Preface
After a stretch of intense vibe coding with several tasks running in parallel, my brain started to feel overloaded from working with AI for long hours. So when I lightly “enslave” AI, I also watch videos as a way to relax. Recently I found that the Bilibili channel Fun Stuff has excellent science videos: detailed content, entertaining narration, and manageable length. It has become one of my recent vibe-coding companions.
I also noticed that the channel is still updating with consistently high quality, so I became curious about the creator’s background. That curiosity led to this article.
Who Is Fun Stuff?
In Bilibili’s knowledge section, Fun Stuff is a name many people have heard. The Chinese name, Fang Si Ta Fu, is a transliteration of “Fun Stuff”. And the channel does bring some of the most fun paleontology content on the platform.
Main creator: Tang Cheng Tang Cheng holds a PhD from the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a biology doctorate from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. After graduation, he moved into science communication full time and became the channel’s core writer and presenter.
Co-founder: Fang Jie Fang Jie is Tang Cheng’s wife. The Chinese name of Fun Stuff comes from a homophone of her name. The two operate the channel together and are a well-known research couple on Bilibili.
On Bilibili’s verified profile, Fun Stuff is labeled as a 2025 Top 100 creator, 2025 Best Column Award creator, and biology PhD from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. This is not an ordinary grassroots science channel. It is a serious researcher’s transition into public science.
Fun Stuff focuses on original videos in life sciences, paleontology, and evolutionary biology, known for series such as “Guigu Talks” and “Guigu Says”. The channel has nearly five million followers on Bilibili, and individual videos often reach two or three million views.
From Translation to Original Work
The growth of Fun Stuff is a classic case of moving from imitation to original creation.
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2018: the starting stage. Tang Cheng began translating and localizing YouTube science videos on Bilibili, building the first group of followers. This helped him learn the production workflow and audience taste.
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February 14, 2019: the turning point. On Valentine’s Day, Fun Stuff published its first original video, a story about Anomalocaris as an early apex predator. It reached nearly 100,000 views within 24 hours and grew the follower count from 700 to 21,000.
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February 2019: within one month, the channel passed 100,000 followers. Tang Cheng studied the styles of leading creators at the time and found his own differentiated position.
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2020: Tang Cheng completed his PhD and moved into science communication full time. In the same year, Fun Stuff was selected as a Bilibili Top 100 creator for the first time and won the individual Guokr science communication contribution award.
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2021 to present: Fun Stuff has continued to be selected as a Bilibili Top 100 creator in multiple years. By June 2026, it had passed 4.9 million followers and become a benchmark in Chinese science video creation.
Why the Content Works
Bilibili’s knowledge section has many science creators. Why did Fun Stuff stand out? The answer is in three keywords.
Character-Driven Storytelling
This is Fun Stuff’s core strength. They rarely recite dry facts. Instead, they turn ancient organisms into vivid characters with personality, fate, and dramatic conflict.
“The trilobite raised an unyielding middle finger to the world.”
That line has almost become a Fun Stuff catchphrase. The anatomy of trilobite appendages is turned into an anthropomorphic gesture, and viewers remember the morphology while laughing. This is not shallow joking. It is emotional narration built on solid academic understanding.
They also give ancient life forms a narrative arc: how Anomalocaris rose and declined, how the Cambrian explosion changed Earth, and so on. Each video feels like a miniature nature documentary with setup, development, climax, and conclusion.
Extreme Rigor
Fun and rigor are often treated as opposites in science communication. Fun Stuff makes them work together.
A single video takes roughly one month to make. That is not because the team is inefficient, but because the research and verification standards are high. They read primary academic papers, cross-check sources, and make sure every knowledge point can be traced. More importantly, they also maintain a regular correction segment, publicly correcting earlier mistakes in later videos. This is rare in Bilibili science communication.
Ignoring Hot Topics and Deepening a Niche
Fun Stuff has a small team and a long production cycle, so it cannot chase news-like hot topics. That turns into an advantage. The channel focuses on paleontology and evolutionary biology, fields the creators know and care about, building a unique content moat.
When other creators discuss the latest gadgets or social topics, Fun Stuff talks about what happened in the Cambrian ocean 500 million years ago. That differentiated positioning gives the channel a distinct ecological niche in Bilibili’s knowledge section.
Representative Works and Signature Series
The “Guigu Says” Series
This is Fun Stuff’s flagship series and the series that made the channel famous. “Guigu” comes from Tang Cheng’s online name, Guigu Canglong. The series uses storytelling to explain the evolutionary history of different organisms. It is academically grounded and funny at the same time.
The “Guigu Talks” Series
Compared with the longer narratives of “Guigu Says”, “Guigu Talks” is lighter and more flexible. Topics range from prehistoric organisms to everyday ingredients such as garlic and tea. The ideas are playful, but the science remains serious.
Classic Works
- Anomalocaris: The Story of the First Apex Predator: the first original video, explaining the rise and decline of a Cambrian top predator.
- The Trilobite Series: the series that made the “unyielding middle finger” a meme in Bilibili science circles.
- Jellyfish: The Detached Phantom of Origin and Beyond: an evolutionary story about one of Earth’s oldest animal lineages.
- The Insect Series: explaining how insects conquered land from an evolutionary perspective.
- Garlic: Choosing Deodorization Between Healing and Exorcism: the domestication history of garlic from a botanical perspective.
- The Domestication History of Tea: how a single leaf changed human civilization.
The Core Idea: “Putting Shoes on People Who Do Not Wear Shoes”
Science communication is like selling shoes: it should serve people who already wear shoes, but more importantly, it should help people who do not wear shoes put them on.
This is Tang Cheng’s most powerful metaphor for science communication. In his view, science communication has a serious audience mismatch:
Much science communication is actually giving better shoes to people who already wear shoes. It reaches people who already have scientific literacy and interest in science. The people who most need science communication are those who do not wear shoes: ordinary audiences who have been left outside scientific communication.
Fun Stuff’s goal is not to train experts. It is to spread scientific ways of thinking: evidence, logic, and interest in science among people who might otherwise feel distant from it. Tang Cheng once mentioned a real example: a student asked him, “Teacher, what is a cell?” That shows the need for public science education is much greater than many people imagine.
He cited one set of data to support this: in 2020, only 10.56% of Chinese citizens had basic scientific literacy. That means most people lack a basic understanding of science, and they are precisely the audience most in need of communication.
Tang Cheng compares himself to lichen. Lichen is a pioneer in nature. It can grow on rock, slowly break it down, and create soil for later plants. He wants to be a pioneer in the barren ground of Chinese science communication, helping something grow from nothing and encouraging more people to join.
Industry Observations and the Science Communication Ecosystem
Tang Cheng is not only a science creator. He also thinks deeply about the entire field.
Lack of Professional Talent
In his view, the biggest challenge is the shortage of professional talent. Many scientists feel psychological pressure about science communication, worrying that it is not “proper work” or that it lowers their status. Yet those who can explain complex science clearly are often busy with research and have little time for communication.
Bad Content Crowding Out Good Content
Science communication also suffers from low-quality content crowding out good work. Pseudoscience accounts use sensational titles and false information to attract traffic. Rigorous science content takes longer to make and is less “stimulating”, so it can be buried.
The Gap Between Academia and the Public
There is a huge information gap between academia and the public. Anti-intellectual theories, health pseudoscience, and conspiracy thinking can exploit this gap. Fun Stuff’s work is to build a bridge between academic knowledge and the public.
The Meaning of Bilibili’s Knowledge Section
Tang Cheng notes that Bilibili formally created its “knowledge section” in 2020, marking the arrival of a new era for science videos. Before that, science video creators on Bilibili lacked a dedicated distribution channel. The knowledge section helped science content find its audience more accurately.
Honors and Influence
- Bilibili Top 100 creator: selected multiple years since 2020, selected again in 2025, and awarded Best Column of the Year.
- Guokr Science Communication Contribution Award: individual award in 2020 for outstanding contribution to science communication.
- Viewership: popular videos often reach two or three million views, a striking number for a niche field such as paleontology.
- Audience profile: mainly middle school and college students, plus young working adults who want immediate entertainment after a tiring day.
Fun Stuff’s success proves one thing: professional depth and entertainment are not opposites in content creation. With the right narrative method, even hardcore paleontology can make millions of viewers keep watching.
From a graduate student translating YouTube videos to a Bilibili Top 100 creator and Guokr award winner, Tang Cheng spent six or seven years building a distinctive path in science communication. He did not chase traffic trends or lower content standards. Instead, he took the slow route: spending about a month polishing each video and pushing paleontology communication to an impressive level.
Keeping knowledge rigorous inside entertainment, and passing scientific thinking through fun: that is Fun Stuff.