Disguise, confrontation, and playfulness: Aminoac on Bilibili in the lens of the carnivalesque

Not only have advances in social media technology accelerated the evolution of online language, they have also strengthened the retrieval capabilities of censors. Camouflaged forms of language have developed and survive on the fringes of the network. This paper examines the emergence and evolution of the Chinese cyberlanguage ‘Aminoac’ on the platform Bilibili as a carnival. Originating from a vulgar expression, Aminoac has been creatively transformed by netizens into a versatile term of critique and defiance against censorship. Data of online posts including Aminoac are classified into three patterns, followed by a discussion of its affordances and audience feedback. These multimodal online discourses demonstrate orchestrations of semiotic resources which are flexible, confrontational and playful, and yet they construct a virtual community with a distinct culture and identity through viral dissemination. This paper analyzes Aminoac and its related expressions as products of translanguaging, exploring how netizens negotiate, refine, and expand this online carnivalesque in a translanguaging space where they take up different roles and identities in relation to the addressees (i.e. trans-positioning).