近日，文艺评论家周志强在一篇题为“新大众文艺的‘新’与‘人间感’叙事”的文章中提出，当前蓬勃兴起的新大众文艺并非传统大众文艺的简单延续，而是呈现出三重深刻转向：创作主体从被动受众变为主动表达的知识型大众，书写对象从历史主角转向生活配角，叙事伦理则从追求“现实感”走向呈现“人间感”。这一观点为理解当下文艺生态提供了极具启发性的视角。
周志强指出，新大众文艺之“新”，首在其“大众”之新。与传统大众文艺中的“大众”不同，今天的新大众文艺创作群体是受过良好教育的“知识型大众”。他们既是文化的消费者，更是文化的生产者。在自媒体时代，这一群体有能力通过网络组织起自己的表达空间，熟练运用新媒介技术不断推陈出新，形成具有鲜明数字文化特色的文艺活动。新大众文艺不再是由精英向大众进行的单向启蒙，而是“知识大众”的自我表达，标志着文艺从“被表达”转向“自表达”的历史性变革。
其次，新大众文艺之“新”体现在书写对象的位移——从“主角文学”到“配角文学”的转变。传统现实主义文学往往讲述“人物的故事”，将个人命运嵌入历史进程，塑造具有历史意义的主角。而新大众文艺则以描摹“微末生活”中的“微末人生”为己任，完成了从塑造历史性人物到呈现普通人生命状态的叙事转型。那些在宏大叙事中默默无闻的配角，如今成为作品真正的主人公，而他们恰恰是自身生活的主角。
这种转向在近年广受关注的作品中清晰可见。如动画《浪浪山小妖怪》将镜头从唐僧师徒转向山间小妖；游戏《黑神话：悟空》中那位叱咤风云的“悟空”也变成了前途未卜的“天命人”；剧情式长视频《一个县城青年，逃跑的十年》则记录了一位普通电工十年间辗转漂泊的微末人生。英雄的故事、伟人的故事、大历史的故事，在新大众文艺时代逐渐让位于琐碎而真实的生命体验。
再次，周志强提出，新大众文艺之“新”还在于叙事伦理从“现实感”到“人间感”的转换。传统大众文艺追求“现实感”，强调个人存在与历史真实的二元关联，个人的故事必须置于历史现实背景中才有意义。而新大众文艺则更倾向于“人间感”的表达：它以一个个鲜活的个体人生为叙事线索，呈现出美学性与非美学性相互叠加的独特气质。“烟火气”“活人感”“接地气”构成了其审美底色。
周志强进一步阐释，“人间感”并非精英对俗世的启蒙，也不是底层对崇高性的内在向往，而是在祛除大众文艺神圣光环之后，对人间的感受力和想象力的全面恢复。这种叙事可以从“活人气”和“尘中人”两个层面来理解。“活人气”意味着作品从“角色完整性”的框架中解放出来，坦然地展现人的矛盾、琐碎、纠结与复杂情绪。
例如，喜剧综艺《喜人奇妙夜》中的作品《奈何桥北》将荆轲刺秦的历史叙事，翻改为一曲“活着时没能与好兄弟好好喝杯酒”的人间遗憾；《八十一难》则消解了唐僧师徒的“天命人”色彩，使其变成有血有肉、会犹豫会恐惧的凡人。这些作品不再承担灌输宏大理念的责任，而是让观众在会心一笑或一声叹息中，感受普通人情感深处的共振。
周志强的此番论述，梳理出新大众文艺区别于传统文艺的关键脉络。当知识型大众成为创作主体，当配角与微末人生站上叙事中心，当人间感取代现实感成为审美的起点，新的文艺形态正在重构我们对于文学和艺术的认知。这种转变不仅是媒介技术发展的必然，更是当代社会个体意识觉醒的生动注脚，也为观察文艺未来的走向提供了重要的理论坐标。
Recently, literary critic Zhou Zhiqiang, in an article titled “The ‘New’ of New Mass Literature and Art and Its ‘Human-World’ Narrative,” argued that the flourishing new mass literature and art is not a simple continuation of traditional mass literature and art but involves three profound shifts: creators have changed from passive audiences to expressive “knowledgeable masses”; the object of representation has shifted from protagonists of history to supporting characters in daily life; and the narrative ethic has shifted from the pursuit of a “sense of reality” to the presentation of a “sense of the human world.” This argument offers a highly illuminating perspective for understanding the current literary and artistic ecology.
Zhou points out that the “newness” of new mass literature and art lies first in the newness of its “mass.” Unlike the “masses” in traditional mass literature and art, today’s creators are well-educated “knowledgeable masses.” They are both cultural consumers and cultural producers. In the age of social media, they can organize their own spaces of expression online, skillfully use new media technologies to keep innovating, and develop literary and artistic activities with distinctly digital characteristics. New mass literature and art is no longer a one-way process of elites enlightening the masses; rather, it is self-expression by the “knowledgeable masses,” marking the historic shift of literature and art from “being represented” to “representing oneself.”
Second, its newness is reflected in the displacement of the represented object—from “protagonist literature” to “supporting-character literature.” Traditional realist literature often tells “stories of characters,” setting individual destinies against historical progress and shaping protagonists of historical significance. New mass literature and art, by contrast, takes as its task the depiction of “minor lives” within “trivial daily life,” completing a narrative shift from shaping historical personages to presenting the existential state of ordinary people. The supporting characters once invisible in grand narratives have become the true protagonists of these works, and they are precisely the protagonists of their own lives.
This shift is clearly visible in many widely noticed works in recent years. The animated work “The Little Demon of Langlang Mountain” turns the camera away from Tang Sanzang and his disciples and toward the little demons of the mountains. In the game Black Myth: Wukong, the once formidable Wukong becomes a “Destined One” whose future is uncertain. The long-form narrative video “A County Town Youth: Ten Years of Escape” records the wandering minor life of an ordinary electrician over ten years. In the era of new mass literature and art, stories of heroes, great figures, and grand history are gradually yielding to fragmented yet real life experience.
Third, Zhou argues, its newness is also reflected in narrative ethics shifting from a “sense of reality” to a “sense of the human world.” Traditional mass literature and art pursues a “sense of reality” and emphasizes the binary relation between individual existence and historical truth; a personal story becomes meaningful only when placed against the material background of history. New mass literature and art instead tends toward a “sense of the human world.” It follows the vivid lives of individuals as its narrative thread, presenting a distinctive quality in which the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic are intertwined. “Hustle and bustle,” “the palpable aliveness of real people,” and “down-to-earthness” form its aesthetic tone.
Zhou further explains that a “sense of the human world” is not an elite enlightenment of the profane world, nor is it the lower strata’s inner longing for the sublime. Rather, after the sacred aura of mass literature and art has been removed, it is the full restoration of human sensibility and imagination toward human existence. This narrative can be approached at two levels: “the vitality of living people” and “the person amid the dust.” The former frees the work from the framework of “character completeness,” allowing it to candidly present contradictions, trivialities, entanglements, and complex emotions.
For example, the piece “North of the Naihe Bridge,” from the comedy variety show Wonderful Night for Happy People, turns the historical tale of Jing Ke’s attempted assassination of the King of Qin into a human-world regret: “While alive, I never had a proper drink with my good brothers.” Another piece, “The Eighty-One Tribulations,” strips Tang Sanzang and his disciples of their “Destined One” aura and turns them into flesh-and-blood beings who hesitate and feel fear. These works no longer shoulder the task of instilling grand ideas; instead, they allow audiences, through a knowing smile or a gentle sigh, to feel the resonance of ordinary emotional lives.
Zhou Zhiqiang’s discussion clarifies the crucial thread distinguishing new mass literature and art from traditional literature and art. When the knowledgeable masses become creative subjects, when supporting characters and minor lives move to the center of narrative, and when a sense of the human world replaces a sense of reality as the starting point of aesthetic judgment, the new form of culture is reshaping how we understand literature and art. This transformation is not only an inevitable outcome of media technology development but also a vivid footnote to the awakening of individual consciousness in contemporary society, and it offers an important theoretical coordinate for observing the future of literature and art.