Bilibili Video Streaming Platform: Community Culture Identity vs. Commercial Culture

Bilibili Video Streaming Platform: Community Culture Identity vs. Commercial Culture

Weijian Xu
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4955-4.ch017
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Abstract

In this chapter, the author presented the “commercial dilemma” that trapped a famous Chinese video website called Bilibili. In the beginning, Bilibili was a streaming video website for only a small group of users, fans of AGC (Anime Gaming and Comics). This small group of users who shared similar interests created a strong community with a clear culture. However, as the development of Bilibili continued, the platform attracted more new users who for many didn't belong to the original ACG culture. Under this circumstance, a conflict happened between the original users of the platform and the management. The original community perceived that the CEO of Bilibili decided to sacrifice the original ACG culture to get more traffic from mass users. This situation created lots of debates online among netizens with different opinions. The chapter will therefore present the company, collect many different opinions from netizens, and classify them to show how netizens from China reacted to this issue. It will also outline how the company handled and responded to the situation.
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Brand Background

Brief Introduction

BILI BILI (NASDAQ: BILI; HKEX:9626), English name: Bilibili, short for B station, is now a cultural community and video platform highly gathered by young generations in China. This website was founded on June 26, 2009, and is affectionately called “B Station” by fans. On March 28, 2018, Bilibili was listed on NASDAQ. On March 29, 2021, Bilibili officially went public in Hong Kong.

In the early days, Bilibili was a video website for ACG (animation, comic, game) content creation and sharing. After more than ten years of development, it has built an ecosystem that continuously produces high-quality content around users, creators and content (Lukman, et al., 2020). B station has covered more than 7,000 multicultural communities of interest circles. It has won first place in the two lists of “Gen Z's Preference APP” and “Gen Z's preference for Extensive Entertainment APP” by Quest-Mobile Research Institute and was included in the “Brand Z” Report of the top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2019.

On November 17, 2021 (Beijing Time), Bilibili announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter that ended September 30, 2021. According to the financial report, the revenue of Bilibili reached 5.21 billion yuan in the third quarter, up 61% year on year, and various community operation data hit a new high.

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