Tik Tok – A new access to museums favored by young people

This year, the theme of International Museum Day (May 18th) was revealed as “Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics”. In this increasingly high-paced and fully diverse mobile internet era, keeping up with time as well as meeting cultural demands of the public, especially those of youngsters have literally assumed strategic significance in museum development. 

In response to the International Museum Day and Chinese cultural heritage day (June 9th), the Hunan Museum, along with the National Museum of China, Nanjing Museum, Shanxi Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Guangdong Museum and Zhejiang Provincial Museum launched a “Museum in Tik Tok ” video contest, aiming to make Chinese traditional cultures more accessible to the younger generation. 

As the director of one of the main organizers of the contest, Duan Xiaoming, director of Hunan Museum stated that through cooperation with Tik Tok, museums have technically made a breakthrough in terms of time and space – “links” of internet make happen the immediate “links” between museums, which will greatly enhance the function of museums in public cultivation and further facilitate the sharing and spreading of Chinese traditional culture. 

As one of the hottest short-video social platform powered by music, Tik Tok is the second-to-none gathering place of post 95 and post 00 (teenagers born after 1995 and 2000). By humming and finger snapping at the same time—a widely favored method of filming on Tik Tok, seven museums presented Chinese national treasures in an unprecedentedly cool way, which well catered to the interest of more young people and got them fully involved. Thereby the museums deepened youngsters’ understanding of Chinese cultural essence even before they realized it.