Research On Subculture Construction And Fans Worship Of Virtual Idols In Cyberspace

A virtual idol can be defined as a virtual character who lives in the real world,relies on digital technology such as computer technology,has a real image,crowdsourced character settings,and relies on the publicity of a planning team to grow into a public figure,and has a certain fan base.Virtual idols are becoming a new trend on the Internet,with an increasingly "human" appearance and an "intelligent" interior,attracting many fans to support them on the Internet and becoming a new branch of secondary culture and the idol industry.It has become a new branch of secondary culture and idol industry,thus further realizing the "broken circle".Although virtual idols themselves are only the incarnation of technology,they have the research value of "real idols",and this paper will take virtual idols as the research object to study the development history of virtual idols,the construction of subculture,the motivation of fan worship,and the cold thinking under the development boom of virtual idols.Based on theories in communication,sociology,and post-subculture,this paper adopts in-depth interviews and virtual ethnography,and uses the VTB templates in Stage1 st,a virtual idol fan forum with high verticality,to obtain posts and virtual idol veterans collected from different community channels.As a hot industry nowadays,virtual idols are bound to have their own concerns,such as technology,ethics and industry prospects.The thesis is made up of five parts: the first part is consisting of the origin of the thesis,research importance and innovations,values,which summarizes and refines the current research hotspots and research directions of virtual idols in the academic field.The second part explores how virtual idol culture is derived from the new media environment,and the development process of virtual idols,especially the development process of virtual idols in the Chinese social context,which has been seldom investigated.The essence of virtual idols still belongs to idols,which were first born in close association with myths,but as time progressed idols stepped down and became real people.However,the real stars are too focused on shaping the persona and lead to the phenomenon of vulnerability,so a new type of idol-virtual idol was born.In addition,the myth of "perfection" shaped by the unconscious technology of virtual idols is enhanced by the quality content and the technology of constant change and progress of the fans,which enables virtual idols to break through the barriers between different subgenres and realize the realization of value symbols.The third part focuses on the interaction between the virtual idol subculture and the mainstream culture of our society,and studies how the resistance and integration between the two are carried out.As a new tribe of subculture,virtual idols themselves have become an emerging subculture.The nihilistic worship and skepticism towards real things represented by virtual idols themselves will have an impact on mainstream culture,but virtual idols themselves as idols without negative news pressure and manipulability are also attracting mainstream culture.The mainstream culture can provide social status and social recognition for the virtual idol subculture,thus giving the virtual idol subculture a proper name;while the virtual idol subculture can provide more diversified cultural expressions for the mainstream culture and bring the attention of a group of young audiences,and the two achieve a win-win situation through cultural interaction.The fourth part analyzes why virtual idol fans choose to worship a virtual character based on interview data and ethnographic observations.Although virtual idols are only "paper figures",there are countless "paper cutters" behind them,i.e.,the production and operation teams of virtual idols: they use a perfect and non-collapsing persona,an appearance that meets the aesthetic point of the audience,and an approachable operation method to gain a large number of fans.They provide emotional value to fans with companionship and accessibility that is not possible with real idols;fans strengthen their loyalty to virtual idols for reasons such as escape from reality,improvement of self-perception,and psychological projection.At the same time,the unique UGC style of creating works by virtual idols enables them to take the essence of their works and thus produce many masterpieces,further gaining the recognition of people outside the circle and expanding their audience.The fifth part is a cold reflection on the current development of virtual idols in the "heat",summarizing the hidden worries and dilemmas of virtual idol development from different perspectives.At present,there are three main concerns of virtual idols:technical issues,ethical issues,and industry development prospects.In terms of technology,as a product of technology,virtual idols inevitably bring side effects of technology,such as physical and psychological burdens to teenagers,and insufficient technology to destroy the context between virtual idols and fans;in terms of ethics,virtual idols face the crisis of being close to the edge of social ethics,leading to the fall of human subjectivity and the ethical crisis of trust brought by the virtual nature of virtual idols;and in terms of industry In terms of the future development of the industry,virtual idols also face many problems: uneven content of their works,unreasonable treatment of their members,and the impact of the meta-universe wave.This paper presents a comprehensive study on the subculture of virtual idols and the motivation of fan worship,and concludes with an outlook on the current situation and development direction of the industry,hoping that the research in this paper will provide ideas for future research on virtual idols and bring some inspiration to the development of the virtual idol industry.