More Than Just Stickers - Biaoqingbao as a Carnival Ritual in Contemporary Chinese Cyberspace

Abstract: 

Chinese cyberspace has drawn substantial academic attention with its distinctive features. Yet biaoqingbao (表情包 in Chinese)as an emergent online interactive symbol is relatively lack of exploration. Biaoqingbao namely consists of user-generated JPGs and GIFs that are circulated on instant messaging platforms. This research aims to explore the participatory value of the use of biaoqingbao in contemporary Chinese cyberculture. It argues that during its localization, users of biaoqingbao are switched from passive receivers towards active audiences, the main meanings of biaoqingbao have also been transformed from facilitating online communication to a participatory approach, which indicates the resistance of mainstream culture, expression of underprivileged norms, and construction of group ideology. Building upon carnival theory (Bakhtin, 1984) and ritual theories (Summers-Effler, 2006), author argues that the application of biaoqingbao forms an online carnival ritual: biaoqingbaoas the crucial symbols that transmitted on Chinese cyberspace creates a symbolic network, and take roots in the society as a core to virtual ritual that bonds Chinese netizens. This paper then elaborates the embodied implication of biaoqingbao - ‘Wu Biaoqingbao (污表情包 in Chinese, namely ‘dirty’ stickers)’, and finds that through creating and circulating user-generated wu biaoqingbao, individuals are keen to express and construct their own cultural notions, and express their resistance against Chinese controversial attitude towards sexuality. Author then claimed that Chinese cyberspace serves as an alternative medium, where netizens are enabled with certain tolerance and could express their individualities through online satires and memes. In this case, the generation and circulation of biaoqingbao could be regarded as a carnival ritual. The illustration of Chinese sexual repression and the resistance from social media users by using wu biaoqingbao, therefore, signifies a conclusion that these biaoqingbao neither designated as a rational confrontation against national politics nor have brought any political significance. Instead, biaoqingbao as a significant symbol in contemporary online communication, this kind of humor, satire, vulgarity and a-rationality discourse composes a collective identity that provides both political critiques and ideological bonding among all participants.