The Study of Youth Deviant Expression Through Online Anonymity Mechanisms Based on the Viewpoint of the Youth Subculture

Abstract

In recent years, a series of negative youth subcultural phenomena, mainly represented by Zu’an culture, online toilet culture, and Manjiao culture, have become increasingly active in cyberspace. These phenomena are diverse in form and medium, but essentially take online anonymity mechanisms as their operational premise, verbal violence or deviant expression as their core content, and adolescents as their core participant group, while exhibiting common characteristics of circle-based identity and affective polarization. Through systematically reviewing relevant literature, This paper progresses layer by layer across four dimensions—phenomenon types, anonymity mechanisms, affective polarization, and group norms—to reveal the generative logic and operational mechanisms of such negative deviant expression, and therefore identifies three major areas of consensus in existing studies. On the basis of existing findings, this research identifies the aforementioned research gaps, and then provides a directional foundation for subsequent empirical research.