Bullet screen, a special way of remembering and awakening

On the evening of February 19, Chinese athletes Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, affectionately known as the "onion barrel combination", won the championship in the figure skating pair skating event at the Beijing Winter Olympics. A few hours before the finals, the TV show called up several previous video clips as it introduced the two contestants.

In the video materials filmed and produced over the years, many netizens have published "bullet screen" comments along with the video footage, or traced the growth of the two players, or looked forward to their wonderful performances. And these "bullet screen" content has become the focus of repeated mention by the program host. "Onion barrel combination" has just won the championship, at the beginning of the relevant video, some netizens have used the "red font + long time top" way, issued "congratulations on the dream of the onion barrel Beijing" and "2022 Beijing Winter Olympics won the championship" and other bullet screens, in which the atmosphere of passion and joy transmitted jumped on the screen.

In the TV program, the host introduced the bullet screens sent by netizens at different time nodes one by one

In 2009, domestic video websites took the lead in launching the bullet screen function. This kind of gameplay that lets only a few comments skim over the video quickly gained the love of young people. More than a decade later, the bullet screen has become the standard of many new media platforms, and the bullet screen content and video are integrated and complement each other, and even some people have "no bullet screen and no video".

The barrage builds a special way of remembering and awakening. In the pre-Internet era, due to the relative lack of image content in life, a photo and a movie clip will leave a long-term memory in people's minds. In the era of video redundancy and even flooding, under the impact of waterfall-like streaming media, video content dazzles us. Therefore, some bullet screens with explanations and accompanying viewing have played the function of "knocking on the blackboard and drawing the key points". Just as many netizens tirelessly played the time and place of their previous championships on the video of the "onion barrel combination", listed the timeline and specific details of the two people's cooperation with more than ten years, and introduced the technical essentials of the pair skating competition, etc., in the inner circle terms of the bullet screen enthusiasts, this is called "examination evidence".

The barrage creates an interesting intertextual relationship between the main text and the sub-text. We mostly watch videos in a linear way from to after, unlike looking at text, which can be seen at a glance and ten lines, or can be turned forward and backward at any time. If the video is the main text, then the bullet screen plays the role of a sub-text, which constitutes a complement to the video content, and the two interpret each other.

Of course, sometimes the content of the bullet screen resonates with the user, which will inspire everyone to send similar content at the same point in time of the video. These bullet screen contents will even cover the entire screen, looking overwhelming and noisy, but it also makes people feel like three points into the wood, one "bullet" into the soul, and the chest. At this time, the sub-text also becomes the main text, beyond the function of subtitles in the general sense.

The bullet screen brings users a novel browsing experience and makes users "move". Looking at the history of movie viewing methods and movie reviews, we can find that the bullet screen offers a new and special experience. Traditional cinema viewing is not allowed to speak loudly, and you can at most whisper two sentences with relatives and friends next to you. Families can chat while watching the movie, but you can only comment on the show with your family members. However, watching videos on a computer or mobile phone, the bullet screen emitted instantaneously can transcend the limitations of time and space, build a wonderful synchronic relationship, and form a virtual tribal viewing atmosphere. Although you may be watching alone, the comments left by the "predecessors" are influencing you, helping you, infecting you, and the words you type will merge into the river of comments. From this, we have reason to propose that the bullet screen has become a new way of online commentary, a phenomenon of mass network literature and art, and a form of cultural dissemination.

In such a realistic context, it is necessary to enrich the Internet cultural ecology through bullet screens. The bullet screen comments are only a few words or even just a word, which is difficult to distinguish between elegant and vulgar points, but the massive bullet screen has spawned representative views of netizens on certain literary and artistic works, a specific time period, and certain social phenomena.

Since 2017, some video websites have counted the total number of bullet screens on websites every year and launched the "annual bullet screen". Among them, the total number of annual barrages in 2020 and 2021 is counted in billions, and the five major bullet screen words in 2020 include "Wuhan refueling", and the hottest bullet screen word in 2021 is "breaking the defense". "Broken defense" was originally used in video games, meaning to break through the defense, in the Context of the Internet, often used to indicate that the depths of the heart are touched, the psychological defense line is broken. In the 2021 tokyo olympic games about the excellent performance of Chinese athletes, touching moments in epidemic prevention and control, various food and beauty, various popular film and television series and other videos, the bullet screen of "breaking the defense" is widely used, and the high-frequency bullet screen words of big data statistics record the user's emotional changes, the pulse of group resonance and the changes of the times behind it.

The bullet screen can also promote the formation of a closed loop of "creation-dissemination-commentary-feedback" in new media. Classic film and television dramas may be made into a "bullet screen version" by netizens and thus be given a new interpretation, works that have a mediocre response in traditional media may become popular on the Internet through the bullet screen support of netizens, and an ordinary plot in the play may also become a hot spot because of the attention of netizens. The evaluation power of previous works is more in the hands of critics and buyers, and the bullet screen can allow more creators and critics to hear the voices of ordinary audiences, and even perceive deficiencies or inspire inspiration at specific plot points and specific story sections. If the bullet screen can give birth to a more reasonable and diversified online video review mechanism, it can serve as a "touchstone" for literary and artistic works.

We can also open up "new spaces" for communication between people through bullet screens. Now the barrage content on various websites is still uneven and muddy, sometimes emotional spit replaces high-quality comments, and the shouting of two voices drowns out the text that hits the heart. Therefore, many netizens spontaneously put forward the requirements of "bullet screen etiquette", and some video sites have always adhered to the "examination system", and only through a series of online answers on the common sense and norms of the bullet screen can they become full members and open the bullet screen function.

We must not only uphold a tolerant and encouraging attitude towards the bullet screen culture, but also guide it to develop in the general direction of correcting values, better communication between people, more full interaction between users and works, and more attractive and touching people in network culture. Next, the function of the bullet screen may be replaced by a newer network culture form, but this general direction is always true.

(Author: Chen Yi, Professor, School of Communication, Soochow University, Researcher, Soochow Think Tank, Soochow University)

Source: March 19, 2022 Guangming Daily, 09 edition

Text: Chen Yi

Coordinator: Li Xiaomeng

Editor-in-charge: Wang Zimo

Editor: Zhu Xiaofan, Chang Ying