Chen Xizi and Liu Tingting | Fan differentiation, migration and resistance in the context of platform "out of the circle": based on the investigation of the virtual anchor fan group

Executive Summary

In recent years, fan culture has shown an explosive development trend, resulting in a platform -- "fan economy" effect with an average annual output value of trillions of yuan. The paper examines the dialectical opposite of the phenomenon of a surge in the number of fans— fan differentiation, migration, and resistance, and provides an explanation for the relationship between fan groups and platform capital. Based on the fan survey of the Japanese virtual anchor society "Rainbow Society", it is pointed out that the verbal friction and interest disputes between individual fans of online subculture are not enough to explain the overall fan segmentation; The "out of the circle" of the platform at the level of market strategy, the data operation at the level of daily practice, and the mainstream production logic at the level of cultural shaping are the direct causes of the migration of fan groups. In the process of platform migration, although the fan base has suffered irreparable cultural damage, they still resist the erosion from business logic through online resistance, boundary guarding and symbol creation, maintain cultural identity, and express disappointment in the "de-quadraticization" of platform content.

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Platform Virtual anchor Fan culture

Quadratic Data-based Youth Culture

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First, the question is raised

To understand idol culture, fan economy, and the phenomenon of rice circles, the concept of "participatory culture" is indispensable. "Participatory culture" is mainly manifested in the contemporary media audience, with the support of network technology, from simple consumers to highly participatory producers, involved in the production of original content, secondary re-creation and even creative integration of "prosumer". The online economy dominated by productive consumption has the following characteristics: unpaid content production, surplus labor, and Randall Collins' theory of "interaction ritual chains", in which group members tend to be driven by emotions (rather than economic reason), creating internal symbols and connecting related actions.

The concept of "participatory culture" and the theory of "interactive ritual chain" provide a precise explanation for the explosive development of the fan economy. In the past decade or so, idol culture and fan groups have risen rapidly, from non-commercial and informal nomadic internet forum operations to platformized "fan economy", with an output value of trillions of yuan. Attracting and rallying audiences with fan culture and earning money through membership fees and online advertising has become the main profit model of major entertainment video platforms. According to the iResearch report, the mainland fan economy model has penetrated into the three major industries of daily consumer goods, cultural entertainment and online media, and the market size of the economy driven by celebrities (idols) exceeded 3.5 trillion yuan in 2019 and is expected to exceed 6 trillion yuan in 2023. With the development of the fan economy, the formation of participatory online fan communities, the rise of the interactive symbolic medium of the bullet screen, and the expropriation of fan energy by government digital applications have become eye-catching phenomena in the contemporary digital culture field.

However, this research idea tends to see the fan base as a whole that is not different from each other, monolithic, and unchanged, and the dialectical opposite of the phenomenon of the explosion of fans— the differentiation, migration, and resistance of the fan base— has not been deeply analyzed. In a small number of studies, Yang Ling's description and interpretation of the phenomenon of mutual tearing of rice circles provides a detailed explanation for the internal differentiation of fan groups from the individual level: fans use manipulative language to resolve disputes and frictions, showing a considerable degree of self-empowerment awareness and sense of group belonging. Similarly, Wu Fang's research on the online creation and sharing platform Lofter's humanistic creation and fan base pointed out that the helpless "nomadism" and non-stop "migration" of fan groups between different platforms are essentially the result of their increasingly commercialized and data-oriented mediation with digital platforms. Wu Fang also believes that there is a direct correlation between the "nomadism" of the fan base and the capitalization of digital platforms, but does not further explain and demonstrate the external background of the phenomenon of "migration" - the shift of digital platform operation strategies to commercialization.

The "migration" of the fan group that occurs on Lehu is not an accidental phenomenon. For example, according to our observation, the two-dimensional fan group that was originally based on Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as Station B) as the main base has also produced a similar phenomenon of fan group differentiation and migration with the transformation of the commercialization and mainstream operation strategy of Station B. Among them, especially the typical representative of the two-dimensional subculture of station B, the virtual anchor fan group, is the most prominent. In order to undertake and supplement the above research, this article will focus on the virtual anchor fan group and its base camp B station at the same time, from the perspective of both inside the platform and outside the platform, to provide a comprehensive explanation for the relationship between the current digital platform capitalization and the evolution of the fan group, as well as the differentiation, migration and resistance strategy of the fan group, in order to answer the following three questions: In the context of the gradual commercialization and mainstreaming of fan culture, what is the direct cause of the differentiation and migration of the two-dimensional base camp, that is, the B station fan group? What role does Station B play in the process of fan group differentiation and migration? What are the specific strategies used by these fleeing fans to resist the commercialization and mainstreaming of Station B and maintain their cultural identity?

Before conducting an in-depth analysis of the research data, this paper will first review the research results related to the differentiation and segmentation of fan groups involved in the research questions.

SECOND, literature review: the differentiation and differentiation of fan groups

Through the combing of the academic context of fan culture research, this paper provides a theoretical basis for understanding the differentiation and segmentation of fan groups. Renowned scholars of fan culture studies, Gary Jonathan, Cornel Sandvoss, lee Harrington, point out that fan culture research on an international scale can be divided into three stages. The first phase began in the 1980s, typified by Henry Jenkins' "fandom" cultural research, which focused on fan culture studies as an emerging field to explore its plausibility. Among the most important works is to argue for the progressive characteristics of fan culture phenomena, such as broad participation, unfettered creativity, radical democracy, and the self-empowerment of marginalized audiences. The research results of this stage provide core concepts and research methods for the next two stages, such as the academic concept of "participatory culture" and Jenkins's "writing fan culture as a fan". The ethnographic research perspective echoes the "otaku culture written as an otaku" by Japanese scholars such as Hideshi Otsuka and Higashi Hiroki, and provides a paradigm for many subsequent scholars to study youth subculture.

The second phase began in the mid-1990s, when the fan base took on a new change due to the rapid development of the Internet and social media: because of the convenience and breadth of the media, it was much less difficult to build a fan community, and the size of the fan base also increased. At this stage, fan culture research mainly focuses on the criticism of the previous stage, that is, the previous stage of research is too optimistic, and the fan group is not an undifferentiated, monolithic whole. In addition, sociological research is actively involved in this field, especially the theory of identity from the field of gender studies and pierre Bourdieu's theory of class and cultural capital are widely used. Among them, "identity", "segmentation", "level" and "differentiation" are the keywords of fan research at this stage. On the one hand, the influence of social hierarchy within the fan base cannot escape the dimensions of class, race, gender, etc., and will also copy and consolidate the power relations and stereotypes of these dimensions. On the other hand, there are also diverse divisions within the fan base: including the differentiation between fans and non-fans around an idol or culture, and the contest between the "forces" of different secondary creative texts generated around the same meta-text. Among the fan groups of the same culture, the amount of contribution, fame and technology investment of different fans, the accumulation of cultural capital of different degrees, the dominant ones are gradually pushed as the leaders within the fans, and even fan celebrities; These leaders or celebrities have the power to set agendas for other fans, set the threshold for new fans to enter, and decide which texts are central or marginal, thus generating a hierarchy within fans.

The third stage, from the beginning of the new century to the present, when fan culture is no longer a marginal niche culture, but a gradual evolution of mainstream mass culture — in the words of Gary, Cornell and Lee: "Most people are fans of a certain thing." Some scholars have also replaced "fan community" with "fan world" to describe the development of fan culture at this stage. This change has had a profound impact in the field of related research. For example, fandom economy has become the key word in fan research in the new century: the trend of popularization of fan culture has attracted the attention of the media industry and advertisers, triggering commercial forces to "invade" fan culture in an all-round way. More scholars are aware of the core of the fan spirit, that is, the spirit of gifts that do not ask for rewards, do not need to reciprocate, and give gifts to each other has encountered unprecedented danger. The fan roles of this period have also changed from the original gift sharers to the overlapping forms of sponsors, value co-creators, stakeholders, investors and content filters, and it can be said that the unpaid labor of fans is becoming more and more vulnerable to exploitation and exploitation by the media industry.

In contrast, although the development of mainland fan culture cannot be completely covered by the three stages of the development of international fan culture, it has also undergone a similar process from non-commercialization to commercialization, from not being recognized by the mainstream to being fully mainstreamed. Once upon a time, ACGN enthusiasts who called themselves "two-dimensional people" took the Internet and online communities as their habitat, relying on anime characters, game characters, literary plots, etc., and gradually built a "heterotopia" with boundaries, as Michel Foucault called it, the Z generation (post-95 to 10) two-dimensional enthusiasts on the B station, exploring through strategic "prosumption practice". Retaining its subjectivity and initiative as a network subculture group, Station B is built as a field to resist the pressure and control from mainstream culture. The free space, bullet screen function and community culture of Station B have enabled the two-dimensional fan group to gain an unprecedented stage with initiative and participation, and they have built a subcultural community extending from virtual space to the real world.

Escaping the mainstream and bravely resisting its invasion are the core essence of the two-dimensional aesthetic, but it is also the root cause of the crisis of the two-dimensional culture. There is a natural disharmony between the two-dimensional values and the mainstream culture of society, and the mainstream culture or interest groups will inevitably contain, crack down or absorb it, and some two-dimensional culture will also go mainstream in such a context. For example, Lin Pin, based on the concept of "two-dimensional nationalism", pointed out that with the increasing mainstreaming of two-dimensional culture and the effective docking with nationalist or patriotic discourse, official propaganda also tried to invoke the literary and artistic forms that young people liked, so that the two-dimensional culture, especially in animation and game works, appeared as a dominant discourse of nationalism. In this way, the two-dimensional subculture on the B station, including virtual anchors, transcends the scope of niche circle entertainment, integrates political expression and mainstream ideology, and its action code also "guides the action strategy of the real society". This phenomenon of "breaking the wall out of the circle" reflects the trend of cultural exchange, contact and integration between the two-dimensional subculture and the mainstream, which is not only a collective action of "de-stigmatization", but also a manifestation of the adolescent subculture circle from "self-identity" to "social identity". However, there are still some two-dimensional "iron fans" in Station B who refuse to go mainstream, and thus clash with other fans. In this process, due to the gradual differentiation of preferences or identities, different degrees of circle aggregation, integration, division or differentiation will be formed.

In general, although the research on fan culture at home and abroad has gone through different development paths, it is believed that the current fan culture is no longer a marginal niche culture, but has gradually integrated with mainstream culture, and the fan group has become one of the important roles in promoting the vigorous development of the fan economy in the digital age. However, domestic fan culture research still lacks in terms of research focus and theoretical perspective. First of all, as mentioned earlier, there is less attention paid to the separation and differentiation of fans, and in the few studies, although Yang Ling divides the common conflict behaviors of the rice circle such as "tearing" and "scolding war" into two types, internal and external, her discussion still stays at the individual and internal level of fan differentiation. Secondly, on the issue of polarization of the fan group due to the mainstreaming of culture, scholars pay more attention to the positive significance of "breaking the wall out of the circle", that is, the integration of the fan group into the mainstream culture, and the practice of the fan group "enclosure and self-germination" is more inclined to think that it is a protection mechanism within the circle, although it can help the fan group avoid conflicts with the outside world, but it is also easy to evolve into an extreme self-closure, which is a abandonment of the right to speak in the public domain, and an escape from active communication with the outside world. Very few literature synthesis platforms explain this phenomenon from both internal and external perspectives. Finally, in order to make up for the lack of focus of the above-mentioned research, Wu Fang once clearly pointed out in the study that the transformation of the commercial operation of digital platforms is an important external motivation for the migration of fan groups, but the main basis of its rational analysis is only the network survey of a single fan group sample, and the lack of first-hand research data on the digital platform, such as staff interviews and operational data, is difficult to make further support for its research conclusions from the perspective of political economy.

Third, research design

In order to make up for the shortcomings of the above studies, this paper combines the two stages of study design to analyze. In the first stage, this article selects a typical two-dimensional fan group in Station B, that is, the online fan community of Nijisanji, a well-known virtual anchor operation society in Japan, and conducts an online ethnographic survey.

A virtual host is a streamer who uses a virtual avatar for video shooting or live streaming. Virtual anchors generally do not appear as live actors, but interact with viewers with virtual characters (usually anime images) through motion capture devices, facial expression capture software, Live2D or 3D drawing and rendering technology, etc. The absolute isolation from the real person's body and the infinite extension and open interpretation of the meaning brought about by it make the virtual anchor culture only a very niche and marginal network subculture at the beginning of its development, forming a transnational subcultural circle commonly known as the "V circle" in China, South Korea, Indonesia and other countries. In the interaction with the virtual anchor, fans can get the "sense of freedom" to appreciate at any fragmented time, the "sense of security" of immersing themselves in the world they love, and the "sense of self-affirmation" that resonates in the interaction. These three feelings integrate the user's social interaction with people in reality, and in the two-dimensional culture, "two-dimensional" originates from Japanese, referring to the virtual world constructed by light novels, manga, animation, games, and the Internet. The experience of experiencing a virtual worldview.

This paper selects this group as the research object, mainly based on the following three considerations. First, the virtual anchor culture is a typical two-dimensional culture, and the process of cultural production includes the two-dimensional cultural production mentioned above: (1) appropriating, translating or creating new community-exclusive discourse, such as "box push", "soul and skin", "person in the middle" and other network terms exclusive to the V circle; (2) Create a large number of hyperreal (hyperreal) images for two-dimensional virtual characters, relying on pictures, animations, games, memes and other forms to form an internal culture, such as the secondary creation of fans around virtual anchors (MAD, ghost animals or empty ears, etc.) that prevail in B stations; Further (3) establish a specific worldview that is different from the real society, such as the cuteness of real people, the imagining of real people relationships as lovers (i.e., CP), and extensive gender swapping, such as the V circle calling the virtual anchor culture a "2.5-dimensional" culture, such as fans keen to imagine the friendship relationship between virtual anchors as CP (such as Kagura Mea and Minato Akua), and such as the "Fox Lady", one of the five most well-known virtual anchors in the early stage of development. (Nekomasu), as a avatar actor for a cute girl, he is actually a middle-aged uncle over thirty years old with a rough male voice, and so on.

Second, unlike other fan groups scattered on different platforms, there is a close binding relationship between the fan base of virtual anchors and Station B, which provides a solid research foundation for us to think about the relationship between fan groups and platform capitalization operations. From an internal point of view, the virtual anchor culture was introduced to China, originating from the V circle fans to carry the external video to the B station; From the objective data point of view, 60% of the world's head virtual anchors have official accounts in station B, which makes station B the largest gathering place for virtual anchors and fans in China. It can be seen that the relationship between the virtual anchor fan group and station B is unique and close.

Third, around the virtual anchor culture, there have been several large-scale, fierce and cross-border violent disputes between fans in the V circle, which provides us with sufficient research materials to explore the phenomenon of fan differentiation, migration and resistance. Among them, the most typical is around the virtual anchor Kagura Mea in the live broadcast satire of other anchors live broadcast data is not good, and the role of Mea suspected that in real life cohabitation boyfriend and thus "human collapse" and other related events, a series of large-scale "mutual spraying" and "tearing" phenomenon occurred between the fan groups. The result of this series of disputes is that a group of users who claim to be the core fans of the V circle leave the B station under the leadership of the "elders" of the V circle and migrate to the more marginal QQ to establish a small private group. In response, with the help of research assistants, the author launched a 15-month (March 2, 2019 to June 1, 2020) online fieldwork on the core fan base of the aforementioned Japanese virtual anchor operation society "Rainbow Society" in China. The focus of fieldwork observation is to explore the answers to the following questions: (1) Station B was originally the core stronghold of the Rainbow Society's fan base, but why did they gradually feel disappointed and leave Station B; (2) After leaving Station B, why and how do these core fans create new symbols and new ways to communicate internally and resist the "invasion" of external fans/cultures.

Through this stage of research, we realized that the reason why core fans left the mainstream platform and gathered in more niche network corners is closely related to the platform operation strategy. Some of the core fans of the V circle in the survey believe that the current experience of the two-dimensional "base camp" B station is not satisfactory, and content production is constantly developing in the direction of vulgarization, mainstreaming, and "de-secondary". In the interview, they said many times: "Station B is no longer the station B." They also pointed out that the commercial "soft ads" on the B station with inferior content and vulgar topics are rampant, and even the WeChat groups that were once the core base for fan exchanges are often mixed with "advertising numbers" and "marketing numbers", and there are a large number of distorted and denigrating words of two-dimensional culture, which makes them think that high-quality two-dimensional content can only exist in small circles, and eventually migrate to more private QQ groups.

In order to prove the commercialization of Station B from the empirical level, this study conducted the second phase of research on Station B. The author conducted in-depth interviews with the staff of Station B and its surroundings, including the staff who are still working at the Shanghai headquarters of Station B, the people who have worked in Station B but have now left, the UP owners who provide original video content for Station B, the staff who work for well-known brands and are responsible for placing advertising orders to Station B, and the MCN agency interns behind the UP owners, etc. The interview questions focused on the following aspects: (1) What types of videos are mainly welcomed by Station B at present; (2) What kind of talents station B currently tends to recruit; (3) How the brand owner chooses the UP owner; (4) Before and after the listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange (NASDAQ) in the United States in 2018, what adjustments were made to the development strategy of the UP master by Station B; (5) The "out of the circle" strategy of Station B, what does it refer to specifically. In addition to the interview, the author also studied the prospectus, financial report and annual report publicly released by Station B to explore the specific development direction of its business transformation.

Fourth, the origin of fan differentiation: the mainstreaming and de-secondaryization of station B

In view of the first and second research questions raised in the previous article, combined with the in-depth interviews with the B station platform and its surrounding application staff, this paper believes that the platform's "out of the circle" at the market strategy level, the all-data operation in daily practice, and the "de-quadraticization" logic implemented in content production to be close to the mainstream discourse are the direct causes of the differentiation and migration of the B station virtual anchor fan group and the creation of new symbol systems to show resistance.

(1) Station B's market strategy "out of the circle"

In the more than ten years since its establishment in 2009, Station B has focused on the production and operation of secondary content with teenagers as the target user group, not only creating a "UP main ecosystem" with user-produced video as the core, but also becoming the "bellwether" of the video sharing platform where youth subcultures are highly concentrated. However, with the transformation of the commercial operation of Station B, it is facing the dual dilemma of limited content production and low consumption power of the target user group; The conflict between the unique two-dimensional culture and the mainstream culture of Station B is increasing day by day. Specifically, first of all, according to the 2019 Q3 financial report of Station B, the number of monthly active users (MAU) of Station B is 128 million, of which netizens under the age of 30 account for the vast majority (83.4%), that is, netizens with low spending power account for the vast majority; Secondly, the users of Station B produce videos accounting for 90% of their total playback, and most of the production mode of such content is a subcultural collage adaptation of external videos, which can easily lead to copyright disputes and cause risks such as increased control by the government's cultural departments. Therefore, expanding the user group and producing "out of the circle" content has become an imperative development strategy for Station B.

In 2018, Station B was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in the United States, which is an important boost to the full implementation of the above two market development strategies. Since then, the content production of Station B has covered an increasingly wide range, and the original core two-dimensional cultural content has also obviously moved towards popularization and mainstreaming. One of the interviewees investigated in this article, Ms. C, a senior operation personnel in front of Station B, in order to ensure the safety and privacy of the interview subjects, the interview subjects involved in this article are all anonymous. The following explanation was made: "The general idea (of Station B) is that it was a niche user-centered platform in the early stage, and the original users were particularly young people, and in order to occupy more advanced user markets, it is now going to be a more popular market." ...... The out-of-the-loop of Station B is an expansion from the two-dimensional and originally special core users to the pan-user field and the pan-hobby field. Its user portraits need to be expanded, and many mainstream culture, three-dimensional people will be accommodated, presumably (is) such a whole (strategic) composition. As Ms. C described, in the more than 7,000 existing cultural labels in Station B, in addition to the two-dimensional cultural content, it has also formed a number of mainstream cultural labels including food, beauty, fitness and so on; In terms of content production, in addition to the self-made videos of up owners, Station B also provides a large number of professional videos in the fields of documentaries, variety shows, film and television, and even pan-entertainment products such as performance activities, live broadcasts, and e-sports.

The landmark event of Station B's comprehensive popularization, aging and de-secondary transformation is the video advertisement "Back Wave" launched by Station B on the day before May Fourth Youth Day in 2020. Through the mouth of He Bing, a well-known actor in the mainland, the video expresses the envy, gratitude and affirmation of the mainstream society for young people in a formal tone of washing the second dimension. The video was broadcast in the advertising period before the "News Network" on the same day, and was praised by mainstream media such as "People's Daily" and "Xinmin Weekly". However, "Houlang" has aroused strong dissatisfaction from some two-dimensional "iron fans", who believe that the purpose of the advertisement is to increase the exposure of B station in the post-70s and post-80s (that is, "golden father") groups, and to attract these potential customers to advertise to the Z generation group (that is, "cutting leeks"). This dispute around "After the Wave" reflects that the fan group of Station B has gradually moved in the direction of two conflicts: one side is looking forward to "breaking the wall out of the circle" and moving towards mainstreaming, in order to absorb mainstream members to continue to join; One side adheres to the "enclosure of self-germination", and a small number of core fan groups still adhere to the unique tribal and nomadic agglomeration methods of subcultural groups, and refuse the intervention of mainstream culture.

(2) The logic and practice of the all-data operation of Station B

With the mainstreaming process of Station B, the viewing behavior and consumption logic of fans are increasingly involved in the data operation logic and practice of Station B. From an off-platform perspective, fans are increasingly becoming the "raw material" for key performance indicators (KPIs) and data competitions for various stakeholders. On the one hand, the emotions of the Internet fan group are hijacked by the emerging data-based operation logic, which has spawned behaviors such as celebrity fans "hitting the list" or "making data" on Weibo: visual data (such as lists) constantly reshapes the behavior sequence, norms and ways of thinking of fans' daily practices. Related to this is a set of gamified narratives and data-led scoring logic behind the Douyin UP main list, the Spring Festival Gala collection of five blessings or the willingness to work behind grabbing red packets.

Based on this, this article further adds the perspective within the platform: the survey shows that the daily content production practices of the employees inside Station B have also moved towards comprehensive marketization and data-based operation. Ms. L, who used to be a senior manager at Station B, said: "At present, Station B is committed to improving the overall DAU (number of daily active users) and MAU (number of monthly active users) of the platform as a whole. Mr. M, who also worked as a programmer at Station B, pointed out that there are more and more people in the management who are good at the management of Internet companies, and there are fewer and fewer lovers of two-dimensional culture. We also found that between 2018 and 2019, many recruitment positions on Station B had priority clauses such as "priority is given to successful user growth cases that have been independently or leadingly planned". Mr. Z, who used to work as a data analyst at Station B, also told us that full-time operation of data analysts are very popular in Station B, and their daily work includes: (1) participating in improving business data indicators and reporting systems; (2) Support thematic analysis of each channel, such as follow-up of key projects, category growth analysis, on-site publicity analysis, key channel analysis, etc.; (3) Provide data support and policy adjustment direction for content refinement operation. He also revealed: "(Analysts) need to be able to operate SQL and other data analysis, and it doesn't matter whether they understand quadratic elements or not." ”

In addition, in addition to user data performance (such as online time, consumption amount, etc.), the operators of Station B will also build user portraits based on data collection, analysis, and evaluation, and mining the characteristics, attributes and potential needs of target users, so as to achieve hierarchical operation of existing users, that is, to classify users according to market value. In the operation process of Station B, it will also divide the UP main into three levels: "head", "waist" and "bottom" from the perspective of pure economic benefits. Due to the large number of fans, popularity, and content playback, the head UP owner can not only join the "UP Main Creation Incentive Plan" launched by Station B in 2018 to obtain traffic sharing, but also be able to receive commercial promotion from brand owners first.

In July 2020, Station B further launched up UP's main business promotion and cooperation platform "bilibili Hanabi" (hereinafter referred to as Hanabi). The essence of Hanabi is an intermediary platform for Party B (MCN institution, UP master) to match bidding and Party A (brand owner) bidding and screening. Due to the platform's implementation of the conditional authentication membership system, the general fan group can neither see the business logic hidden behind the production of up main content, nor can it see the way fans support up main in the "one-click three-link" B station that it contributes to the UP main, that is, by long pressing the [like key] below the video, the video is also liked, coin-operated, and collected. The specific process of transforming into a UP main value evaluation indicator. In other words, the commercial transformation process of fans who are "cut leeks" when they "make data" is thus hidden. This also confirms chen long's research on the labor control of riders on takeaway platforms, pointing out that the platform system is not an objective and neutral "manager" - hidden under the slogan of "power generation with love" of station B, not only the essential role of the third-party intermediary platform it plays in the process of traffic monetization, but also the commercial cooperation relationship between up owners, MCN institutions and brand owners, as well as the increasingly blurred boundary between fans' interest and digital labor.

(3) The "de-quadraticization" of content production of Station B

As mentioned earlier, the commercial value-oriented production mechanism currently constructed by Station B and Hanabi has created a strong interest-driven creative culture in the main group of UP. In the words of the interviewee in this article, since the "golden father" (brand owner) pays attention to the number of views, click rates and fans, the UP owner must make every effort to "do these data", and will not give priority to whether the content itself is "creative" or "two-dimensional connotation".

Up mainly produces content in order to cater to the platform guidance mechanism, and the first consequence is the "de-quadraticization" of content and the high degree of commercialization. First of all, Station B currently has more than 7,000 vertical interest circles, but the traditional two-dimensional content accounts for only 30% of the total. Life, entertainment, fashion and other content that does not belong to the category of secondary interests have become the focus of content production on station B. Secondly, the author also found in the survey that in the 2020 "B Station Top Ten Excellent Enterprises" selection, eight of the top ten enterprises are mainstream enterprises; Only "Original God" and "High-skilled Hand Group" are two-dimensional related enterprises in the strict sense, ranking ninth and tenth respectively.

V. Differentiation, migration and resistance of virtual anchor fan groups

(1) "Three views lost": the polarization of new and old fans

Fans of virtual anchors have intuitive and profound feelings about the "de-quadraticization" of Station B. One of the subjects of this article, Miyako (male, 29 years old), was once an "iron fan" of virtual anchor Kagura Mea. He said: "The reason why I left station B is because although Kagura Mea is very popular in station B, the relevant videos make me feel very perfunctory and bad, and it has little to do with virtual anchors or two-dimensional culture, and the content does not conform to my three views." In the face of the sharp transformation of the original two-dimensional home and the cultural stronghold of the virtual anchor, a group of fans who identified themselves as the "iron fans" of the virtual anchor carried out a sustained resistance. Resistance to mainstream culture is the core essence of two-dimensional culture, and its essential connotation is to draw a clear line with the real world (three-dimensional); The "overhead", "fantasy", "fictional" elements and "no lower limit" sexual and gender concepts carried by the virtual anchor culture embody the supreme belief of this group of core fans, that is, the "three views" often mentioned by the research subjects. In the original virtual anchor culture, the gender of the actor and the avatar is not fixed and variable, such as the "fox girl" mentioned above, which can have a cute young girl appearance, a rough male voice and an uncle personality at the same time, and is highly praised; Nowadays, hermaphrodite and indistinguishable virtual anchors like "Fox Lady" are increasingly excluded in station B, and even encounter extreme insults in the bullet screen. In addition, the aesthetic taste of two-dimensional fans for virtual anchors will also extend to their own fluid attitude towards gender. Miyako, for example, with its feminine nickname and cute online chat style, led me to think of her as a woman for a long time, until recently confirming that he was actually a man. But now, if such two-dimensional fans expose their biological gender in online communication, they will also suffer from the ridicule of new fans for their "neither man nor woman".

The early resistance of virtual anchor fans is more metaphysical, relying more on the re-creation of texts, the promotion of concepts and the creation of discourse; However, as Station B gradually becomes mainstream, the problems encountered by virtual anchor fans have become particularly direct and "metaphysical". Originally, there were many domestic newly created anchors or head anchors who catered to the fan economy in the original imaginative virtual anchor section, and they mostly used the same cute female image setting, directly appealing to the gaze of male audiences, and even showing off soft pornography, the most typical of which was the virtual anchor "Yong chi Ta Fei" promoted by B station in June 2021. In the sense of the name, "eternal chick" literally means "eternal chick", and in Chinese colloquialism, "chick" is a metaphor for "underage sex worker" when it is combined with the image of a young girl. As of January 12, 2022, "Yong chi Tafee" has gained 251,000 fans on the B station in just half a year after its debut. Station B has successively launched domestic virtual anchors such as "Yongzhi Tafi", which is a very important part of its new user "drainage" project. For example, if you look closely at the channel of "Yong chi Tafee", you can find that its submission content mainly caters to the aesthetic tastes of typical heterosexual male audiences. Yongchi Tafee's homepage is full of works with the nature of "edge ball", such as "Don't Smoke, Come and Smoke Taffy's Ass", "Taffy who makes a strange sound because he is licked (red bean residue that falls on his body)", "Why is there water on his legs (during the game)?"? and other titles. In the face of these new virtual anchors, the original virtual anchor fans (Orga, male, 24 years old) said: "It is really difficult to top." Another type of new virtual anchor that makes these old fans more "intolerable" is the "with goods" anchor who promotes the product. In order to attract new fans and traffic, these new virtual anchors frequently sell cuteness and snort in the live broadcast room, and hang on to the common words of the anchors with goods in e-commerce live broadcasts such as "only welfare is not lost in my place". In response to this phenomenon, the interviewee of this study, Ning (female, 24 years old), said: "When I opened the B station to see this, I almost thought I had opened Taobao Live. ”

In the face of these new fans of these newly created or head anchors on the B station, the original practice of the virtual anchor fans is to follow their good language attack and resistance strategy, that is, "tearing". Among them, the daily "tearing" is manifested as they will verbally ridicule, satirize or attack the new virtual anchor in the bullet screen or comment area. For example, in the channel of "Yongying Taffy", we can often see criticisms such as "singing is not good, dancing is not good, and RSQ (soft pornography)" and "this skin (avatar) I can still accept, but the voice is too emmmm (difficult to say)" and so on.

The ridicule, ridicule and attacks of the old fans of virtual anchors often lead to a more powerful counterattack from new fans, thus forming a large-scale scolding war across the platform. The most intense conflict has to be mentioned around Kagu Mea's "Tengu vs Rainbow Man", this conflict not only lasted for several months, but also spanned the domestic well-known two-dimensional / virtual anchor fan online gathering platform including B station, Baidu Tieba, NGA forum, S1 forum, etc., resulting in the conflict between old fans and new fans intensifying to an irreconcilable point. As the conflict intensified, some of the old fans of the Rainbow Society suffered from the ban and reporting of new fans of the family (Kagura Mea). On the one hand, due to the popularity of Kagura Mea, its new fans are huge and occupy the management positions of most virtual anchors in the live broadcast room or discussion section, and once the old fans of the Rainbow Society make negative comments about Kagura Mea in the discussion, they will be reported, deleted, banned, etc.; On the other hand, due to the huge momentum of the new fan base on the B station and the operation of the reporting mechanism, it is difficult for some virtual anchor fans, including the old fans of the Rainbow Society, to gain any advantage in a series of new battles.

In addition, some virtual anchor fans also realize that what causes changes in B station is not only these new anchors or new fans, but also the deeper reason is the commercialization and mainstreaming strategy of B station, and the "drainage" and "reward" mechanism established to expand the territory and can promote the rapid popularity of new virtual anchors. For example, MIYAKO believes that "reducing the proportion of secondary elements and taking the mainstream route is the main goal of Station B now." By the way, the resistance strategy of the old fans of virtual anchors is not only aimed at new virtual anchors and fans, but also joins forces with other two-dimensional core fan groups to actively participate in a broader "campaign" against the mainstreaming and commercial transformation of B stations. For example, on the occasion of the 11th anniversary of Station B in 2020, many two-dimensional fans have forwarded a post by CEO Chen Rui five years ago that was roughly to the effect of "Station B will never deteriorate", in order to allude to the fact that "Station B is no longer the B station". Another example is that in October 2021, Station B announced that it would invest in mainstream political theories and news that had nothing to do with its main two-dimensional business, and in this regard, a large number of old fans of Station B frantically swiped the screen "Two-dimensional never slave" in relevant terms and hot searches on Weibo, Snowball and other websites to express the "two-dimensional spirit" of never bowing to mainstream culture. According to the author's understanding, the old fans of this group of virtual anchors have also participated in these battles.

(2) "Homelessness": Platform migration of core fans

As mentioned above, due to the huge new fan community and the better understanding of the operation of the whistleblowing mechanism, it is difficult for old fans, including the core fans of the Rainbow Society, to gain any advantage in the new "campaign". In this context, some of the core fans of virtual anchors are completely disappointed in the content production and "unfair" management environment of B station "de-secondary", and finally decided to leave station B and migrate to a more niche and private platform.

The first stop for these core fans to leave is the official mobile APP (Nijisanji FAN CLUB) launched by the Rainbow Society; The second stop is the once booming but increasingly marginalized QQ group to open up and establish a new core circle space.

It should be noted that unlike the migration of the same humanistic writing community studied by Wu Fang before, although the fan groups are helplessly "nomadic" and constantly "migrating" between different platforms, for this group of virtual anchor fans, none of the current platforms can replace the B station in terms of function, so leaving the B station also means that they have suffered irreparable huge losses. The reason is: First of all, the original websites with users' free upload video interfaces, such as Youku and Tudou, ACFan, etc., in order to cope with censorship and evade copyright issues, in recent years, have gradually tightened or even closed the way for users to upload videos, all of which have been transformed into traditional media content, that is, video portals for professional production (PGC) content, so old fans have lost the alternative platform option with the closest function to B station. Secondly, the remaining alternative platforms have hard flaws in user interface design, software functionality or management compared with Station B. For example, the official APP launched by the Rainbow Society relies on Japanese operation, and must be logged in as a member to watch videos, and the operation of its forum section is also very old and lagging, and Rainbow Club fans have said that they "want to give up after a while" (Ning, female, 24 years old; ASHU, male, 25 years old; Kanabeki, male, 24 years old). The QQ group does not have an interface to upload and watch high-quality videos, and it cannot provide a bullet screen function of watching videos and sending bullet screens: "In a short period of time, the derivative content and contributions (of virtual anchors) can only rely on B station, and its status is still difficult to shake." (Shino, male, 24)

Under such circumstances, the core fans of the Rainbow Society have gradually developed a composite model of "communicating in the QQ group" + "absorbing the latest Japanese information on the APP". The "core" fans mentioned here are not a clear concept in doctrine, but a conventional statement among fans. For example, station B is a gathering and communication community of two-dimensional enthusiasts at the beginning of its establishment, but because fans have different understandings and preferences for two-dimensional culture, they divide the fan group into three circles according to their "affinity relationship" with two-dimensional culture and "degree of payment" of second-dimensional culture: core circle layer, peripheral circle layer, and diffusion circle layer. Among them, the core circle layer refers to those fan groups that have long been deeply involved, enthusiastically engaged in secondary-dimensional related content and activities, have established a relatively solid identity and group belonging, and will consciously practice the two-dimensional lifestyle in daily life.

The core fan group of the Rainbow Society that this article focuses on belongs to the "core circle layer" in the virtual anchor fan group, and its earliest members are several core members of the Japanese subtitle group. Station B was once their spiritual home, but now they have turned the communication field to QQ and used the QQ group as a new "base". According to the online participatory observation of the research assistant, the QQ group gathered 30 to 40 active users (daily online time of 1 hour or more), with an average age of 18 to 30 years old, mainly college students or male users who have just worked for a few years. This study focused on observing and interviewing 12 core group friends, among them, as the creator of the QQ group, CAD (male, 26 years old) has set up a virtual anchor video subtitle group and concurrently held a number of positions, and is also a well-known V-circle elder in China. He was originally an active member of the Online Open Forum of the Rainbow Society, and was also a pioneer in the large-scale "scolding battles" with fans in the outer circle and the diffuse circle on the B station in the past, and was considered to be the "spiritual leader" of the Rainbow People. AKU (male, 25 years old) is also a core fan, never watches the virtual anchor videos of other clubs, and has long been committed to the promotion of Rainbow Society. Miyako, another core figure of the QQ group, has a superior family background in real life, studied in the United States, and worked in financial-related industries after returning to China, and is a well-known "kryptonian gold gangster" in the group. In addition, other core active members of the QQ group include WYD (male, 30 years old), Orga (male, 24 years old), and Yiwen (male, 25 years old), who are responsible for translating and carrying relevant news from Japan, writing summaries and promotional posts, and also serving as moderators of virtual anchor sections of some public forums.

In order to protect the "cleanliness" of the QQ group, these "core circle" fans strictly control the people who want to join the group, and only fans who have repeatedly confirmed that they are not marketing numbers or advertising numbers and are "dead loyal" to the culture of the Rainbow Society can join. Under these strict access conditions, the number of members of the QQ group in the field continued for more than a year on this research line, and the number of members of the QQ group only decreased: there were 47 members in the group at the beginning of the research assistant's enrollment, and in the 15-month observation process, some members in the group gradually withdrew, and finally only 36 people were left. In this way, this group of once energetic fans in the QQ group encountered an unprecedented dilemma: because of the difficulty of group access, it is increasingly difficult for them to converge with the information of other two-dimensional fans, or to absorb new members, and their group members are getting smaller and smaller.

(3) "Symbol Creation": The tenacious resistance of core fans

In order to maintain their original belief and identity with the virtual anchor culture, this group of core fans also established a set of symbol systems that only insiders can understand in the QQ group, and these communication symbols have undergone serious changes in meaning, and a new and independent symbol use community has also been formed. These words and symbols of Chuangsheng are not only simple variations in language and symbols, but more importantly, they express their demands on values with the help of new words: most of these newly created words of core fans are used to ridicule and criticize the data, mainstreaming and commercial transformation of B station, the new virtual anchors and their derived new cultural connotations of B station, as well as to avoid new fans' search for their "human flesh" and "chase" attacks.

For example, group friends often type the word "community construction" in group chats, and attach a short sentence of "Be my daughter" - people who do not understand the culture within the group will feel unclear, so they will even feel offended. In fact, the term "shezhu" refers to a virtual anchor under the Rainbow Society who is very concerned about "doing" live broadcast data. He once recognized a virtual anchor with quite good live broadcast data as his daughter in the live broadcast, but for a while, he recognized that the daughter's live broadcast data was "not very good", and Shezhu satirized and attacked it in the live broadcast, which was ridiculed by the group friends as "domestic violence". The combination of "social construction" and "be my daughter" has been derived into ironic short sentences, reflecting the general antipathy of the group of friends to the phenomenon of virtual anchors being domesticated by the digital economy and being priced by platform data: as mentioned earlier, since the launch of the B station's commercial promotion platform Fireworks, the dominant relationship of "fans - two-dimensional content - UP master" formed by the long-term community cultural atmosphere of B station has been completely rewritten into the implicit relationship of "UP main - B station - brand owner". As a result of this transformation, the number of fans and the number of content plays are transformed into first-hand data to measure the daily work performance of up masters. To borrow these ironic words, these core fans of virtual anchors express the view that the platform (B station) uses data to measure the value of virtual anchors in their view as "very ridiculous" (WYD, male, 30 years old). Another typical metamorphosis word is "Voldemort." "Voldemort" is an important villain in the Harry Potter novel series, and due to his powerful mana and fierce heart, he is called "the man who can't mention his name" in the book; In the QQ group, "Voldemort" is used by group friends to refer to those head virtual anchors who are popular in station B, have huge fan traffic, and cannot be named and criticized; In the first few months of the research assistant's enlistment, the term was synonymous with "Kagura Mea." From the background of the outbreak of several large-scale online conflicts mentioned above, it can be seen that once the negative evaluation of the head anchor is named, it may attract a large number of "accusations" and even insults from its fans, which not only affects the platform experience of the peripheral circle layer and the fans (passers-by) of the circle layer, but also the commenter may even be considered to be the instigator (the instigator) and be deleted, reported and banned. Therefore, out of the self-protection and defense psychology of the QQ group, the group friends will even use this extremely obscure way to communicate in the highly private group chat, borrowing the words of CAD: "This can avoid the chat history being screenshotted by the diving 'spy', and then take it outside (B station and other public communities) to blackmail us." ”

Similar to Voldemort, group members "rename" virtual anchors to establish a new nickname system. When you first join the QQ group, the group friends each have their own favorite virtual anchor, and everyone will use the common anchor nickname of the V circle to communicate. With the improvement of the sense of group belonging, the group members then gave new nicknames to each virtual anchor, and the nicknames that were commonly used in the virtual anchor section of station B gradually disappeared. According to this development, in the end, only the members of the group will know which anchor the new nickname refers to. Another reason for the "name change" is to avoid the fact that when group friends criticize specific anchors, they are circulated to the outside world and cause unnecessary trouble.

Another typical word is "unicorn". In European literature and art, unicorns are often depicted as an animal resembling a white horse or goat; During the Middle Ages and renaissance, it was also described as an extremely rare woodland creature, a symbol of purity and elegance that only a virgin could capture. "Unicorn" is used in this group to refer to new fans who insist that virtual streamers must be virgins (e.g., fans of "Yong chi Taffy"). The friends borrowed the meaning of "unicorn" to express their resentment at the return of the new virtual anchor culture to conservatism and the regression of values.

In addition, in response to the incidents of old fans being reported in the public discussion section earlier, the group friends also carried out a series of image symbol interpretation and irony, such as appropriating the classic "AC Niang" expression "Folding Fan Smile" in the NGA forum, typing the words "mute" (mute) and other words to satirize the unfair management of moderators in the public discussion section, or replacing the image of AC Niang with the image of each head virtual anchor on the basis of "ban", in order to allude to the huge flow of fans of the anchor. Any public negative evaluation of it will be "blocked" by the platform.

Such text or image symbol deformation phenomenon emerges in this QQ group, but due to space limitations, this article can only select the above more understandable symbols for interpretation. With the passage of time, the number of text and image symbols that have been rewritten by meaning in the QQ group has increased, almost covering the exclusive symbol system native to the V circle, and finally making the entire QQ group almost use the symbol system that "outsiders can't understand at all". As the fans of the core circle layer, the group friends are also gradually drifting away from the outer circle layer, the diffuse circle layer and even the mainstream cultural circle layer, which directly leads to the cultural content created by this group of core circle fans is difficult to export to the outside world, forming an internal communication closed loop. The vitality of the two-dimensional culture and the source of content production should have come from the continuous exchange and information exchange between the fan circles, but in the context of the QQ group, the effective exchange of information inside and outside the fan circle has become impossible.

VI. Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, from the perspective of past research, scholars pay more attention to the specific practice of the fan group "enclosure and self-germination", believing that it is a way of behavior in which the fan group forms a non-public, personalized view and hobby, does not argue or publicize on the public platform, and controls the communication and interaction within the circle. Some scholars have also pointed out that as a protection mechanism within the circle, although "enclosure self-germination" can help the fan group avoid conflict with the outside world, it is also easy to evolve into an extreme self-closure, so that the fan group is giving up the right to speak in the public domain while also avoiding active communication with the outside world. In response to the common fan differentiation and conflict behavior of "tearing" and "scolding war", Yang Ling gave a full analysis from the individual and internal levels. However, we rarely see studies that can integrate the internal and external perspectives of the platform inhabited by fans, and make a comprehensive explanation of the differentiation and migration of fan groups such as "enclosure and self-emergence" and "exodus platform". In order to fill this gap, this paper takes the representatives of the two-dimensional base camp B and its fan group as the research object, and first provides the perspective of the platform (platform staff and stakeholders), explaining why and how the original niche two-dimensional video platform B station is commercially expanded, fully digital operation and "de-secondary" transformation. Secondly, this article provides an external perspective (UP master and fans), explains the "de-quadraticization" of station B in the face of all-round "de-quadraticization", as the main force of the secondary fan group of station B - the core fan group of virtual anchors, why and how to maintain their inherent main position and taste yardstick as the core goal of the platform, with the help of new media ecology and "homeland" migration, symbol rewriting and boundary confirmation.

Based on the above research, this paper believes that the differentiation of the platform, the hierarchicalization of the fan group, and the fierce conflict between fans are not the result of the individual action of the fans at the individual level, but the "out of the circle" of the platform at the level of market strategy, the all-data operation at the level of daily practice, and the logic of "de-quadraticization" implemented at the level of cultural shaping to be close to the mainstream discourse. Taking the virtual anchor fan group of Station B as an example, due to the verbal friction and conflict of interests between individual fans, a series of fierce conflicts broke out between core fans and internal, peripheral and dispersed fans, and the result of a series of disputes led to some core fans leaving the original activity base camp B station under the leadership of the "elders" of the V circle and migrating to a more marginal QQ to establish a small and highly private group. The reason why they have left the mainstream platform and "nomadic" to the edge of the network is far more than the superficial "rice circle" friction or the "passive confrontation" of the subculture against the mainstream culture, but its essence lies in the dissatisfaction and powerlessness of the core fan group with the traffic-led operation mechanism formed by the B station as the two-dimensional "happy hometown" in the process of commercial transformation, the user data pricing of the fan economy, and the disappearance of sophisticated secondary content. In the end, the core fan groups, whether it is the right to speak, consumption power, "scolding war" energy or the number of groups are in a weak position, can only take the way to leave the platform, establish a closed loop of communication (symbol system), etc., to resist the platform capital's right to compete for the right to speak in the subcultural circle, and refuse to be domesticated by the data pricing mechanism.

Finally, it is worth mentioning again that the above phenomenon that occurs among the fan groups of the virtual anchors of station B is not an isolated case, and there have been scholars such as Wu Fang in previous studies who have drawn similar research conclusions to us. However, due to the limited space of the research objects, data and articles, this study has not yet been able to carry out a comparative study between multiple fan groups (such as celebrity fans, anime fans, virtual anchor fans, etc.) and multiple platforms (such as Weibo, Tencent Video, B Station, etc.). Therefore, the universality test found in this study and the comparative study between different fan groups and different media platforms will be the key development directions of our future related research.

Published in Journal of Journalism and Communication Studies, No. 6, 2022

Limited by the length, the public number is discarded for annotations, and the full version can be found in the journal.

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