Bullet Points
May 30, 2019 4:00 AM Subscribe
[Bullet comments] represent the essence of Chinese internet culture: fast-paced and impish, playfully collaborative, thick with rapidly evolving inside jokes and memes. They are a social feature beloved by a generation known for being antisocial. And most importantly, they allow for a type of spontaneous, cumulative, and public conversation between strangers that is increasingly rare on the Chinese internet.
Yeah, very cool. The "synchronized asynchronicity" aspect of it reminds me of Twitch chat.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:42 AM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Rock Steady at 4:42 AM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
There you go, flt: Wikipedia, on Bilibili.
(You might need to set up an account to disable the bullet comments, at least that's how it is on Niconico.)
posted by bigendian at 4:45 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
(You might need to set up an account to disable the bullet comments, at least that's how it is on Niconico.)
posted by bigendian at 4:45 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
Thanks, bigendian!
posted by filthy light thief at 5:13 AM on May 30, 2019
posted by filthy light thief at 5:13 AM on May 30, 2019
It's very much like a fast-moving Twitch chat, to judge from the bits and pieces I had someone to translate for me last year. Lots of memes and LULs, the act of saying something more important than anything being said. If you thought Twitter and Reddit were bad places to discuss anything of substance, this stuff makes r/news look like Plato's symposium. Seems like an unlikely place for the next revolution to start.
posted by sfenders at 6:11 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by sfenders at 6:11 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
When I've left them on watching Bilibili, it's mostly consists of people repeating things and stating the obvious.
I could forgive that if it was not directly overlaid on the video and all the comments travelled across the screen at the same speed.
For those wanting to watch Bilibili without these, look under the video for the blue toggle. It's blue and has a 弹 on it.
posted by Trifling at 6:54 AM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
I could forgive that if it was not directly overlaid on the video and all the comments travelled across the screen at the same speed.
For those wanting to watch Bilibili without these, look under the video for the blue toggle. It's blue and has a 弹 on it.
posted by Trifling at 6:54 AM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
> the act of saying something more important than anything being said
This is so much of everything online now.
posted by glonous keming at 6:59 AM on May 30, 2019 [11 favorites]
This is so much of everything online now.
posted by glonous keming at 6:59 AM on May 30, 2019 [11 favorites]
sitting here captivated by a cartoon show about Karl Marx that i can't even friggin understand
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:05 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:05 AM on May 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is so much of everything online now.
^ This!
posted by tobascodagama at 7:44 AM on May 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
^ This!
posted by tobascodagama at 7:44 AM on May 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
In Japanese, the system was named 弹幕 (danmaku), or “bullet curtain,” after a subgenre of hardcore shoot-em-up games in which enemies fly in formation across the screen
Bwahahaha. This style of comments is named after Bullet Hell games? Very apt.
posted by Gordafarin at 7:54 AM on May 30, 2019 [7 favorites]
Bwahahaha. This style of comments is named after Bullet Hell games? Very apt.
posted by Gordafarin at 7:54 AM on May 30, 2019 [7 favorites]
> the act of saying something more important than anything being said
"We’re riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying."
(Gilles Deleuze, "Pourparlers" (1990))
posted by bigendian at 8:12 AM on May 30, 2019 [9 favorites]
"We’re riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying."
(Gilles Deleuze, "Pourparlers" (1990))
posted by bigendian at 8:12 AM on May 30, 2019 [9 favorites]
I think this may be due to the design of the system - livechat over media has always been like a bullet hell as long as I remember, it's just adopted in a specific platform here?
posted by yueliang at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2019
posted by yueliang at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2019
the act of saying something more important than anything being said
You say that like it's a bad thing! But as the article talks about, there's a lot of playful and clever stuff going on in these speech acts. Also a form of community. I particularly like her evoking 热闹, "heat and noise", as a sort of community buzz people like.
I think the closest American thing I can think of is the Black tradition of talking to the movie screen. Or very new things. Youtube has a comments-on-top-of-video feature too, or at least used to. Soundcloud does, people sharing comments about "omg that bass drop". And of course Twitch. Most of those present the comments alongside the media though, not on top of it, and I'd argue that's an important difference.
posted by Nelson at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
You say that like it's a bad thing! But as the article talks about, there's a lot of playful and clever stuff going on in these speech acts. Also a form of community. I particularly like her evoking 热闹, "heat and noise", as a sort of community buzz people like.
I think the closest American thing I can think of is the Black tradition of talking to the movie screen. Or very new things. Youtube has a comments-on-top-of-video feature too, or at least used to. Soundcloud does, people sharing comments about "omg that bass drop". And of course Twitch. Most of those present the comments alongside the media though, not on top of it, and I'd argue that's an important difference.
posted by Nelson at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
Besides ACG, Bilibili also hosts a really good collection of documentaries.
I'm still amazed that I passed the Bilibili registration test back in 2016 without using cheat sheets. I think there weren't as many as 100 questions back then. As a post-70s', I had to guess at every other question. Also as a post-70s', I can't deal with the visual deluge of bullet comments and have to turn them off most of the time.
posted by em at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2019
I'm still amazed that I passed the Bilibili registration test back in 2016 without using cheat sheets. I think there weren't as many as 100 questions back then. As a post-70s', I had to guess at every other question. Also as a post-70s', I can't deal with the visual deluge of bullet comments and have to turn them off most of the time.
posted by em at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2019
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posted by filthy light thief at 4:27 AM on May 30, 2019 [4 favorites]