Bullet chats in China: Bilibili, language, and interaction

Abstract

Bullet chats have grown in popularity in East Asia since 2006, when the Japanese animation website Niconico originated overlaying flying texts on video displays and synchronizing them to the video timeline. This bullet chat function has now gained popularity on Bilibili, a popular Chinese video-sharing social media site with a focus on East Asian pop culture. Bilibili users mix Chinese with foreign languages to create a cyberpidgin vocabulary, adding visual language to express their feelings in a mode that reflects the social norms learned from other East Asian fandoms. Analysis of Bilibili bullet chats provides insight into how social media and online platforms influence user interactions from both linguistic and visual perspectives.