Bilibili

Bilibili is one of my favorite video websites, which Chinese netizens usually call B station. In the second half of 2019, station B was flooded with “earthy” videos. “Earthy” literal meaning is similar to English in the down – to – earth, its connotation is close to the tasteless in popular culture, vulgar, countrified and rustic, but tend to a neutral ones. Zed Montage, the king of earthy video in 2019, has been viewed more than 50 million times.

Why is this video getting so much traffic? That’s something I want to think about and talk about. This video was not uploaded to site B by the person in the video. He posted the video on Tiktok, which was supposed to be Tiktok’s dance video with special effects and no aesthetic twist, long Johns, cotton slippers and a total loss of quality, and no one would find it any fun to watch. A netizen reposted him to B station with the soullike title Zed Montage. Zed Montage is a character in League of Legends. The reason for this is that his long Johns, in black, resemble Zed Montage’s dark doppelgoned body, so the video has an eerie sense of harmony with the title. Coupled with the fact that many viewers said they were brainwashed by the background music, the earthy song by an unknown singer stuck in their heads.

Bilibili is a social media platform and fan community that provides ACGN(animation, comic, game and novel) content in a virtual 2d world. Bilibili’s first users, who have been immersed in the culture of Japanese ACGN for several years, many fans are proficient in Japanese, tech-savvy and culturally aware. Bilibili, which started as a non-profit fan community and relied heavily on user-generated content (UGC) and user-uploaded content, attracted more than 71.8 million monthly active users, 81.7% of whom were born between 1990 and 2009, the company disclosed in a report after its nasdaq initial public offering on March 28, 2018. (Chen, 2018)

According to (Yang, 2019), The popularity of station b comes from the “danmaku “.Simply speaking, the danmaku interface is a unique feature which allows online video viewers to input “live” comments in a way that is directly overlaid onto the video. When the number of comments reaches certain point, the visual impact of danmaku (弹幕), literally meaning “barrage” or “bullet curtain” in Japanese, is achieved. Apparently, this feature creates a more live, active, and socially engaging viewing experience than any other commentary system, but this also means the meaning making process on screen now involves a much more complex, if not chaotic, interplay of semiotic resources. Interestingly, with such a design, online viewers are now able to engage in social practices that are only possible when superimposition of texts on moving images is realised, for example, audiovisual translation. This form of amateur-led participation has its roots in the “participatory culture” (Jenkins 2006a) which saw the transformation of spectators into content generators, and it is frequently observed in foreign language contents on Chinese video-sharing websites. The rationale and implications behind such a recontextualisation of social practice on the danmaku interface clearly calls for further investigation. (Yang, 2019)

Zhou (2019) thinks that the “secondary creation” of users is the core of B station. Anyone who knows the meme knows what the video is about, and anyone who doesn’t will be confused by it. (Zhou, 2019) Any similar to the ” Zed Montage “, short time, strong stimulation, exaggerated performance, the core of the empty earthen video is likely to become B station secondary creation of the trend of favorite.

Reference

Chen, Z., 2018. Poetic prosumption of animation, comic, game and novel in a post-socialist China: A case of a popular video-sharing social media Bilibili as heterotopia. Journal of Consumer Culture, pp.1-21. Available at: <https://journals-sagepub-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1177/1469540518787574&gt;.

Yang, Y., 2019. The danmaku interface on Bilibili and the recontextualised translation practice: a semiotic technology perspective. Social Semiotics, [online] 30(2), pp.254-273. Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10350330.2019.1630962&gt;.

Zhou, Q., 2019. Understanding User Behaviors Of Creative Practice On Short Video Sharing Platforms – A Case Study Of Tiktok And Bilibili. Ph.D. University of Cincinnati. Available at: <https://search.proquest.com/docview/2316005098?pq-origsite=primo&gt;