Orality, multimodality and creativity in digital writing: Chinese users’ experiences and practices with bullet comments on Bilibili

ABSTRACT Responding to recent calls in sociolinguistics and social semiotics to study the material, technological and embodied features of writing, this article examines Chinese users’ experiences and practices with the emergent technology of bullet comments on Bilibili, a major video-sharing platform and breeding ground for online subcultures. As one of the first studies based on in-depth interviews with its long term users, this article demonstrates that the unique design of bullet comments, by inserting writing into a moving screen, creates multimedia, multimodal semiotic affordances, reinforces “participatory spectacles,” and facilitates powerful multisensory, bonding experiences similar to the (secondary) orality culture. Users’ diverse range of adaptive and creative practices, which resemiotize available linguistic, visual and cultural resources to create new meaning-making possibilities, are analysed. Considering the recent “desubculturization” of Bilibili and its increased interactions with mainstream culture and the state media, this timely study is well positioned to capture users’ observations about this transition, and assess potential impacts on their experiences and writing practices. It is pointed out that the new synergy of youth nationalism and the technology of bullet comments reflects the complex interplay between writing as a technologized social-semiotic practice, and the wider social, cultural and political conditions.


Introduction
As part of the general effort to rethink the speech-writing binary, recent scholarship in sociolinguistics and social semiotics has underscored the materiality and multimodal meaning-making potential of digitally mediated writing (Van Leeuwen 2008;Lillis 2013;Thurlow, Dürscheid, and Diémoz 2020).One noteworthy aspect concerns the orality of writing on digital platforms, which can be seen as a consequence of making written language suitable for digitally mediated interaction.As defined in Androutsopoulos (2011a, 149), conceptual orality includes all aspects "reminiscent of casual spoken language in written discourse."Many media and communication studies have drawn on the concept of secondary orality in Walter Ong's works (a development of Marshal McLuhan's thought, see Ong 1982) to account for the abundance of orality features in the current cyberworld, especially on microblogging and networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook (MacNeil 2007;Bounegru 2009;Stewart 2016).They have noted the conversational, participatory, interactive and communal features, as well as a tendency to use formulas (such as memes) and participate in digitally-mediated rites and rituals (see also Mason 1998;Wright 2007).Other scholars observe that online writing on social networking sites (SNS) gives rise to a "networked self" and "networked publics" (boyd 2010; Papacharissi 2010; Marwick and boyd 2011) and creates so-called "affinity spaces/groups" (Gee 2004).These can be read as illustrations of the "retribalizing" effects of the new orality culture in the McLuhanian sense.They are powerful in generating a strong group sense among an immeasurably larger population than those of primary oral culture, even without using the medium of "spoken" language (McLuhan 1962).
Another strand of research on writing examines the constraining and affording potential of new technologies for individuals' writing practices and other meaning-making activities (Lillis 2013;Van Leeuwen, Djonov, and O'Halloran 2013).The social semiotic approach proposed by Djonov and Van Leeuwen (2018, 6) treats social media as "technologically mediated resources for social meaning-making in semiotic practices."Contextualized discussions of individuals' situated, spatialized "practices with and negotiations of digital media" (Androutsopoulos 2011a, 147; see also Kress and van Leeuwen 2001;Jones 2010) are conducted to challenge the homogenized perception of "new media language" or "netspeak" informed by technological determinism (Thurlow 2006).As boyd (2010) shows, participants are "implicitly and explicitly contending with the affordances and dynamics of digital technologies on the social media" and are learning to explore the "possibilities of mediated architecture" (boyd 2010, 55).Lillis (2013), drawing on Williams' work (2009), asserts users' agency in deriving "a sense of connection, investment, and control" from participating in digitally mediated writing practices (147).
Building on these emergent strands of research, in this article I seek to further accentuate users' situated online writing practices and experiences.With a study of the technology of "bullet comments" (弹幕, danmu) on video-sharing platforms, 1 I aim to broaden the scope of current studies, which predominantly focus on SNS (with some rare exceptions, see Androutsopoulos and Tereick 2015).I will show that this widened scope will provide insights not otherwise available about the impacts of the digital on new modes of writing and communication, and the semiotic potential of digital writing in adapting to the ever-changing multimodal environment of the social media.Responding to a turn towards "more situated (e.g.ethnographic) studies" and more user-based approaches (Thurlow, Dürscheid, and Diémoz 2020), my study draws on in-depth interviews to investigate users' "embodied experiences" of engaging with bullet comments and situated practices (Jones 2020, 20).These topics are rarely discussed in current sociolinguistic and social semiotic studies of bullet comments.I will address the following two research questions: (1) What is their general experience of using bullet comments and are there any shared observations about the multimodal features afforded by this function?(2) How do they adapt to and make use of this distinct technology of writing?As I will explain later, an investigation of these two questions offers a timely opportunity to take stock of the significant changes that Chinese social media is undergoing in recent years.It will shed light on the intricate dynamics between writing, a situated, technologized, and dynamic social-semiotic practice (Harris 2000; see also Thurlow 2021) and the wider social, cultural, and political conditions, in particular the state's regulation of the cyberspace.
In what follows, I will first briefly discuss the technological design and functions of bullet comments (using Bilibili as an example) and demonstrate why it is a worthy subject for studying digital writing practices.The research design and data collection methods will then be explained.The main section of the article will be devoted to a fine-grained thematic analysis of the users' experiences and practices.In the conclusion, I will contextualize the findings in wider changes on Chinese social media and point out directions for further research.

Bullet comments, Bilibili, and online participatory culture
Originating from Japanese internet culture, bullet comments (Figure 1) have become a signature function of Bilibili, a leading video-sharing platform in China, since 2010.Bilibili has been a major breeding ground for various online subcultural communities in ACG (animation, comic, games) but is now starting to be diversified (Bi 2020;Liu and Davis 2020).Due to its significant use of bullet comments, high-quality user-generated content, and strong links with online subcultural communities, Bilibili has a much stronger digital sociality, user adhesivity and community culture than other video-sharing platforms in China.Interrelatedly, despite its current high market value and commercial success, 2 it is still largely thought to be promoting creative, parodic, non-mainstream content from the bottom up, unlike other profit-driven platforms.In some ways similar to YouTube, Bilibili can be seen as promoting vernacular creativity and the practices of appropriation and remix (Burgess and Green 2009).Indeed, users of Bilibili are often viewed as "intertextual operators at the interface of global and local cultures," engaging with (and often resisting) mainstream discourses (Androutsopoulos 2013, 49).However, one major difference between Bilibili and YouTube crucial to my later discussions needs to be underlined: on Bilibili the embedded function of bullet comments enables users to directly "write" on the screen of videos while YouTube does not support such function.This difference, as I will show in the following sections, working in tandem with its subcultural practices, makes Bilibili a platform more conducive to creating the kind of "participatory spectacles," namely, the "multiauthored, multimodal, multimedia, inherently dialogic, dynamically expanding, and open ended" spectacles theorized in Androutsopoulos (2013, 50).
On Bilibili, members can type comments while watching videos and the comments in anonymous form will then be overlaid onto the moving screen, becoming an integral part of the video for all users.As it accumulates comments made at different times by different users, it is common to see videos with fully covered screens.Users have the option of turning the function off if they prefer a clean screen.Using this function, they can comment on the video content at a chosen time during viewing, express their feelings and opinions, share in-jokes, and provide Chinese subtitles for videos in other languages (see Yang 2020Yang , 2021)).They are given the opportunity to become content-producers, to deconstruct the original texts (similar to fan practices and participatory culture, see Jenkins 1992;2006), and to interact with other viewers as if they were "talking" in a shared physical space.Unsurprisingly, the number of bullet comments a video accumulates is often taken to index its popularity and quality.
As a new form of networked writing, bullet comments hold out ample opportunities to demonstrate the multimedial affordances of digital writing in supporting the above-mentioned "participatory spectacles."Unlike other digital writing functions in SNS, the function of bullet comments ingenuously inserts writing within the materiality of a moving screen, parasitic on the video yet offering adequate writing space for the viewers.This distinct digital architecture aptly illustrates the "growing complexity of the multi-media formats of contemporary communication, brought about by the inevitable convergence of 'old' and 'new' media and the layering of different digital media."(Thurlow 2018, 140; see also Herring 2015).The "writing" of bullet comments always occurs in an intensely multimodal and multimedia environment characterized by "media richness" (Kaplan and Haenlein 2009) and a significant mixing of formats (Page et al. 2014).It is therefore necessary to investigate the semiotic affordances made available by this digital function and the kinds of practices it supports, further expanding current research on bullet comments (such as Johnson 2013;Yang 2020Yang , 2021)).
With its unusual fusion of various media, the function of bullet comments challenges users' ordinary habits and experiences of online video-viewing and writing, while affording multisensory experiences characteristic of the orality culture mentioned earlier.Since the option of turning off bullet comments was not yet available on Bilibili when many users first encountered bullet comments, they needed to learn to cope with it.They had to learn to contend with the ways in which their experiences were deformed and transformed with this new feature.I will investigate how, with time and effort, users adapt to and even derive pleasures from this new writing function. 3 Due to its interactive features and strong potential in bonding the users, many commercial platforms and state-run ones have started to adopt the function recently.At the same time, as mentioned earlier, Bilibili is now gradually "desubculturized" (出圈, chuquan) or "mainstreaming" (主流化, zhuliuhua) as marked by the established presence of official CCP-related accounts, more diversified audiences, and increased interactions with the state media.These wider changes call for a timely understanding of bullet comments and users' experiences, which will be helpful to assess future developments in Chinese mediascape.

Research design and data collection methods
This article draws on the data collected from 2019 to 2021 for an ongoing funded study of writing practices in contemporary China. 4I adopt a combination of online ethnographical observations and semi-structured interviews for data collection in this study (see Blommaert and Dong 2010;Kozinets 2020).Being a registered member of Bilibili myself, I have first-hand experiences of its workings and dynamic community cultures.I recruited 50 university students (also being long term users of Bilibili) for an in-depth written interview. 5According to the statistics, university students are a dominant group of users on Bilibili (among them it is half-jokingly referred to as "my university"). 6 Considering the internet-based nature of the research topic, both recruitment and interview were conducted online to engage with the respondents most effectively since they are already highly familiar with online interactions (Mann and Stewart 2002;Kazmer and Xie 2008).Due to the difficulty of accessing this group of informants, 7 I have adopted a combination of mediator and snowball strategies.The recruitment process consists of the following steps: first, I contacted several Chinese university teachers and invited them to work as mediators for reaching potential informants (Kristensen and Ravn 2015).Second, the mediators sent a pre-designed recruitment notice to their students.On the notice, it is specified the prerequisite of "at least three years" experience of using Bilibili and having considerable reflections on the function of bullet comments.'The interested ones were encouraged to contact me directly and spread the word on their social media accounts.Third, these students then acted as "seeds" (see "snowball strategy," Goodman 2011) when their posts reached more potential respondents.Combining the mediator and snowball strategies, I received around 100 email enquiries within a few hours.After further screening, 50 candidates who had longer years' experiences (on average 5 years), showed interest in various types of videos (not confined to one genre) and often published bullet comments (not just watching them), were selected as interviewees.
With a view to downplaying the researcher's influences due to power imbalances, in designing the interview questions I assumed the role of "an interested outsider" who only had preliminary knowledge of bullet comments and therefore in need of informed observations from experienced users.In some questions, both popular and scholarly discussions were cited to seek for their validations, opinions, and comments.A list of 15 open-ended questions 8 were sent to them via email.Several strategies were put in place to maximize the effectiveness of conducting written interviews via email and ensure the quality of the collected data.The interviewees were encouraged to use everyday language or the internet register to facilitate the sharing process.They were also requested to incorporate concrete examples of videos and screenshots to illustrate the answers.In addition, a word limit of at least 300 words for most questions was put in place to ensure serious reflections, deep thinking, and production of substantial content. 9 Upon receiving the reports, I carefully checked the answers and in cases of inadequate or incoherent content, I would request substantiation or clarification.Within one month's time, I have received 43 qualified reports.The reports were then compiled and formatted by two research assistants 10 and the synthesized reports consist of 212, 513 words in total.After going through the 43 users' full reports to gain a contextual understanding of their experiences and practices, I then conducted several rounds of close reading of the answers to questions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11B, 12, which were especially useful for investigating the aforementioned research questions (see Introduction).The relevant data was subsequently subjected to a thematic analysis and organized around a range of themes (visuality, auditory effects, reading habits, semiotic practices, etc.) to capture the situatedness and heterogeneity of users' experiences.In particular, metadiscursive terms, jargon, and in-group expressions used in the reports are highlighted: they are helpful to illustrate the insiders' knowledge and perspectives.In the following section, I will present and discuss the research findings. 11

Part one: users' embodied experience
As mentioned earlier, bullet comments are designed to appear on the same screen as the video, a multimodal medium on its own.Videos of various content, themes, and functions on Bilibili tend to gather and serve audiences and communities belonging to different subcultural groups, which with time often create their own jargon, in-jokes, and coded expressions.Most interviewees (38 out of 43) report that the function of bullet comments affords multisensory experiences with its multimodal features (visual, verbal, auditory, and  temporal 12 ) and helps to reinforce bonding experiences. 13As one Chinese visual artist puts it, bullet comments turn the videos on Bilibili into "a tangible 'social hologram'" (see Holmes 2015).

Visual effects
All of them notice the visual effects of bullet comments including attention-grabbing colours, forms and movements, which are part of the integral whole of the message.As previous research made clear (Vaisman 2011;Johnson 2013), the design of language is an essential component of the visual affordances in some forms of digital writing.For example, Johnson highlights the "typographic play and image-oriented writing" (299) in bullet comments on Japanese websites.Drawing on Hosoma's research (2010), he explains that "the brief time in which comments are displayed in the feed encourages 'symbol' (kigo)-like commenting that relies on concise, image-like messages" (307).
I will select some key terms used by the interviewees to illustrate the visual effects of bullet comments in the Chinese context.The first example is "空降弹幕" (kongjiang danmu, bullet comments landing from air, see Figure 2), which describes the impressive trajectory of one type of advanced comments. 14Unlike the ordinary right-to-left horizontal movement, they appear from top of the screen before shooting downwards; they are also often in much larger, stylistic fonts and flashy colours.This coined expression captures the viewers' surprise at the swift and unexpected visual effects.As reflected from the reports, while some viewers are delighted to be visually surprised, others find them distracting or even annoying.The second one, "刷屏弹幕" (shuaping danmu, bullet comments brushing across the whole screen, see Figure 3), refers to the kind of comments,  which, of the same wording and format, simultaneously fill and cover the screen during the video's playing.The word "刷" (shua, paint) draws on the analogy of painting on a canvasby posting the same comments simultaneously, users seem to be collectively painting a canvas (an analogy invoked by several users; also see Yang 2020).As they explained, depending on the contexts, "刷屏弹幕" can serve a wide range of semiotic functions, such as showing support for the idols when they appear on stage as if the fans were shouting out their names in unison, reinforcing and spreading a meme, covering the screen to protect the timid viewers when watching horror movies just like giving them a protective gear ("弹幕护体," danmu huti, see Figure 4), or creating "chaos" with a view to subverting the video (see Wu and Fitzgerald 2021).It is evident that bullet comments effectively afford a visual experience different from typical video-sharing platforms.More than the video content, viewers are looking at videos overlaid with comments showing up in different configurations, colours and trajectories like on a canvas, which constantly assumes new forms co-produced by the video-producer and the networked community throughout time.

Writing-afforded auditory effects
Using bullet comments, the viewers can directly respond to or comment on the video at a well-timed key moment as if they were gathered in the same physical space and could hear each other while the video was playing.Using the medium of digital writing, bullet comments approximate face-to-face communication while exploiting the advantages of writing: multiple "voices" (made from different times in the past and present) can be "heard" at the same time, together with the sound of the video.As many reports (38 out of 43) point out, bullet comments create strong auditory effects, an important aspect of orality features.The following excerpts are a good illustration: And it's like chatting with your close friends, we banter about the video producer all of us are following.It's like the kind of party attended only by your long-time friends.We always get what each other are talking about and alluding to.This is where I derive my sense of security.(Interviewee 31, answer to question 5) When a streamer creates a comical scenario, there will be bullet comments like "hahahaha" all over the screen.The messages also use punchlines, memes, or coded expressions that every follower understands.It's just like watching a talk show in a studio during weekendswhen you see those bullet comments, it feels like you were hearing other audiences applauding and shouting out their compliments.(Interviewee 24, answer to question 6) Interrelatedly, a range of metadiscursive expressions shared by the interviewees emphasize the interconnections of spoken and written modalities in bullet comments, and the creative, satisfying and bonding experiences afforded by such "transmodal" practices (see Herring 2015; Thurlow and Jaworski 2017).For example, "空耳" (konger, empty ear) describes the common practice of directly transcribing lyrics or scripts in other languages to Chinese by using Chinese characters. 15"Empty" can be understood to refer to the "purity" of the sounds, which are not attached to linguistic meanings.In other words, the purpose is not to translate the meaning, but to inscribe the phonetic sound, similar to the kind of orthographic, phonetic play discussed in Vaisman (2011) and Johnson (2013).For example, "打铁" (datie, strike iron) is the konger version of "だって" (datte, because) in Japanese (a phrase in the theme song of Detective Conan).It should be pointed out that although the characters here are used "purely" to transcribe the sounds in Japanese, unlike the phonetic orthography of pinyin, they are not emptied of meaning.Instead, they are syntactically correct, meaningful expressions, only that the meaning has nothing to do with the source.In fact, this divergence is often intended for strong parodic and ludic effects in konger practicesit is like deliberate mishearing (see similar practices on the Chinese internet in Zhang 2015; Li 2016).As shared in the reports, this complex transmodal translation practice affords much pleasure to the users; the opacity of these transliterationsbecause new comers would not easily "get" themfurther reinforces their sense of community.
"复读" ( fudu, re-read, repeat) and "发语音" ( fayuyin, send audio message) are the other two expressions connecting the modalities of the visual and the auditory.Fudu is used by the users to describe the act of posting the same bullet comments as others.Fayuyin is often used to jokingly comment on others' comments, emphasizing their incredulously strong auditory effects, for example, "你怎么可以发语音?"(How come you can send an audio bullet comment?).These metalinguistic terms reveal that users are fully aware of the strong auditory experiences afforded by the function and its capacity of bridging written and spoken modalities.
Indeed, due to its "parasitic" design on the videos, bullet comments often resemiotize various forms of speech drawn from the videos, such as characteristic expressions of the performers, familiar lines from the theme songs, memes and catchphrases.As noted in Androutsopoulos (2011b), constantly interpenetrated with multiple sounds and voices of various speakers, new-media texts are often heteroglossic.Bullet comments are full of such multi-layered, heteroglossic voicings.Despite being presented in written mode, they are highly evocative of the sounds and voices drawn from other sources, as illustrated in the following excerpt: Some bullet comments contain familiar lyrics, […].There are also well-known sayings from the pop culture, […].When I see them, I can hear exactly how they were intoned originally.Such bullet comments do have sound.(Interviewee 8, answer to question 6)

A sense of embodied participation
As reflected from the reports, such an interplay of auditory and visual experiencesessential features of the orality cultureproduces a strong sense of being physically present and involved in the virtual space created by the video and audiences.Below are some examples illustrating these kinds of "participatory spectacles": I watched a concert by Lovelive once (though not a fan myself).While live audiences cheered with the song, the bullet comments changed colour accordinglyit's another way of cheering.It suddenly occurred to me that their regret of not being present at the concert was expressed through devoted cheering via bullet comments.I was almost moved to tears.At such moments, the bullet comment writers were also live audiences: they were part of this perfect video.Their cheering was so infectiousone who chances upon the video would become a fan afterwards.How powerful that is! (Interviewee 38, answer to question 6) 比如在看-些动漫作品的时候, 到了关键的高潮片段, 弹幕一齐发出主角的经典台词, 这个时 候确实有种万马齐喑 (褒义) 的感觉, 让我对单纯画面的体验更加生动, 甚至会让我心潮澎 湃、心跳加快, 有的时候真的会热血沸腾甚至流眼泪。 When some animations are reaching the climax moments, bullet comments would simultaneously fill the screen with memorable lines spoken by the characterssuch moments always overwhelm me.It's like I can hear thousands of audiences recite those lines in unison.The visual content of the video is made more vivid and I get to be more emotionally involved in the show.Sometimes I feel that my heart is pounding so fast and I can't help but cry.(Interviewee 1, answer to question 6) These comments demonstrate the powerful participatory, multisensory bonding experiences, which characterize the "retribalized" online village (McLuhan 1962).The simultaneous writing function and its multimodal features orient the viewers towards the strong feeling that they are "really" together.To complement the above experiences, the following excerpts share other kinds of embodied participation and connection: Sometimes when people share their miseries or sing a sad song in the video, I will also send some encouraging and caring bullet comments.Such comments give me a strong sense of presence too: it's literally like I were by their side, patting their shoulders to cheer them on.(Interviewee 29, answer to question 6) 我曾在多条运动健身类视频中发布弹幕，[…], 其中打卡记录类的弹幕主要内容为"为了自 己的第一天、第二天、第三天、第n天 … … "，这样的弹幕嵌入视频中，出现在自己以及 每位观众的屏幕上时，我会有一种"自己的努力被看见"、"我正处于舞台的中央"的感觉。 I post bullet comments in many sports and fitness videos, […], such as "my first (and second …) day doing this fitness routine."Seeing that my bullet comments blend in with other commentstogether they would appear on all viewers' screens, this gives me a strong feeling that "my hard work is being seen" and "I'm in the centre stage."(Interviewee 10, answer to question 6) It should be noted that as reflected from the reports, generally users are acutely aware of the differences between the online world and the "real" worldand it is often expressed that the sense of security, the (transient) feeling of connection with other people across time and space created through bullet comments are precisely what distinguishes the online from the offline, and what makes the online world attractive to them.

Part two: users' adaptive and creative practices
In this part, I will focus on how users adapt to, make use of the function of bullet comments, as well as how they capitalize on its various semiotic affordances to create new semiotic possibilities.I will look at their roles as the reader/viewer and writer respectively.It should be mentioned that as is often the case on social media, the users shift fluidly between the roles of reader and writer (see Williams 2009), hence the separate discussions below are purely for analytical purposes.

Learning to cope with bullet comments as readers
As mentioned earlier, originally the function of bullet comments could not be turned off, so it was "forced upon" them and many of them (25 out of 43) found it "distractive" and "annoying."Their coping processes highlight the challenges that this new ensemble poses to them, as well as their adaptive efforts and strategies.
With time, users have developed a multitude of habits and strategies in using the application.For example, a majority of them (33 out of 43) have reported reconfiguring the various parameters available in the settings (see Figure 5) in order to best enjoy the videos and bullet comments.Some of them would choose to turn on bullet comments for leisure and entertainment videos so as to create the co-watching experience, and turn it off for art films, documentaries and educational videos in order to be more immersed in the video itself.For videos about unfamiliar topics, idol groups, animations, etc., some would turn on bullet comments to quickly get a sense of what is going on.In general, they would monitor the quality of the comments and decide whether to keep it on or off at a given moment.Often they would watch the video without bullet comments and another time with it on in order to get dual experiences.The electronic gadget can also be a factor: some users would turn it on on iPads or computers while turning it off on phones while others would do the opposite, depending on which way feels more comfortable for their eyes.Most importantly, a majority of them reported using a keyword list to filter undesirable comments (pornographic, violent, repetitive content depending on one's concerns), which needs to be updated from time to time since new expressions are constantly created to escape such screening.
Moreover, they have developed highly sophisticated methods to read multiple moving texts across the screen while attending to the video.On the one hand, they utilize traditional book-reading skills of skimming, scanning, and close reading to locate the most relevant and meaningful comments (many of them [34 out of 43] apply the practice of "一目十行" [yimushihang], namely, taking in multiple lines at one go, an extraordinary book-reading skill).On the other hand, they draw on analogies of embodied actions such as "jumping/leaping through the text" (see similar discussions in Johnson [2013]).Sometimes, instead of actively seeking to read any comments, they report "bumping into" them and enjoying the surprise of being amused by unexpected comments.Apparently, this relates to the technological design of "moving" bullet comments, which makes "reading" a chance encounter, as one interviewee puts it: "我永远无法想到发弹幕的网友 会怎样把我逗笑，这突如其来的高兴，比刻意寻找的要好玩的多" ("Such unexpected amusement is much more rewarding and fun than if I deliberately looked for them," from interviewee 11, answer to question 8).It is also often noted that users need to switch between different "reading" methods, adapting to the changing quantity and quality of the comments.For example, when the whole screen is suddenly bombarded with comments, they would simply allow themselves to be taken away by the movement and energy of the overwhelmed screen and enjoy being present.
Exploring the semiotic affordances of bullet comments as writers Compared with the typical set of multimodal resources (including emoticons, emoji, hashtags, and animated memes) available to writing functions on SNS, the semiotic resources incorporated into bullet comments are relatively limited.The writing of bullet comments relies predominantly on keyboard input.However, users have resemiotized an impressive range of multimodal resources, which are highly compatible with the technological design of bullet comments. 16They often feature unconventional, playful, and spontaneous mixing of different scripts, modes, linguistic and non-linguistic elements, drawn from diverse cultural sources and are almost always opaque to ordinary Chinese speakers.These coded usage and expressions further enhance the creativity, liveliness and energy of subcultural groups, and generate a strong sense of community.It is worth noting that the desired look of "simultaneity" and "spontaneity" in collective writing of bullet comments often relies on sophisticated manipulations of mechanical functions and well-timed repetitions (see "the planned spontaneity in secondary orality" in Ong [1982, 134]).Below I will briefly theorize some common practices shared by the interviewees.
Firstly, they exploit and develop new usages of the visual resources in this function.For example, they can select a specific colour when drafting the text.Apart from making one's comments more eye-catching, colours take on indexical meanings and associations in bullet comments (see Teng and Chan 2022 for more details).Often when supporting one's idol, the users would use an agreed-upon colour to self-identify as a fan.The configurations of bullet comments are also part of the visuality, one example being the simultaneously produced repetitive messages (often centralized) from different users, which create strong effects of unity (Figure 6).Furthermore, just like adding new layers of paint on the shifting "canvas" of the video (an analogy invoked by several users; see also Yang 2020), users insert their comments on the screen at a specific time during viewing to produce desired visual effects.These practices make clever use of the visual and temporal features of bullet comments: for example, at a well-timed moment, users would "draw" lines on the screen to separate the two characters or compare their height, creating parodic or humorous effects.
Secondly, they create a range of technologized, hybridized multimodal practices, which make full use of the semiotic affordances of bullet comments (see Sewell and Chan 2016;Li and Zhu 2019;Li and Lee 2021 for similar practices on other platforms).It is common to see translanguaging and tranßcripting play mixing Chinese characters, numbers, pinyin, and other morphological play of substituting between pinyin script and characters (like the switching between different kana sets reported in Johnson 2013; see also Li 2016).A notable example is "y1s1," acronym of the idiom "有一说一" (you yi shuo yi, have one say one, meaning "to say it as it is"), in which "y" and "s" are respectively the initial letters in the pinyin script of "有" and "说," while "1" is the counterpart of "一".Another technologized phenomenon is the accidentally created new usages from mistypes (see Vaisman 2011;Johnson 2013).For example, the trendy phrase "红红火火恍恍惚惚" (honghonghuohuo huanghuanghuhu, "flourishing and prosperous, befuddled and stupefied") originated from a typing mistake: it happens to be the first string of words suggested by the default input method in IOS system after the user types "hhhhh" (intending to produce "哈哈哈哈," hahahaha, mimicking laughter).With the favourable features of codedness, spontaneity, and playfulness, these technologically-afforded "mistakes" often become a source for memes.
Thirdly, they collectively produce and promote the use of concise, formulaic expressions (such as "梗," geng), which often involve creative "deviations" in syntax and morphology from standard modern Chinese. 17They tend to feature a distinct hybridization of classical Chinese 18 and vernacular expressions, freely sampling literary canon, online catchphrases, advertisement slogans, dialects, and other non-Chinese linguistic resources (often homophonic translations of terms derived from K-pop, Japanese animation and gaming culture, Western pop culture, etc.).For example, "杀杀服你" (shashafuni, referring to "L'Assasymphonie" from Mozart L'Opera Rock), "无Schatten, 不德奥" (wu Schatten, budeao, "There is no German musical without Schatten," commenting on the prevalence of the symbol of "shadow" in German musicals).In addition, users have reported a notable practice, which constitutes online resemiotizations of social, cultural rituals, drawing on "portable" cultural resources (see Wu and Fitzgerald 2021).As shown in recent studies (Hallinan et al. 2021;Maddrell 2012), SNS support online rituals such as making new year resolutions and holding mourning memorials.On the surface, bullet comments, without the technological affordances of SNS and the user-accentuated settings, do not seem to be a conducive environment for such rituals.However, users capitalize on the strong community culture of Bilibili, the material affordances of a moving screen and the functions of synchronized posting to perform various rituals, as shown below: When approaching the finale of the animations, the screen would be filled with bullet comments such as "tossing flowers to mark the end," "see you next season."[…] these bullet comments create the sense of rituality.(Interviewee 20, answer to question 6)

互动视频普遍有多种结局，在不同的结局里合影留念到此一游已经成为了一种习俗。
It's become a custom on Bilibili to pose for a group photo as souvenir at the different endings of the video.(Interviewee 11, answer to question 2) When something extremely lucky happens to the main character in the video, […] there will be many wish-making bullet comments, […].I really enjoy this atmosphere: it feels like everyone is inspired to work towards their goals.(Interviewee 2, answer to question 6) These comments further demonstrate the impressive semiotic functions afforded by digital writing in creative hands.The most striking example is "合影留念" (heying liunian, "posing for group photo as a souvenir," Figure 7), which captures the powerful functions of bullet comments in resemiotizing pre-existing cultural practice of "posing for group photos" to create a sense of virtual togetherness.At some celebratory, climax moments of the video, users often post these words on the screen, which in a way act as embodiments of their physical selvesa screen covered with these "embodiments" subsequently approximates to "a group photo."A screenshot of such "photos" hence becomes a "souvenir."It is worth noting that posting such messages is not so much about marking one's singular presence on a group photo (since it is not as personalized as one's image on a photo) as enacting a ritualistic gesture of marking the memorable moment.Another practice shared above, "许愿" (xuyuan, "making a wish"), is also derived from culturally-informed practices of "接好运" ( jiehaoyun, "following the good luck of others") and "沾喜气" (zhanxiqi, "dipping into others' happiness").Apparently, these practices are widely resemiotized in other platforms as well (such as in the comments section of Xiaohongshu, a popular Chinese social media platform).What is distinct about wish-making via bullet comments on Bilibili is the sense of sharing a "contained" space infused with ritualistic atmosphere, which is created through the material composition of collective, simultaneous writing on the same screen (see Wu and Fitzgerald 2021 on the interplay of cultural resources and technological resources).Interestingly, as some interviewees point out, the online ritual of wish-making affords more positive effects than in real life due to the anonymity of the platform: without the worry of being judged, one feels more secure to share wishes.
Overall, these mediated rituals demonstrate users' creative skills and collective efforts in exploiting the technological affordances of bullet comments to resemiotize pre-existing cultural practices.Such usage of bullet comments enables them to produce a spatialized virtual space, mark significant events, host celebrations, make wishes, connect their offline lives with online communities, and bond with other users.

Discussion and conclusion
In this article I have analysed Chinese social media users' embodied experiences mediated by the function of bullet comments, as well as their diverse range of creative social-semiotic practices.Their reports have shown that the digital writing function enabled by bullet comments, due to its distinct technological design, affords the kinds of multisensory experiences similar to McLuhanian orality culture, which have the potential to "retribalize" and bond the users.The simultaneous writing feature and shared materiality with the video's screen are crucial conditions affording the so-called "participatory spectacles."Users' situated meaning-making practices via the function demonstrate its unique range of semiotic possibilities, and their adaptive, creative efforts from the bottom up.As I have tried to show above, they are highly aware of the technological features of bullet comments, actively make use of the available resources, and collaboratively create new "writings" which are meaningful to networked communities.Undoubtedly, the subcultural communities and influences of Bilibili (users' shared interests, a relatively sheltered space conducive to parody and creativity) and the function of bullet comments (orality features, multisensory bonding experiences) are highly compatible and mutually reinforcing.The platform has also managed to maintain the precarious balance between offering the function for every member's use and ensuring the quality of comments by adopting the signature gatekeeping mechanism (i.e. an entry exam on ACG subcultures and commenting etiquette for gaining membership).Its success in harvesting the benefits of bullet comments is attested by the users' reports discussed above.However, this "success" and users' positive experiences are starting to be overshadowed by recent changes of the platform, namely, its "mainstreaming" and increased commercialization mentioned earlier, which have brought in large numbers of new users.Since around 2017, the platform has implemented a series of censoring, user reporting, and reviewing procedures to comply with the state's regulatory measures, which for the first time included bullet comments 19 (Men 2020;Xiao 2021).
In contrast to the intensified regulation of bullet comments and other content on the platform, the threshold for gaining membership was made much lower with a simplified entry exam.Compared with long-term users, the new ones have very little understanding of the culture and "norms" of publishing bullet comments, nor were they exposed to the open, creative, and often parodic atmosphere like on Bilibili.Hence some interviewees' frustrations at the increased "low-quality," "toxic," "superficial," "blindly repetitive," "weirdly chaotic" comments, which, according to them, necessitate "education" of the new users (see also Liu and Davis 2020;Li 2021).Others, however, rationalize these negative changes within the larger context, i.e. the platform's new positioning and goals.On the other hand, the popularity and influence of CCP-related accounts (e.g. the account of the Communist Youth League of China, currently with around 10 million followers) and their videos on Bilibili bear witness to the complex interplay between youth subcultural groups and the party-state 20 (Davis 2020).The state has now developed a new governing strategy through harnessing online creative and cultural resources, in tandem with its plethora of policies and regulations (see Schneider 2021;Wong et al. 2021).What needs to be acknowledged then is the potential synergy (rather than clashes) between Chinese mainstream culture (including nationalism, patriotism) and the writing technology of bullet comments despite its past application largely within subcultural groups, as compellingly revealed in the following excerpt: Sometimes I would watch videos dedicated to the celebration and commemoration of the founding of the party and the founding of the PRC.At the end or climax of the videos, all bullet comments, without prior consultation, would send out the same heartfelt messages.For example, the video "Prosperous China," which was co-produced by hundreds of photographers, has been played more than 8 million times on Bilibili, showcasing the breathtaking landscapes of China in ten minutes.In the early and middle parts of the video, many bullet comments were busy appreciating the magnificent sceneries with amazement, and some were identifying their own hometowns -At the end of the video, comments such as "If miracle had a colour, it must be Chinese Red," "This is a glorious age, as you have wished" 21 appeared in large quantities, densely laid out one against another, over the screenjust like millions of people shouting out the same slogans from the bottom of their hearts, a truly overwhelming scene.[…] right at this moment, on this small segment of electronic information, I am together with many, many others.It's a great feeling of connectedness, and I love humans.(Interviewee 11, answer to question 6) In addition, many mainstream commercial platforms, such as iQIYI, Mango TV, Youku, Xigua video, have recently imported the function.This expansion of bullet comments should be read against the backdrop of the complex dynamics of Chinese internet (including social media), characterized with "an interconnected multi-platform social media ecology," where "technological and cultural resources are creatively co-ordinated across platforms" (Wu and Fitzgerald 2021).However, instead of the derivative, parodic user-generated content like on Bilibili, the programs on these platforms are dominated by popular TV shows, and serve diverse audiences (across a wide age-range and with varying educational backgrounds).Generally speaking, bullet comments on these platforms tend to be heavily influenced by idol worship and fandom culture, mainstream values, and the marketing (propaganda) strategy of using algorithm-generated bullet comments to boost online traffic (Gong 2020).Echoing the above observations, the interview reports also highlight, on the one hand, their lack of "bullet comments culture" and users' original, critical initiatives, and on the other the cacophony of verbal fights, "fake" comments, and banal content.The practice of offering virtual gifts to emcees via bullet comments on live streaming platforms (such as YY, Douyin and Kuaishou) is yet a whole different story showcasing the entanglements of digital economy, online entertainment industry, and monetized visual spectacles (Cao 2021).
These recent developments further illustrate the complex interactions of digital writing technologies, users' creative agency, and wider social, economic conditions within an increasingly commercialized and traffic-oriented Chinese mediascape.In light of the latest example of state-led crackdown on internet traffic manipulation and the entertainment industry, as part of the antitrust enforcement to regulate the digital economy (Baruzzi 2021;Wang 2021), it remains to be seen how the various parties involved will continue the balancing act between creativity, technology, profit, and control.For future studies, it would be informative to closely examine the evolution of bullet comments across various platforms.We may also consider and compare with this study the users' experiences and practices on the other platforms with a view to gauging future developments in Chinese mediascape.

Notes
1. Previous publications sometimes use the Japanese term "Danmaku".Refer to the following link for an example of bullet comments: https://www.bilibili.com/bangumi/play/ss41227? from_spmid=666.32.hotlist.0. 2. According to the latest financial reports released by the company, in the first quarter of 2022, Bilibili has 0.29 billion average monthly active users and has generated a total net revenue of US$797.3 million.Accessed from https://ir.bilibili.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/,12 June, 2022.
3. It should be mentioned that the website and its function of bullet comments have also undergone many changes in the past decade with a view to enhancing users' experiences.4.This study has already been approved by relevant research ethics committee.5.The main reasons why written interviews through email were adopted are three-fold: (1) They provide access to geographically distant participants and those who may not be available otherwise.
(2) Participants are given ample time to complete the interview at their own pace, which allows for more detailed content.(3) Participants can conveniently insert links, screenshots, and examples to illustrate their answers.6.According to the latest statistics, the age group of 18-24 is the second largest user group of Bilibili, accessed from https://www.similarweb.com/zh/website/bilibili.com/#demographics, 14 June, 2022.See also https://www.jiemian.com/article/6187477.html.7. The users all adopt an alias on Bilibili and they tend to ignore messages from strangers due to privacy and safety concerns.8.The list of questions is attached in the Appendix.9.After submitting a qualified report within one month, they would receive a small payment.As many of them expressed to me, the interview was the first time that they were called upon to reflect on the use of bullet comments and they were eager to share their observations and reflections.10.I would like to thank Yan Zihe from the University of Chicago and Yang Liu from Lingnan University for their excellent work throughout the project.11.Due to limited space, I only select typical and notable quotations from the interviewees for analysis.12.The temporal dimensions of bullet comments are essential to the meaning-making process of the comments, considering that many comments are "pinned" to a specific time during viewing and they only make sense if one takes its timing into account.See Zhou and Zhou (2022) for more discussion on temporality in bullet comments.13.Though in the interview question, I cited some comments about the "tactile" experiences of writing bullet comments, very few interviewees reported having such experiences.It seems that the other dimensions of multisensory experiences and the distinct temporality afforded by bullet comments made much stronger impressions on them.14.Advanced comments are those with special effects other than the default style of whitecolour comments that roll from right to left.A Level 2 or higher level membership account is required to publish advanced comments.15.See this video for more details: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Aq4y1D7Fjli. 16.My use of "resemiotization" mainly draws on Iedema (2003) and Scollon and Scollon (2004).It seeks to trace "socio-semiotic histories and transitions" (Iedema 2003, 48) through the examination of meaning"s "making shifts from context to context, from practice to practice, or from one stage of a practice to the next" (41).17. https://baike.baidu.hk/item/梗/18780006. 18. Classical Chinese, with a marked absence of inflectional morphology and heavy use of parataxis, presents unparalleled advantages for use in bullet comments, which tend to favour short, idiomatic, and catchy expressions due to time and space constraints.This is echoed in the interview reports.19.Due to the temporal features of bullet comments, Bilibili adopts a three-phase censoring mechanism: (1) Directly blocking those comments with a pre-set filtering system based on sensitive key words; (2) Removing those already published comments via a combination of algorithms and content censoring teams; (3) Relying on users' reporting of certain comments, which would then be sent to the content censoring teams to be processed.In addition, as mentioned earlier, users can devise personalized censoring terms to prevent undesirable comments from showing on their screens.For more details, refer to https://www.pmcaff.com/discuss/1000000000142066.20.On the other hand, in recent years Bilibili has also gained increased "mentions" by state media outlets such as People's Daily, CCTV, etc.
21.These two are the kinds of formulaic bullet comments highly visible on such celebratory and commemorative videos.Can you talk about the differences between your viewing experience with and without bullet comments?Are there any differences between viewing bullet comments on a mobile phone and a computer?Some say that bullet comments are white noise, do you agree?
6. 有评论说弹幕虽然是以书写方式呈现在屏幕上的，但实质是营造一种声音的，说话的氛围， 让人感到一种"同在的"，"热闹的"气氛。同时呢，有时满屏的弹幕或者一些有特效的弹幕又 能在视觉上造成强烈的冲击。发布弹幕的时候，敲击键盘的触觉又让观众有一种"在场"感。 你会有这种感觉吗？有没有一些例子或者经历可以分享？ Commentators state that although the bullet comments are presented on the screen in writing mode, it actually creates an "oral" and "auditory" atmosphere, which makes people feel a sense of "co-presence" and "liveliness."Sometimes the full screens of bullet comments or bullet comments with special effects can cause a strong visual impact.When posting bullet comments, the tactile experience of hitting the keyboard reinforces the sense of "presence.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.An example of bullet comments played co-temporaneously with the video.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Bullet comments landing from air.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Bullet comments brushing across the whole screen.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Bullet comments covering the screen to block out the scary scenes in horror movies.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5.The configurational interface of bullet comments.
When it comes to bullet comments, what adjectives or other descriptive words will spring up in your mind?Or are there any memorable bullet comments that come to your mind right away?Please share relevant screenshots.2. 你接触弹幕有多长时间了？你喜欢看哪类带弹幕的视频？你在什么情况下会不再满足于看别 人的弹幕，而会主动发出弹幕？你在什么情况下会想修改或撤回你的弹幕？ How long have you been exposed to bullet comments?What kind of videos do you like to watch with bullet comments?Under what circumstances would you no longer be satisfied with watching other people's bullet comments, but post your own?Under what circumstances would you want to modify or withdraw your bullet comments?3. 能说说你初次接触弹幕或发布弹幕的感受或体验吗？之后随着时间的推移，你的体验有什么 变化？是什么造成了这种变化？ Can you talk about your feelings or experiences when you first got in contact with bullet comments?How have your feelings or experiences changed over time?And what have caused these changes? 4. 大家都知道B站是最成熟的弹幕文化聚集地，现在很多其他的视频平台(如爱奇艺、优酷、 芒果TV等)也引入了这一功能。你觉得这些平台的弹幕或者弹幕文化和B站相比有什么差异 吗？你自己会更多接触哪一个平台的弹幕呢？为什么？ As we all know, Bilibili is the platform boasting the most developed culture of bullet comments, and now many other video platforms (such as iQiyi, Youku, Mango TV, etc.) have also introduced this function.Do you think the bullet comments or the culture of bullet comments on these newer platforms are different from those of Bilibili?Which platform(s) do you use more often?And why? 5. 有时候在看一个视频的时候，会不会觉得弹幕有干扰性？你会怎么处理这种情况？能说说你 开着弹幕和没开弹幕时的观看体验有什么不同吗？在手机和电脑上看弹幕有什么不同吗？有 人说弹幕就是白噪音，你同意吗？ Do you sometimes feel that the bullet comments are intrusive when watching videos?If yes, how would you handle this situation?
1. 提到弹幕，你会联想到什么形容词或其他词汇来描述它？或者有什么立刻就会想起来的难忘的弹幕？欢迎分享相关截屏。 " Have you ever felt this way?You may share some examples or experiences to illustrate your answer.7. 你觉得弹幕的语言，相比较于汉语口语，书面语和网络用语，有什么特色？能举一些例子 吗？你在发布弹幕的时候会有意识的选择某些词汇，造梗，去模仿或者塑造某种语言风格 吗？接触弹幕有没有影响你和身边人的日常用语习惯(包括线上和线下)？你觉得弹幕语言 有没有，或者会不会改变汉语？ What do you think are the characteristics of bullet comments, compared to spoken Chinese, written Chinese and Chinese Internet vernacular?Can you give some examples?Do you consciously choose certain words, create geng, imitate or construct a certain language style when you post bullet comments?Has the exposure to bullet comments affected you and others' habits of using language (both online and offline)?Do you think the language of bullet comments has already changed, or will change Chinese? 8. 你在看那种弹幕比较多的视频时，会怎样去读那些弹幕？会做到大范围的扫视，一目十行那 样吗？你会不会将视频暂停在某个节点，或者回放某些视频，然后仔细的读弹幕？为什么想 要这么做？你觉得观看带弹幕的视频时， 1) .和以下哪种情境最接近：a.看漫画书;b.浏览网 页; c.和一群熟人一起看电视; d.参加一个小圈子的party; 2) .或者你觉得有什么更恰当的比喻 吗？ When you are watching a video with a large number of bullet comments, how do you read those bullet comments?Will you scan across a large textual surface, taking in a dozen of lines?Do you pause the video at a certain point, or play back the video, and then read closely the bullet comments?If so, why would you do this?When watching a video with bullet comments, (1).Which of the following situations is the closest analogy: (a) reading comic books; (b) browsing the webpage; (c) watching TV with people you know well; d. joining a party of a small circle; (2).Some media scholars say that the development of electronic technology (from the telegraph, telephone to today's Internet) allows instantaneous communication, resembling face-to-face communication.Using bullet comments, viewers can interact with other online viewers in real time, and also comment on those bullet comments published in the past; when watching