With the spread of the Internet and social media, viewers can access a wider variety of content than traditional media nowadays. In the case of China, the video-sharing platform Bilibili is playing this role as a new media. Except for mainstream cultu...
With the spread of the Internet and social media, viewers can access a wider variety of content than traditional media nowadays. In the case of China, the video-sharing platform Bilibili is playing this role as a new media. Except for mainstream culture’s content, there’s also much of other content uploaded to Bilibili. This research focused on Hanfu culture, which belongs to the Guofeng (‘National Style’) of Chinese subculture, because of its great potential for the possibility of expansion.
Hanfu culture first appeared as a Hanfu revival movement around 2002. Recently with the rise of social media platforms, Hanfu culture has received new attention in the digital space, and its core is Wang Hong(网红). Wang Hong is a creator who gathers many followers and exerts influence by producing and transmitting content on social media platforms. Wang Hong, who is active in Bilibili, shows an effort to continuously discover and expand new fields to secure differentiation from the Wang Hong of other media or platforms. Therefore, the number of Wang Hong who express interest in subculture through the content has increased. Also, they have created content using Hanfu, the central material of Hanfu culture, and shared it with their viewers.
Against this background, this research aims to grasp the status of Hanfu-related content recently uploaded by Wang Hong, who is active in Bilibili. And also to figure out appropriate solutions for the progress of Hanfu culture and Chinese subculture.
To this end, the research has explored the theories of subculture and Hanfu culture, collected and analyzed Bilibili's Hanfu-related influencers’ content based on the theories. Besides, about 770 Hanfu-related contents uploaded on Bilibili were analyzed using the content analysis method to figure out the aspects of using Hanfu in the content and the significance of Hanfu culture as a subculture. And the result is that there’re seven aspects of using Hanfu were derived in the content, including providing opportunities to appreciate Hanfu, teaching knowledge of Hanfu, inducing others to experience Hanfu by treating Hanfu as daily wear, using Hanfu as the material of video creation, strengthening traditional culture’s characteristics of video content through Hanfu, creating economic value, and correcting people’s cognition of Hanfu. Accordingly, as a subculture, Hanfu culture’s significance is as follows.
First of all, it is the propagation of a subculture enjoyed by a few. The various cultural practices of Wang Hong are promoting the spread of Hanfu from minority culture to mass culture, and making Hanfu more familiar and acceptable to the public. Secondly, highlight the unique style of Hanfu. Wang Hong have much cultural capital related to the subculture of Hanfu so that they can make Hanfu content based on history, and share it with the public to show the unique value and characteristics of Hanfu. Therefore, it shows that Wang Hong play a crucial role in highlighting the uniqueness of Hanfu. Thirdly, Hanfu and the content of Hanfu is changing with the times. As the Wang Hong from many other fields participate in the cultural practice of Hanfu actively, Hanfu content has also changed into different kinds of forms. Although Hanfu content in Bilibili originated from the dissemination of national costume culture, it is changing in multiple directions such as game culture and consumer culture. Last but not least, establish the identity of Hanfu culture through the application of Hanfu. Young people's enjoyment of Hanfu is not limited to pursuing the ideal self but also helps to establish the identity of the national group. Hanfu plays a pioneering role in the revival of traditional culture, and it is also a channel for building the identity of the Chinese nation under the background of globalization.
Most of the existing subcultures emerged from the viewpoint of resistance or criticism against mainstream culture. But the subculture originating from Hanfu was born in the course of rescuing traditional culture and exploring national identity. Therefore, research on Hanfu culture can serve as an opportunity to prepare the foundation for the appearance of various subcultures and also induce other traditional cultures to present a wide variety of subcultures. In addition, research on the subculture’s Hanfu culture is valuable in securing cultural diversity in Chinese society. However, since this research did not target all of the Hanfu-related content posted on Bilibili, its result has the limitation of ‘lack of completeness’. And this point will be supplemented through follow-up studies.