Anti-mainstream Culture: Grassroots Culture Versus Elite Culture

The anti-mainstream culture is very popular on the Internet during 2008. It is a cultural movement which has great significance values in the Internet Era. During the cultural movement, sub-groups attack the mainstream culture and challenge the elite culture in a proactive manner. The anti-mainstream culture, which is represented by the copycat TV drama, challenges the existing social order, fights against the power of discourse and questions the mainstream values from dimensions of politics, discourse, and culture respectively.Network plays an important role in the process. The development of the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which is based on networks, has broken the monopoly of the elite culture and has promoted the continuous development of the mass culture. The tolerance of network media offers anti-mainstream the value of culture liberation. Meanwhile, it provides the opportunity for anti-mainstream to develop in the process of globalization and the development of multicultural democratic politics.Two main elements, the general situation and the firm standpoint to which the advocator of anti-mainstream stick, determine the direction to which the cultural movement proceed. During this fight between mainstream culture and anti-mainstream culture, there are three possible outcomes. First, mainstream culture could make reasonable policies to lead the anti-mainstream culture to develop. Holding two different values towards culture, they could complement each other and promote common development. Second, anti-mainstream culture could be "incorporated" by mainstream culture when the advocator starts to pursue his own profit. Third, with the development of the society and the changing values towards culture, the anti-mainstream culture, which meets more with the requirements of the times, could gradually replace the mainstream culture.It has important guiding significance for us to interpret the competition on the public power in the process of social transformation, and the changing attitudes towards anti-mainstream culture.