The summer’s hottest destination for video entertainment is a U.K.-based social media brand called LADbible. In July alone, the viral clips that churn out of its Facebook page were viewed more than 3 billion times.
Although the site is nominally branded around young British men, its offerings hold an oddly universal appeal. On a recent afternoon, it served up videos of a guy accidentally hitting himself in the head with a baseball bat; a pizza being made out of french fries; a dog bathing in a Jacuzzi; a woodworker crafting a salad bowl; a tourist riding a slide down the Great Wall of China and a manatee kissing a snorkeler.
The videos are curated from disparate sources, filmed on smartphones and GoPros around the world, but they all have one thing in common: They’re best watched silently. If they even have sound, it’s completely beside the point.
We are living in the golden age of the silent video. Although we may still pop headphones in to watch a YouTube rant, social media has cultivated its own mute visual culture. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are designed to encourage endless scrolling, and that boosts videos that are made to catch the viewer’s eye without offending her ear with grating bursts of noise.
The clips that spread the furthest online are the ones that can be consumed anywhere without disruption: on the subway, the sidewalk or in the doctor’s office; next to a partner in bed, behind the counter at work or under the desk in class. They’re the ones that allow for private experiences in the most public of places. And in the internet’s global marketplace, they’re the ones that transcend language barriers, instantly legible to viewers in Peoria or Paris.
Tubular Labs, the online video analytics company that placed LADbible at the top of its rankings, has found that of videos posted to Facebook by media companies, 46 percent of views go to videos that are completely silent or just accompanied by music. And in practice, an even higher proportion of social videos are watched silently. Advertising agency BBDO Worldwide says that more than 85 percent of its clients’ Facebook videos are viewed with the sound off.
All of that has given rise to a particular kind of video spectacle on social media, one that is able to convey its charms without dialogue, narrative or much additional context. To entertain soundlessly, viral video makers are reanimating some of the same techniques that ruled silent film more than 100 years ago.
亞太電信表示，此次iPhone X開賣限定促案，活動現場限量提供50支iPhone X 256GB，太空灰、銀白各25名。申辦完成還可抽Gt福袋，詳細快閃開賣資訊及地點將於11月2日下午3時公告。
亞太電信表示，上周宣布iPhone X限定開賣促案，湧入大批消費者詢問開賣時間地點，針對攜碼或續約用戶，亞太電信推出最高可折4000元的優惠，以新壹大網1599元方案為例，新申辦iPhone X (64GB)為2萬800元，搭配攜碼折價4000元的優惠，即可以1萬6800元將手機帶回家；256GB則可用2萬2400元帶回家。
