Actor Yu Entai appears on the show Me and My Motherland.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"Seventy years is not that long, but it's long enough for many young people to have never experienced something that used to be common for their parents or grandparents," Sun says. "However, young people can resonate with these experiences. After all, love for the motherland is shared."

Obviously, Wei Daxun, 30, an actor from Northeast China, never experienced the situation in the 1950s, when enthusiastic youths from across the nation answered the call to flock to the barren northeast to turn the wasteland into fertile land. However, Wei's sharing of his childhood experiences in his hometown still paints a vivid picture for the viewers of the changes in Northeast China over the years.

Unlike TV platforms, web-tailored shows are often labeled as places to cater for young people's tastes, but they can be much more, says Wang Zhaonan, executive chief editor of iQiyi.

"Web-tailored shows have diverse forms, which also enable mainstream values in society to be broadcast on wider channels," Wang says. "To attract young audiences, we try to put down-to-earth personal stories into a big picture. If the stories are touching, people will easily identify with the topic."

He says Me and My Motherland is one such attempt. It seems to have worked. Many users of Douban.com, China's main TV and film review website, left messages saying they watched the show initially because their idols were taking part, but they soon became absorbed by what was shown.