I feel that this episode of Tengger's "The Host and His Friends" is a particularly relaxing electronic food-cooking thing in early 2026. When the 65-year-old prairie singer puts down the microphone and picks up the card, the strong contrast of grandpa suddenly playing a hot internet meme is more real and touching than any carefully crafted script.
Audiences hate pre-prepared dishes and prefer real fireworks
This reminds me of the recent popularity of Hechuan Pig Soup. Young people drove hundreds of kilometers overnight just for the sincerity with a breath of life. To put it bluntly, everyone has long disliked pre-made dishes, whether on the dining table or on the screen.
But here comes the question. If a singer doesn’t sing but talks about a talk show, is he breaking through himself or not doing his job properly? When Tengger sang "Paradise" as if it was for himself, and adapted Angela Chang's "Invisible Wings" into self-destructive classics such as flying on his bare head, is it artistic transparency or consumption sentiment?
I think Tengger's style of complaining is as humorous as the sandstorms on the grassland. On the surface, it gives you a sense of vastness. Thinking about it is all wisdom in life. He said, "Not only can the dishes be made in advance, but the songs can also be made in advance." This is like precision guidance. The missile directly pokes at the difficulty of the current music industry's assembly line. What's even more powerful is the phrase "If you destroy my entire paradise, I will break your invisible wings." The two representative songs are turned into a confrontational meme. This hard-core contrast is more natural than any professional talk show actor can design.
The guests interacted with each other in a tacit understanding, showing that adults can socialize comfortably
And what He Guangzhi said to Sun Nan about Wang Han's nobleman was truly a textbook example of "understatement can have a big effect." It didn't directly mention the word "retirement," but it made the whole place think of that famous scene ten years ago. This kind of tacit understanding that everyone understands is like the tacit and understanding code among the best friends.
But what moved me most was not the golden words themselves, but the response of the person being complained about. When Sun Nan heard the noble joke, he didn’t blush or feel embarrassed. Instead, he started laughing and even made a joke about himself. In the current variety show environment, this kind of open-minded attitude is quite rare.
I know, nowadays, the comment sections of variety shows often see chaos with fan criticism and scolding. When a meme is thrown out, you have to first consider whether it will trigger a quarrel among fans, or whether it will be screenshotted and taken out of context.
But in this episode, Xilinnayi Gao dared to directly call Liang Yuan the voice of Tim Du. Hu Haiquan dared to joke about making music that no one likes to listen to. Liang Yuan was besieged by everyone and just spread his hands and said, "This is how I make a living."
This kind of atmosphere reminds me of the concept of light socializing that is popular in the workplace recently. It does not necessarily require in-depth communication, but it is quite comfortable to get along with each other. There is no need to pretend, but you can still maintain dignity.
The guests on the show just show the most ideal social state for adults. They can attack each other without any malice, and they can expose their shortcomings but have some restraint.
When Tengger was adapting "Invisible Wings", his serious and amusing energy was exactly the same as the Internet speed when Long raised his head and shaved his head to make jokes a few days ago.
Have you ever felt that really interesting people usually have this kind of self-analysis ability? They don't take themselves too seriously, so others won't take them too seriously. The word "no" here actually means reluctance.
This kind of self-defeating defense is, to a certain extent, more powerful than blaming the sky and the earth. Just like when we encounter embarrassment in the workplace, we don’t try to hide it or pretend we didn’t see it. We might as well make fun of ourselves first, so that others have nothing to complain about. The performance of Tengger and Sun Nan in this issue can almost be published in an "Adult Social Self-Help Guide".
Sincerity is questioned, will variety shows become a new type of prepared dishes?
Of course, I have also heard some different opinions. Some friends feel that this kind of variety show model that hurts each other is fundamentally consuming the privacy of celebrities and past controversies.
Sun Nan's withdrawal from the competition, Liang Yuan's venomous character, those jokes that have been brought up and pondered over and over again, for the parties involved, are they fun or necessary?
What’s even more interesting is, when speaking out becomes the selling point of a program, will sincerity also become another kind of performance. For example, when we watch short videos now, when we see those real records, we often have to first doubt whether they are scripts. When Tengger’s contrasting cuteness is praised by the entire network, will this kind of character setting also become a new type of prefabricated dish?
I think this kind of vigilance is necessary, but there is no need to over-interpret it. At least in this issue, Sun Nan's sentence "Compared with high pitch and low pitch, I care more about whether I am distracted" sounds sincere. And when Tengger hummed the adapted version of "Invisible Wings", the smiling state was difficult to explain with his acting skills.
After all, the audience is not stupid. Whether a person is sharing sincerely or performing for business, the subtle atmosphere cannot be hidden, just like Hechuan Daidai became popular all of a sudden. It does not rely on carefully designed marketing methods, but the taste of real life.
Smiling and complaining about the pain points of the industry to heal the emotions of contemporary young people
What impressed me most about this program was that it showed the possibility that people in the entertainment industry can actually get along with each other like ordinary people. There is no suppression by celebrity status, and there is no fan filter. It is just a group of music people sitting together and chatting about the strange current situation of this industry in a humorous way.
When Tengger talks about prepared dishes, he is actually complaining about the homogeneity of music creation. When He Guangzhi talks about noble people, he is actually dismantling the unspoken rules of the industry. The reason why these complaints make people laugh is because they hit the pain points we all know, but they do not turn into angry accusations.
This attitude of laughing and complaining may be the emotional outlet that young people need most nowadays. Life is already tiring enough. We don’t want to receive value education while entertaining, or see celebrities tearing apart each other’s hair. We just want to watch a group of interesting people talk about things that everyone understands but is hard to say clearly in a smart but not vicious way.
Cross-border has nothing to do with the real job, the core is a rare sense of relaxation
Let’s go back to the question at the beginning. Is it a breakthrough for a singer to talk about a talk show instead of singing, or is he not doing his job properly? I think that when Tengger used that grassland-like boldness to dismantle his classics, he actually sang a more touching song. The name of that song is called Relaxation.
Think about it, when Sun Nan heard Wang Han’s noble words, his first reaction would be embarrassment or relief. If it were you, and you were ridiculed in public about the dark history of ten years ago, would you retaliate or make a self-deprecation? Also, the song Tengger said can be pre-made. Which internet celebrity song produced by the assembly line is the first one you recall?
