From the "Women's Volleyball Mask Incident" to see the changes in public mentality

In the past two days, countless people have been paying attention to one thing: in the women's volleyball Asian Cup group match held in the Philippines, the Chinese women's volleyball team, which had won three consecutive victories before, wore masks in the first game against the Iranian team, and the result was 24: 26 lost the game. Fortunately, from the second round, they took off their masks, and the next three rounds were easily won at 25:19, 25:10, 25:13, and finally advanced to the quarter-finals with the first place in the group.

The sharp reversal of the score added to the impression that the reason why the women's volleyball girls lost to the underdogs like Iran in the first game was entirely because they were short of breath and tied their hands and feet, and they questioned why it was necessary to do so. ——“Isn’t it common sense that you shouldn’t wear a mask during strenuous exercise?”

All of a sudden, a lot of jokes appeared on the Internet. I don't know why it is necessary to ignore the players' sports status. It even insinuates that this is "ignorance" and has become an outdated and grotesque performance art.

After being widely questioned by the public, the Chinese Volleyball Association issued a statement:

The first thing worth noting about this statement is that it was released at 03:55 this morning, 10 hours before the end of the game. If it's just a simple situation statement, even if you add the time to communicate on the phone and write a notice, 1 hour is enough. Why did it get posted in the middle of the night? I think it is because the matter is so big that the leaders need time to discuss it, or they deliberately find a time when no one will care about it, so as not to fry the pot as soon as it is released.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the so-called "protecting the health of athletes" and "lack of on-the-spot experience" are mostly pretexts. At that time, the real thinking was probably this: There are two conflicting KPIs right now, one is epidemic prevention, and the other is winning; Epidemic prevention is the top priority at present. I thought Iran was a weak team and could win even with a mask on, but I didn’t expect to lose a game. I thought it was a trivial matter, but I didn't expect the public uproar. At this time, it said that it was actually the third KPI that it valued most: the health of the players.

"Zhang Sanfeng" said in "Look at how the Volleyball Association's apology letter shirks responsibility" , this statement is an understatement,

The essence of the narrative of this passage is the clever use of three subjects, "we", "our athletes" and "team". When it comes to responsibility, use the broader and more ambiguous terms "team" and "we athletes" (which looks like "us" but are actually "athletes"). While "taking" responsibility, it also sheds responsibility.

You are not playing volleyball, you are playing football.

For these accusations, Hu Xijin sarcastically:

I think the women's volleyball team is not due to lack of on-the-spot experience in the game, but a lack of "on-the-spot experience" in dealing with the Internet. They don't know that they are playing on the court, and their on-the-spot judgment must first be in line with the judgment of the Internet, so that netizens feel right. Otherwise, they will find that it is useless to take off the mask, and it is useless to win 3 to 1, 4 battles and 4 victories.

He was right on one point: the volleyball association's response was indeed "inadequate 'on-the-ground experience' in dealing with the Internet." It seemed that it neither expected the public to have such a large reaction, nor did it even know why people did so. reaction. As for Hu Xijin, although he was much more sensitive to the public's reaction, he satirized netizens who were critical and wanted to make everything go according to his own wishes.

What I care about is neither the game itself nor the sports bureaucracy implied by this statement (which is also an old topic), but the public's reaction to the event: at least online, people generally It is not necessary for athletes to wear masks to compete, or even a joke at all.

Of course, some people also turned up the earlier photos of Brazil and the United States wearing masks in the game, but soon someone reminded: that was also in 2021 at the earliest, when the epidemic was really serious, but now it is 2022. This is the problem: neither Hu Xijin nor the old photos of "other people do the same" can no longer justify the current mask-wearing competition.

In March 2020, at the beginning of the epidemic, I once wrote in an article " Daily Mentality and Wartime Mentality ": "European and American society entered the wartime state slowly, but once it is over, it will get rid of it quickly; on the contrary, Chinese society will enter the wartime state. It's quick, it's often slow to get out, and at times, this siege mentality will stay with us all the time."

Unfortunately, the development of the epidemic over the past two years has just confirmed this hunch: even overseas, when people around them don't care, the Chinese are often the first to start wearing masks; At the beginning of the announcement of the end of the epidemic and the normalization of life, our epidemic prevention is getting tighter every year.

After more experience, I can better understand the mentality of the people in the war at that time: the war lasted year after year, and it is said that the front lines were victorious, but the victories came one after another, but the war never ended.

The difference is that people's mentality has undergone subtle changes today. The earliest signs appeared at the most tense moment of Shanghai's closure. On May 3, Air China crew members wearing protective clothing embarrassedly walked through the Los Angeles Airport, which had already been announced to be normalized.

At that time, someone on the Internet ridiculed: "Will wearing protective clothing like this at the airport be the same as watching braided hairstyles? Take protective measures, that is the 'base camp' of the virus. Wearing this in the United States, as long as there is embarrassment, there is nothing else, it is too much. Well, we should give Air China a thumbs up and applaud the crew. Of course, when we arrive in the virus zone, we must strictly guard against it. There is no mistake. If the virus does not disappear in a day, we will continue to wear it and be proud that we are Chinese.”

Some people expressed doubts: "The protection is ok, but you can't take it off when you get out of the airport to the hotel? If you don't take it off, you will keep wearing it there? If you take it off, you should wear this kind of protective clothing in a sterile environment. , otherwise it's meaningless."

Another person said: "It's really not easy to manage a group of children born in the 90s and 00s with the thinking of 70 years ago. After this time, even my cousins in their 40s and even my parents saw it. Some clues, they used to be a grateful generation."

Many people around me, from the very beginning, resolutely supported strict defense and even rejoiced that "the scenery is good here". Since this spring, they have gradually been unable to understand what this is for, and now they are completely numb. Anyway, with regular throat stabs, ——This even seems to be the standard of Chinese way of life.

Most of the time, people respond to this with a kind of passive patience or cynical sarcasm, the English phrase "be positive, be patient" (be positive, be patient) has been retranslated by someone as "be positive, be patient". "Patient", a pun, no one would have thought that it would have such another meaning under the epidemic.

A while ago, I saw a "Tiancai killer" on the Internet wrote: "Our old middle school has lived like a hamster all his life, and his eyes are always trembling. No matter how much money you make or how much success you have, how perfect your family is, But there is always a string in my heart, always ready to wake up one day and everything around me will be cleared, including health or life. Why, why, I just can’t figure it out.”

Even last year there were some tired voices, but the change in social mentality has never been so dramatic since this spring. What was different from what I had expected was that the siege mentality was not with us all the time after all, and quite a few people were beginning to realize that something was wrong. This awakening is even faster than I imagined, especially after the closure of Shanghai, it seems that what was considered "normal" not so long ago has become quite "abnormal" overnight.

This is the problem: the women's volleyball team wore a mask in the competition. It was a year or even half a year ago. Maybe everyone didn't think there was a problem. Even people who didn't wear a mask thought there was a problem, because the judgment of the epidemic at that time still made it difficult. People feel that it is necessary, but now, anyone who cares a little about world news will realize that we are the outliers.

The "women's volleyball mask incident" is just a turmoil in a teacup, and it may be overwhelmed by other news in a few days. What really matters is not the incident itself, but the reflection of the whole social mentality on what is "normal" and "no" The judgment of "normal" has undergone tremendous changes, which may mean that people are psychologically prepared for the post-epidemic era, and the question now is: when and how will this day come.