Bilibili: How a Chinese site dedicated to anime subculture grew up with its Gen Z users to become a mainstream success
- The Chinese video streaming site is trying to maintain its unconventional appeal and sense of community, as it embraces a wider audience
- Early users say Bilibili is losing its original charm, but some analysts say there are no obvious alternatives
It was the winter of 2012 and Kevin Lin was 13 years old. Like many children his age in China, he was obsessed with Japanese anime. And just like them, he got his fix on the internet.
His latest discovery was a scrappy anime streaming site named Bilibili.
Becoming a member of the platform was nothing like signing up for YouTube. First, Lin had to ace a 100-question quiz testing his knowledge on anime and the site’s rules. He failed a few times before finally passing with the help of Baidu, China’s Google equivalent.
Once he was in, he quickly discovered there was more to Bilibili than just cartoons. The site has one killer feature: bullet comments.
These are comments posted by viewers, but rather than relegating them to a separate section further down the page, Bilibili puts them right on top of the video. Bullet comments floated across whatever Lin was watching, sometimes to the point of covering the entire screen. It was a constant reminder that he was not watching alone, but part of a bigger community. And he has not been able to live without the feature ever since.
“If I was watching a Bilibili video without bullet comments, I would think something might be wrong: It’s not a complete Bilibili,” said Lin, now a 22-year-old college student living in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang.