Capital And Identity: A Case Study Of The Virtual Community Of Sneakers

Sneaker culture is a youth subculture.With the penetration of media technology into People’s daily life,the practice space of sneaker subculture has changed from the early urban street to the Internet virtual community,and has become a new subculture force influencing the youth group.This paper selects the most influential online sneaker community "De Wu" in China as a case study.By means of participatory observation and in-depth interview,it investigates the internal psychology and external behavior of sneaker fans in the community,and tries to make a new interpretation of the phenomenon of Internet sneaker subculture.According to the data analysis,sneaker fans gather and develop in "De Wu" community,and they are no longer the inner appeal of class resistance,but turn to individuals and groups themselves.Through daily interactive practices such as publishing photos,texts and videos,they construct multi-dimensional identity of themselves,groups and cultures.In addition,the empowerment of network technology on the one hand speeds up the flow of information within the community,enhances the autonomy of the group,and promotes the flow and accumulation of subcultural capital.On the other hand,it also provides the possibility for the direct conversion of subcultural capital into economic capital.The accumulation of economic capital attracts the intervention of business,making the sneaker subculture appear in the mainstream vision.The instant,two-way and diversified communication features of the Internet allow sneaker fans to have more opportunities for self-expression,so that they can shape their own group’s subcultural style,and feed the income brought by economic capital to the sneaker subculture,so that the subcultural style can be preserved.Business,media,sneaker subculture in a kind of benign interaction co-existence.