“My Little Penguin Has Come Back to Life”: Chinese Nitizens’ Digital Memory and Narrative Practice of Tencent Pets Game
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: As the world’s largest online virtual pet community, Tencent pets had accompanied numerous Chinese netizens, particularly the younger generations. It was not only their earliest “Internet memories”, but also became an integrated part of their personal life experiences, even influencing their understanding of social life. Through textual statistics, thematic analysis, and discourse analysis of 7,623 posts from Chinese BBS, this study identifies three narrative paths of memory—“mourning”, “nostalgia”, and “resistance”—which have formed around Tencent pets. People do not perceive Tencent pets merely as a “technical object”, but rather as a form of real “life”. Writing memories about Tencent pets also serves as a form of resistance against the passage of time and the fading of one’s own life course. This study contributes to a further understanding of China’s digital gaming culture, as well as enriches research on media memory and Internet history.
Author: Tao Wei
Institution: Communication University of China
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4405261145