Like A Knife

Appeared in China around 2000, private video had reached its second peak in 2010 because of the promoting of Wu Wenguang.Private video allows us to analyze ourselves as well as to practice "self-cure" in mind. What's more, it can be used to observe the contemporary society.The first chapter traces the history of private video from abroad to the domestic. I tried to define private video. In hoping to reach wide theoretical horizons, I use "private video" rather than the other names to refer to such specific kind of media. Private video, in my own view, is a new thing in the age of digital video.The second chapter discusses how the individual identity problem created by private videos. In a sense, private video is a kind of ceremony, which relates to self-cure, self-reflection and self-identity.In the last chapter, I discussed the relationship between private video and public sphere. Private videos are born for self-consciousness-and that's why they look so different when getting along with the public sphere.