those who don’t wear them to try them on. I think maybe I’m the latter,” Tang told NewsChina. 　

In 2018, he translated some popular science videos on YouTube into Chinese and posted them on Bilibili with permission from the original creators. Among them, he particularly liked a series about prehistoric creatures. These videos earned him roughly 700 followers. 　

The science and technology section on Bilibili was chock-full of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories about extra-terrestrials. “There were very few content creators on Bilibili who focused on serious popular science content – perhaps less than 10,” Tang said. 　

His debut original, a 13-minute video titled “Strange Shrimp: The Story of the Oldest Imperator” which took him two months to make, became his calling card. In the video, he talks about anomalocaris, also called the “strange shrimp,” a top predator in the primordial world half a billion years ago. 　

Released on February 14, 2019, the video generated 100,000 views in the first 24 hours. His followers skyrocketed to 43,000. By March 15, 2021, the video had 3.47 million views.

 　

The popularity of this video is not by chance. Tang spent lots of time closely studying the works of popular content creators on Bilibili to find out the secret behind their success. “I’ve watched all their videos over 10 times,” Tang told NewsChina. 　

To make his videos more interesting and accessible, Tang adopted a fun way of narration: he personified the ancient creatures, gave them different personalities and dramatized their story of evolution. In his videos, prehistoric creatures “act out” moving, epic and tragic stories about life, evolution and extinction over giant spans of time. 　

In the video “Trilobites: the Unyieldingness and Hesitation of an Ordinary Family” released on March 14, 2019, Tang tells of how trilobites, which were always at the bottom of the food chain, outlasted their predators. Tang explained that while trilobites could not climb the food chain, these tenacious creatures survived for 200 million years. “The trilobites gave an unyielding middle finger to the entire world,” Tang said in the video. 　

Tang’s storytelling style earned him 1.8 million followers, most of whom are students and young people. Knowing his fan base made him aware that he must make his science videos entertaining. 　

“Imagine they come home after a long day working or studying, so exhausted they feel like they’re even going to fall apart. And they sink into bed and turn to your videos for a moment of fun. How can you force them to watch a serious lesson?” Tang said. 　

Before Guokr, the only outlets for popular science were television programs and publications. Guokr gathered scholars, science writers and enthusiasts in China and abroad in an online community where they could engage in lively discussions on any sciencerelated topic. 　

In 2011, one year after Guokr was founded, Zhihu.com was launched. Now Zhihu has become China’s most popular Q&A platform. Questions on Zhihu range from academics and politics to pop culture and everyday life, and attract many well-known experts as contributors. 　

By 2016, Tang had published more than 100 online popular science articles and joined the Shanghai Science Writers Association.　

In the same year, he started online popular science courses for young students. His online teaching experience provided him with new thoughts about how to popularize science. 　

Tang recalled an open course that he spent lots of time and energy preparing for. After a two-hour lecture, he encouraged his students to ask questions. But he never expected to get stumped by the first one. 　

“A student asked me, ‘Mr. Tang, what’s a cell?’” Tang told NewsChina. “I was so shocked by this basic question... For more than a decade, I’ve been in an environment where there wouldn’t be anyone who didn’t know what a cell is. From that moment, I realized that popular science figures like us perhaps haven’t thought hard enough about what our readers and viewers really need.” 　

In January, the China Association for Science and Technology released a new survey on the scientific literacy of Chinese citizens. The survey shows that in 2020, only 10.56 percent were scientifically literate. 　

“If popular science promoters just neglect the remaining 90 percent, that means we’re giving way to rumors, superstition, conspiracy theories and anti-intellectual culture,” Tang said. 　

Encouraged by the immense popularity of his “strange shrimp” video, Tang adopted the format as his primary medium. 　

According to statistics from Bilibili, the content creators focused on science and knowledge sharing in 2019 rose by 151 percent year on year, while views of educational videos increased by 274 percent. 　

In June 2020, Bilibili launched a “knowledge section” with six categories: popular science, humanities and social sciences, technology, finance and economics, campus learning and workplace skills. 　

Tang does not agree. “The purpose of pop science is not to turn a few people into experts, but to cultivate the public’s interest in science and promote logical, deductive and scientific reasoning. If the content is entertaining, instructive and scientifically precise, then absolutely one can learn something from it, and that learning is no illusion,” Tang said. 　

While he strives to make his videos entertaining, Tang is a stickler for details. He spends one to two months making a video, from picking a topic, researching it and fact checking to writing commentary and editing. 　

While he hopes to collaborate with more professional researchers to promote popular science, there is a common prejudice in the academic community against pop science. Tang said that many intellectuals are reluctant to engage with the public because it is “not the right thing to do.” “Staff at Guokr complained to me about how difficult it is to invite a scientist to give a public speech. They [academic researchers] have too many concerns, this or that,” Tang told NewsChina. 　

This reluctance has left too much space for anti-intellectualism, pseudoscience, superstition and conspiracy theories to run amok online. “As a result, bad money drives out the good,” Tang said. 　

During his time at CAS, Tang saw how the gap between the academic community and the public widened every year. While some people idolize scientists and take everything they say as gospel, others demonize them and their work. Tang argued that pop science promoters can narrow the rift between academia and the public. 　

Tang compares himself to lichen, the complex plant-like organisms that grow on rocks and trees. “Lichen grows in places where no other creature can survive, like a pioneer in a wild desert,” Tang said. 　

Compared with Western countries and Japan, the market for popular science remains a wilderness in China. “I don’t think the content I’ve created so far is good enough, but I hope my work makes up a small part of the force that can develop the field from nothing,” he added.