Cyber friends, happy 2024. It is time again for me to pour out opinions born of my own mental overthinking, possibly offending some thin-skinned readers who see themselves in them (I hope not).
First, this is a review of Johnny Keep Walking (hereafter Johnny), not an end-of-year summary. If any of it resembles your thoughts (or is completely different), please read it cautiously and be kind :).
Last year (strictly speaking, the year before), I wrote in “I” Came Back, but “I” Will Soon Set Out Again : “I do not want to say much here about the colleagues I have met or the internet workplace as a whole (I do not think four years are enough to observe anything worth detailing).”
Now things are easier, because Johnny has expressed roughly seventy percent of my observations for me.
1. Seventy Percent
My first immediate feeling after the film was that Hu Jianlin is lucky: he has a group of friends who believe in him and help him. That is connected to his personal charm and hard work, but also to his circumstances and the era he lives in.
Most people (according to my neighbourhood statistics), when they encounter the dark side of internet workplaces (and probably other industries even more so), do not have the courage to stand up. Even if someone does stand up with an excellent state of mind, solving the problem temporarily with wisdom and the right time, place, and people (the dark side expands through the same factors) is far from easy.
Johnny answers several questions in a theatrical, comic way—exaggerated without losing its awkwardness—while leaving me with even more questions about reality. These questions make people stop at the right point and “leave a line of goodwill for the next meeting”: a compromise without praise or blame. Looking back at the plot, if the earlier, perfectly timed groundwork had not placed Hu Jianlin at a crossroads where he could choose, I probably would not have been so moved by the annual-meeting climax. That is the charm of the film (a very, very long video, as some would call it): it gives people valuable things to think about and the strength not to compromise with life too easily.
The last similar work I watched was The Troubleshooters the previous year. As a sitcom, it exposed all kinds of workplace problems while trying—sometimes aptly, sometimes absurdly—to offer answers. It also gave a glimpse of today’s internet industry: still young compared with other industries, yet just as mixed, not because of anything else but unchanging human nature.
2. Beyond the Film
In I Came Back, I wrote:
I think that for a very long time, the laws of human nature will not change, so my way of dealing with people and the world should not change either.
Xu Yunfeng, one of the film’s central characters, has his own explanation. It is neither right nor wrong, and can even be called reasonable. Still, although [“Characters in a story, whether heroes or villains, will always get what they need, never what they want”][Note 1], many similar people have bet correctly on the next wave in different eras, become outstanding by their own definition, and lived out their lives safely.
The world is not always fair. An idealist who tries to fight that unfairness alone will usually either become a nihilist and die lost, or end his life on an ordinary night. Fortunately, if you are lucky enough, you discover that some questions do not need an immediate answer. On the road to finding one, other people can always walk with you for a while, however long or short the stretch, however winding the road.
For me, living inside the situation, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a person, a group, a symbol, and an idea. At the same time, I find that people often discuss problems without finding answers because their definitions have become too broad. They even let imprecise and emotional wording go unchecked, making things worse; at the extreme, the whole environment is polluted and becomes a footnote to history, warning those of us who rush toward it.
I have seen too much of this (though objectively, limited by my experience, it is not actually much), to the point that I sometimes feel desperate. “After I die, let the floods rise” is an attitude no one should judge casually, but there should be other ways to look at things—or answers.
Fortunately, as I said in I Came Back, online and offline there are always people who, in their own ways, directly or indirectly give me the strength to seek answers. As I find more and more answers, the questions also multiply, but my mind gradually becomes steadier.
All this may sound empty. I simply do not want to say too many sentimental words outside the story and make them seem insincere.
3. The Story
There is a half-joking saying: “Selling a vision is really just telling a story.” It sounds like a questionable analogy at first. Yet I quite like its converse: “Telling a story is drawing a vision.”
Art produces stories. I hope that in the future I can tell more of them through forms other than code. At least in 2023 my state of mind was not so bad, so in 2024, within the observable range, I should be able to keep it that way.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you stay healthy and resilient in the new year :).
[Note 1]: From Neil Gaiman’s MasterClass, The Art of Storytelling — Bilibili
—— Written 2024.01.01