Hanoi (VNA) - When Hoa Minzy's "Bac Bling" music video hit 100 million views worldwide in 27 days, it signaled more than a viral performance. Her March release, featuring over 300 residents from the northern province of Bac Ninh, exemplified how young artists could blend traditional heritage in modern rhythms in a way that left their young fans speechless.
There was more than beautiful music in Hoa Minzy’s video: it was a feast for the eyes with Vietnam's cultural tapestry of Dong Ho paintings, traditional conical hats, folk festivals, and historic temples. And it quickly hit the Top 11 videos worldwide in 24 hours and secured trending positions across Australia and the Republic of Korea thereafter.
Talking about Bac Bling, Kwon Yeaji, a Korean content creator who owns many popular reaction videos to Vietnamese music on social media said: “The clip really captures the energy of Vietnam's street culture and the vibrant spirit of its youth in a very natural and appealing way."
The colour palette, styling, setting, and choreography all expressed Vietnamese identity while maintaining a contemporary aesthetic. The melody is instantly engaging so that you want to listen to it again and again and sing along as well“I was actually most impressed with the way the video didn't target just younger audience. It featured real local residents, young and old, in the performance and that made people watching feel the experience was like a love letter sent to the community and its history, " she explained.
Daring experiments
Hoa Minzy is not the only artist that finds experimenting traditional arts in modern setting interesting.
Giao Cun, a TikTok content creator with nearly 860,000 followers, has impressed her fans by hundreds of videos showcasing Vietnamese history and culture. For example, when participating in global TikTok trends like hat-transformation videos, she used Vietnamese non quai thao (flat palm hats) and non ba tam (conical hats with big rims) instead of regular Western-styled hats, giving her clips an interesting cultural twist that drew attention of thousands of viewers.
Asked about motivations for all the work she was doing, she said with a smile that it has been her profound interest and also her personal journey of learning.
“My videos are not aimed to win fame… I just want to share what I find interesting to the public,” she said. For Giao Cun and many Tiktokers and Youtubers, their content creation projects stem from their passion and genuine love for Vietnam’s history and culture.
“Giao Cun has, in her own way, sparked a renewed interest in Vietnamese history among young people, making us proud of our culture and having a deeper emotional connection to the nation’s past,” said one of Giao Cun’s followers.
Young social media channel hosts that are interested in traditional arts and culture have been emerging in Vietnam's digital landscape over the past few years. The number of content creators focusing on Vietnamese culture, arts and history has been on an increase, among them are Pham Duc Anh (@ducanh94), Giao Cun, and Meo Trai Dat, just to name a few.
The State’s relevant agencies quickly noticed the trend and its huge potentials that these young influencers and their social platforms could do to culture and arts promotion campaigns. They immediately invited several prominent names joining in Vietnam’s teams at big events like EXPO 2025 Osaka and cultural promotion weeks. Those first-time cooperation projects were more successful than expected. One of the projects- the Hashtag campaign #DiSanVietNam- for example, encouraged the community to create interesting content promoting Vietnam’s heritage sites and using new technologies to elevate the audiences’ experiments at cultural and historic sites. To the organisers’ surprise, it went viral online at the level never seen before.
“Ambassadors of culture”
From the scholar’s perspective, Dr. Lam Vu from the University of New South Wales sees the new form of State- KOLs cooperation as an effective shift in Vietnam’s approach to cultural diplomacy.
“The rise of social media and young Vietnamese people’s interest in promoting traditional arts and culture online shows that public diplomacy in Vietnam is no longer just State-led efforts,” he commented.
A lot of young Vietnamese have been using popular platforms like TikTok and Instagram to express their love and pride of the country and by doing so, they are making themselves ‘voluntary ambassadors of culture’. That’s something we really should encourage.
Beyond content creation, young people are also exploring new formats for cultural engagement. Giao Cun has recently partnered with Comicola to launch "De Do khao co ky" (Imperial Archaeological Records), a blind box toy line featuring miniature replicas of historical artifacts from Hue imperial city, developed in collaboration with the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.
Ly Nguyen, a culture enthusiast from Hanoi, said she discovered the blind box through Giao Cun’s TikTok channel. “The product is fun and educational so, you’re not just buying a toy, you’re engaging with history…”
Each box, priced at 200,000–280,000 VND (7.68–10.76 USD), contains miniature cultural treasures encased in a layer of plaster, allowing collectors to participate in a simulated “archaeological dig” – a tangible, interactive educational experience. Embedded with NFC (near-field communication) technology, the artifact toys connect users to a digital repository of historical information, interactive videos, and cultural narratives with a simple tap of a smartphone.
In a recent interview with the Vietnam News Agency, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ta Quang Dong said the trend of young people, especially influencers, sharing Vietnamese cultural values, traditions, and images of the Vietnamese country and people on social media was highly encouraging. “Creative short videos, images, and posts combining traditional culture with modern elements in cuisine, tourism, music, and customs have attracted people from different parts of the world.”
Among popular content creators interested in Vietnamese culture, some are not Vietnamese. Will Helm Le Courageux is a French content creator with a strong passion for Vietnamese cuisine.
"As I explored different dishes, I realised that Vietnamese rich cuisine and diverse culture were still underrepresented and that inspired me to start making videos to introduce these incredible flavours to people from other countries. I want to show the world a Vietnam that I am falling in love with every day," he said.
Social media allows diverse arts, cultures to shine
The success of Will Helm Le Courageux's Vietnamese food videos or projects like "Bac Bling" and “De do khao co ky” blind boxes indicates huge potentials for Vietnam’arts and culture to reach the wider global audience.
Sharing thoughts on Vietnamese content creators promoting Vietnamese history and traditional values on digital platforms, PhD candidate Nguyen Le from the University of Nottingham Ningbo in China said “It is a welcoming trend.” She emphasised that “In light of social media’s rise, the public is no longer a passive audience of the State-led efforts but an important actor in deploying an effective cultural diplomacy strategy.”
However, she pointed out some factors such as the language barrier and the algorithms of social media platforms that could limit the number of views from foreign audiences. “In addition, the risk of unintentional spreading fake and false information should not be obliterated as the content are currently not scrutinised by any responsible agencies,” she warned.
For content creator Giao Cun, Vietnam’s efforts in establishing its distinct cultural identity on the social media community is currently facing a challenge. "Foreign friends are often surprised knowing that what they see are actually Vietnamese costumes, not Chinese,…. In think Vietnam has been decades behind other countries in building national cultural images”.
“We should frequently showcase Vietnamese traditional costumes across different historical periods on different digital platforms so that any one accessing social media can find out how Vietnamese traditional outfits look like and know they are distinctly Vietnamese," she suggested.
Will Helm Le Courageux strongly believes in the power of social platforms to spread arts, cuisines, culture far and wide because any Tiktok or Instagram users can share their reality moments, street food scenes, family recipes and connect with millions of people instantly. “Social media allows different cultures to shine in a way that is raw, real and beautiful”, he said.
Just as Hoa Minzy's "Bac Bling" demonstrates how traditional Vietnamese arts and culture have found a way to reach to global audiences, many young content creators now stand in front of numerous opportunities to introduce to the world the beauty of their diverse cultures, arts and history or even honour their nations on digital platforms. For them, history and culture are not only the relics to preserve- they are living, breathing parts of their identity that they want to share with the world. In this sense, they are truly “ambassadors of culture” for Vietnam./.
