Microsoft Word - 37-SSMI2144排版274-284.docx BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 274 Emoticons production of Bing Dwen Dwen: Meme, online socialization and youth subculture Wurong Ding School of Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China d2574839501@163.com Abstract. With new media technology growing leaps and bounds, the interaction between youth subculture and mainstream culture has taken on different characteristics than before. Since the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, youth groups have produced plentiful emoticons based on Bing Dwen Dwen through bricolage and homology. Our analysis classifies the current emoticons from two perspectives, content and function, and explore their meanings according to semiotics; our finding reveals that the youth uses them as social currency to achieve emotional catharsis, satisfy entertainment needs and gain a sense of community belonging; in addition, the symbolic transformation by youth also reflects the reconciliation between youth subculture and the sinking mainstream values Keywords: Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons; meme; youth subculture; semiotics 1. Introduction Since the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen has quickly become the instant hit. The news from the Olympic official flagships showed that 1 million Bing Dwen Dwen had sold out in 24 hours on February 20. However, not only the toys, its image was also widely spread by social media against the backdrop of the Winter Olympics, and it keeps staying at the list of Weibos trending and hot topics. Even on February 11, the number of hits about Bing Dundun rose up to 32. Meanwhile, its original image has been changed in the process of continuous retweeting and spreading. The emoticons adapted from Bing Dwen Dwen containing diverse imagery and texts, are widely spread on the Internet, gradually becoming the "hard currency" of netizens' social life. As the mascot of the Winter Olympics, Bing Dwen Dwen is made up of elements which symbolize traditional Chinese culture, technology, and winter sports, and is the embodiment of the mainstream culture. However, the image successfully attracts young people and leads to upsurge of re-creation. Young people produce plentiful emoticons based on Bing Dwen Dwen through bricolage and homology, and promote its widespread communication through imitation. The explosion of relevant emoticons also reflects the resistance of the youth subculture: what are the characteristics of the creation of Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons among the youth? What are the usage demands in the creation of Bing Dwen Dwen by youth? What are the new features of the interaction between mainstream culture and subculture in the era of new media? All these are this paper tries to answer. 2. Literature Review 2.1 The design of Bing Dwen Dwen: Image, Semiotics and possibilities of Interpretation The word mascot is derived from French "Mascotte", which means something that brings good luck and scares off evil. With the mascot becoming one of essential symbols of the Olympic Games, it is not only a representation of good luck, but also a symbol of the host country's cultural identity, social feeling and values. Thus, as the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Bing Dwen Dwen not only is a creation limited in aesthetics, but also results from comprehensive functions of multiple contexts. With the Chinese national treasure, the panda, as the model, dressed in an ice crystal shell and wearing a helmet with a colorful halo, the overall figure looks like positively energetic. Scholars, BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 275 such as Liu P.Y. , Wan Q.G.and Lin C.Z. , Chen Z.Y. and Cao X. have analyzed the implication in the image of Bing Dwen Dwen from different perspectives, pointing out that it is a comprehensive presentation of Chinese culture and the Olympic spirit. For example, the prototype of Bing Dwen Dwen is the combination of Tanghulu (candied haws) symbolizing Beijing and the rare animal panda; the ice crystal shell embodies winter sports, and the "ice ribbon" – the colored halo on the head – symbolizes 5G technology. At the same time, the design of the Bing Dwen Dwen also caters for characteristics of Internet communication while the design of minimalism and adorable appearance leave room for the public's imagination and bring out broad resonance[5, 6 ,7] . 2.2 Cultural Meme and Emoticons Meme is originated from the Greek word 'mimema', meaning something imitated, was first proposed by the British biologist Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. He defined that the meme is the smallest unit of cultural transmission and that its reproduction is achieved through imitation, leading to transmission. The spread of memes reflects the transmission of cultures such as beliefs and ideas. The development of meme theory is divided into two stages: biological metaphor and cultural theory. In the first stage, scholars including Dawkins, Blackmore and Distin demonstrated that meme has characteristics similar to genes such as competition, propagation and evolution [10, 11, 12], thus developing the study on the characteristics of cultural transmission; in the second stage, meme theory has been expanded to many fields of humanities and social sciences, and with the popularization and development of Internet technology, online meme has also gradually received increasing attention. Vasquez and Aslan argue that the most typical form is the "image macro”, which is an online communication symbol called emoticons in China that has flourished in recent years accompanied by social media development, "a 'network dialect' that combines elements including text, pictures, actions and emotions together”. Wu Z.Y. demonstrates the creation and expression of emoticons represents some elements of krish aesthetics: ugliness, irony, exaggeration, "sex" and "sludge culture" and so on. According to Qu J.R. and Li Y.P., it has a rhetorical logic of metaphor, serialization and intertextuality, and contains collective memory and socio-cultural mechanisms. In terms of the functions of emoticons, Liu H.B. defines it as tools to construct youth self-identity facing social public events; Zheng M.N. believes that they enable youth to gain a sense of belonging and achieve emotional catharsis. A number of scholars demonstrate that emoticons has become a new way for youth to participate in public life through analyzing D8 Expedition. For example, Guo X.A. and Yang S.T. analyze the strong infectivity of "strong meme" and "communication-oriented" meme in the online nationalism movement. Gu X.Q. analyses the emotional mobilization mechanism. Tang J.T. argues that the incident reflects the youth group's tendency of entertainment faced with political events. 2.3 Relevant researches on youth subcultures Youth subcultures refer to youth cultures that are distinct from the dominant mainstream culture, are marginalized and are subversive towards the social order. The studies on subculture can trace back to the Birmingham School in the 1960s. Scholars such as Hall, Jefferson and Hebdige analyze the emergence of subcultures in the post-World War II and gradually generalize the spiritual core of youth subcultures as "resistance, style and incorporation" , which originated from the ritualized resistance of the youth in the "crisis of authority" of the ruling class to fight for discourse right, taking on different styles when class and gender varies.. Youth subcultures eventually end up being incorporated into the mainstream culture in the process of integration and assimilation into the current social order as well as losing their initial context and unique resistance power. As Internet develops, youth subculture has taken on characteristics different from those of specific historical periods in the UK. In terms of the phenomenon of emoticons in the image field, Yang, M. , Lan Z.T. and Tan Y.D. believe that the form of bricolage and homology, ritualized resistance and entertainment revelry-like content embody the characteristics of youth subculture [26, 27]. Liu H.B. argues that emoticons can deconstruct the seriousness of traditional discourse and make the BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 276 mainstream boundary blurred. Zhang N. argues that emoticons reflect, one of the characteristics of youth subculture, "resistance" is replaced by "deconstruction " and thus weakened. Jiang J.G. and Li Y. , Lin A.J. and Zhang B. , and Li X. and Peng Y. point out critically that emoticons own features of ugliness, entertainment and negativity [30, 31, 32], and Chen L. and Ma Z.H. also point out that new media has caused obvious gamification of youth subculture, with a tendency towards globalization and consumerism [33, 34]. 2.4 Findings and Discussion From above literature review, our findings reveal: Firstly, as the Olympic mascot, Bing Dwen Dwen is the embodiment of mainstream values, including the Olympic spirit, Chinese culture, modern technology and so on. However, most existing literature analyses the characteristics of Bing Dwen Dwen as the mascot of the Winter Olympics from the perspective of design and implication, rather than paying attention to the communication of Bing Dwen Dwen's image as an emoticons among young groups. Secondly, as one kind of online meme, emoticons have rhetorical ways such as metaphor, serialization and intertextuality. When exploring the functions of satisfying needs of youth groups, the existing literature mostly trys to prove them as tools to help construct identity, achieve emotional catharsis and emotional mobilization for youth in the participation of public events, but there are relatively few discussions on their use in daily socialization of youth groups, so there are certain research gaps. Finally, emoticons are an expression of contemporary youth subculture. The existing literature summarizes the changes in the characteristics of contemporary youth subculture such as weakened resistance and increased entertainment, but there are fewer analyses of the characteristics of the interaction between mainstream culture and youth subculture. Meanwhile, research methods such as field observation, text analysis, in-depth interview, literature analysis, case-analysis and discourse analysis are frequently drawn on when scholars analyze specific emoticons communication incidents. Semiotics analysis is a research method that takes various symbols in contexts as the objects of study, and analyses what symbols are and how they function in order to explore how meaning is produced. The linguist Saussure divides symbols into signifier and signified, and Barthes further applies Saussure's theory to society by proposing analysis of myth. He takes Saussure's proposed signification as the first level of the orders of signification, and name the second level as myth. Signifier and signified in the first level together form the signifier in the second level and signify the hidden socio-cultural intention. In order to deeply explore the implication of the Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons, this paper adopts semiotics analysis in text analysis as the research method, so as to explore the characteristics of emoticons creation and the interaction between mainstream culture and youth culture in the process of their communication. 3. Components and implication of emoticons of Bing Dwen Dwen Emoticons of Bing Dwen Dwen are images with Bing Dwen Dwen as the central figure, mostly combined with texts, which spread widely on social media. According to Shifman's classification on memes, emoticons belongs to the memes manipulated directly based on audiovisual mass media contents. With the growing popularity of Bing Dwen Dwen, the diverse and ongoing recreation has been carrying out memetic communication. 3.1 Components and classification We compile a dataset of 517 emoticons related with Bing Dwen Dwen from 3 online platforms Baidu, Weibo and WeChat by manually screening out images unrelated, duplicate and unmodified from a total of 1504 images (as of 14:40 on 14 March 2022). In terms of composition, Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons can be divided into four categories: adapted official pictures, hand-painted pictures, BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 277 photos, and post-collage (Table 1); in terms of functions, Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons can be divided into four categories: communication-oriented, humor-oriented, Catharsis-oriented and irony-oriented (Table 2), which are shown as follows. Table 1. post-collage Type Contents Example Adapted official pictures Add texts directly to the official version Fig. 1 Hand-painted pictures Change the poses and settings of the official version and add texts Fig. 2 Photos Add buzzwords or personalized texts for banter and humor Fig. 3 Post-collage Change and remix the official version through PS, such as giving Bing Dwen Dwen "a new face", changing props and expression with buzzwords or personalized text for humor and banter Fig. 4 Table2. Catharsis-oriented and irony-oriented Type Textual content Image content Role Example Communication- oriented Daily expression Officially- released version Communication and greetings in particular situation for specific topics Texts are bald and easy to understand Fig. 5 Humor-oriented Light-hearted and humorous expression Official or remixed version To enhance humor in communication Fig. 6 Catharsis- oriented emotionally charged and infrequently used expression Official or remixed version To highlight strong emotions in conversation, the actions and emotions in emojis are exaggerated expressions that are not usually used in real life. Fig. 7 Irony-oriented sarcastic, ironic or offensive expression Official or remixed version To mock and reduce seriousness of the dialogue Contrasts between different styles and implications Fig. 8 BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 278 3.2 Denotation, connotation and myth of emoticons Analyzing denotation requires analysis of specific meanings of contents. We will analyse selected emoticons as examples. The adapted official pictures bring extension of original contexts or brand new contexts with minor changes and simple operation. Take Fig. 1 as an example, the image is the original version with a snowboard on its feet in an upside-down position with a smile on its face and its arms spread out. In terms of texts, “反了你” (the phrase means how dare you, but the meaning of first character is upside down)changes the implication, not only emphasizing the upside-down position, but also referring to an daily expression to accuse the insubordination. These symbols as signifier in the denotation system express jocular mockery for unexpected behaviors through sharps contrasts between accusatory texts and cute pose and expression of Bing Dwen Dwen. Hand-painted pictures, created by imitation and modification in detail, usually presenting a different style from the original version. Take Fig. 2 for example, Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon are smiling, with Bing Dwen Dwen waving his palm happily, energetically and hospitably; Shuey Rhon Rhon holds a glass of water, indicating that it is ready to drink. The text "Good morning" is an expression of greeting and “!” reinforces the tone. The denotation is greeting and blessing while the connotation is the pursuit and desire for warmth and positive attitude towards life. Photos are produced based on photos or screenshots, with corresponding texts added to create emoticons. Take Fig. 3 as an example, its prototype is a screenshot from the broadcast of Sus award ceremony. Su brings Bing Dwen Dwen close to his face after winning it to express his joy and excitement of winning the gold medal while the text 贴贴(hug and kiss) describes his behavior. The word 贴贴(hug and kiss) evolved from the Japanese word い, which originally denoted respect and affection for a person of high status, and later became a popular term used by fans of virtual idols to describe the closed and sweet relationship of love. The denotation refers to Sus excitement, joy and fondness to Bing Dwen Dwen, which will indicate the same intimacy to each other as Su and Bing Dwen Dwen when used in daily communication. The connotation refers to reduction of social distance, so it can judge whether the relationship is harmonious and closed or not. The post-collage is created through remixing prototypes and various buzzwords, emoticons and other popular images, which has totally different contexts from original version. Take Fig. 4 as an example, Bing Dwen Dwen is holding a ski pole and stepping on a snowboard; it is smiling relaxed and happily; the sweat symbol on his head comes from the QQ emoticon (as in Fig. 9), which initially indicates nervousness or embarrassment, and is later used in the Post Bar to mock the outdated memes, namely speechless, and frequently occurred ironically and offensively. The text 你没事吧(Are you OK?) is a catchphrase uttered by Yang Mi in the advertisement of "LiuliuMei"to enquire about others situation of which was later spoofed by netizen to ironically comment about something difficult to understand. Fig.9 QQ emoticon In the connotation system, the sharp contrasts between the cuteness of Bing Dwen Dwen, the sarcastic text “你没事吧” (Are you OK?) and sweat symbols; between two-dimensional emoticons and three-dimensional pictures leads to its myth, namely implicitly expressing a mocking, ironic and offensive attitude. 4. Characteristics of emoticons in youth social networking Symbols are the underlying logic of all communication phenomena and the important carrier in cultural phenomena. The widespread use of Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons in youth social networking not only reflects the unique communicative effect of emoticons as strong memes among specific groups, but the unique demand for social language among youth groups. Youth groups create and BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 279 retweet numerous Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons through imitation, some of which stand out as strong memes in fierce competition and their simplicity, humor and banter make them become social currency of youth groups. In this process, youth groups not only achieve emotional catharsis and satisfaction of entertainment needs in the orgy of deconstructing authority, but also gain a sense of belonging by establishing or joining an emotional community. 4.1 Imitation and strong meme Memes are similar to genes in that they are involved in competition and elimination, and those that accommodate the social environment and cultural soil can stand out as strong memes and continue to be spread. Emoticons that are humorous, ironical, and combined with buzzwords are more likely to become strong memes. Therefore, Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons that satisfy these two demands quickly go viral in youth social networking. The combination of widespread audience, simplicity, and humor has led to the appearance of strong memes. In order to stand out, memes require to focus on hot topics and mutate in accordance to the current contexts. The Winter Olympics makes Bing Dwen Dwen gain phenomenal popularity, added fashionable elements of mockery and banter, thus mutate into emoticons. As shown in Fig. 10, 躺平(lying flat)is the embodiment of "sang culture", a youth sub-culture centered on pessimism and apathy, a cultural phenomenon in which socially disadvantaged groups deconstruct and resist the "successful" people who have a lot of social resources through self-deprecation and spoofing .As a combination of the existing meme and the trending topic "Bing Dwen Dwen", this emoticon has mutated to a visually striking meme, attracting youth to further imitate and spread. The disguised assimilation of mainstream culture by youth, and its redirection to express their own attitudes, makes the official symbol a strong meme specifically owned by youth. At the same time, the usage or circulation of emoticons among youth for self-mockery can give young people the emotional experience of "those have same experience sympathize with each other"and build up identities of reconciling to be "inferior" in their studies, work and life, which makes socializing more pleasant. Fig. 10 lying flat In addition, youth are able to easily socialize and satisfy the catharsis and entertainment needs through imitation. The ambiguous meanings and humorous expressions have made them become social currency that can be used in any online social situation, and the one-click way of sending greatly reduces social costs. A example as Fig. 6, as a humor-oriented emoticon, shapes a different sense by text 来咯(Im coming) from the original skating scene, creating a sense of humor, while its ambiguous meaning can be interpreted as expressing one is free and able to chat or ones excitement and happiness, so it can be used in a multiple various situations. For communication-oriented emoticons, using them to greet such as Fig. 2 can eliminate the cost of editing texts, while the images also convey friendliness for more efficient and harmonious communication. Secondly, negative emotions often need to be expressed cautiously but emoticons processed humorously and ironically help youth to avoid causing embarrassment while venting their emotions in communication. The elements like 'violent' 'stupid ' 'fail' 'miserable' 'abusive' 'cheap' 'ugly' as well as waves of collective unconscious debate by emoticons and relays are actually a kind of vicarious compensation under pressure in reality." For catharsis-oriented emoticons, the text of Fig. 7 一枪 崩死一个酸鸡 (to shoot those jealous to death) is full of violent elements, which is a behavior impossible to achieve in reality, so it is an exaggerated expression to achieve emotional catharsis. Todays disparity in status and money in the society has led to negative emotions among youth, so the emoticons are precisely the "pressure valve" to make up for the lack of cultural resources by gaining the support of others (e.g. likes, retweets). BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 280 At the same time, the cuteness and banter involved in Bing Dwen Dwen enhances the zest, turning interaction to games. The use of emoticons often occurs in the form of “斗图”(debate by emoticons) on social media, in which they send each other emoticons to compete numbers and emotional punch , among which more humorous and limitless emoticons can gain discourse right and advantage over others . As shown in Fig. 11, the original naive and cute image is partially retained, while a playful slant-eyed smile is added, which evolves from the "panda head" emoticon(Fig. 11, Step 3), the latter being a collage of two parts, in which the slant-eyed smile emoticon is taken from a screenshot of professional wrestler DeAngelo DeNero's match (Fig. 11, Step 2); while the "panda head" is appropriated from 2010 advertisement 'Never Say No to Panda' produced by the Egyptian company Arab Daiiry (Fig. 11, Step 1). The "panda head" template is also a strong meme, which has been continuously combined with other symbols (such as screenshots from films and television works of President Jung and Jacky Cheung) in subsequent creations by netizens to form new emoticons. In other words, "ugliness" in jest represented in this emoticon is suitable for mass use in debate by emoticons as well as potential to become a strong meme, in which reflects unique characteristics of creation in youth subculture. Through the use of emoticons, youth deconstruct authority, appropriate official symbols to form humorous expressions, and retrospect the mocking and ironic implications of emoticons while turning social interaction into a game and an entertaining pastime. At the same time, when youth imitate and use Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons as strong memes, they acquire a common discourse different from the mainstream culture in the group carnival, leading to deconstruction of authority by appropriating and re-collaging the official culture, and by using popular memes further find social hubs with similar meaning spaces and gain sense of belonging. Fig.11 emoticon 4.2 Group carnival and emotional community Emotional community is a group of people who believe in common norms of emotional expression and value or devalue common or similar emotions”. Emoticons are products of the inheritance and innovation of existing youth culture. The combination of existing youth subcultural elements and hotspots has resulted in new emoticons, which together with previous emoticons form a series of classic symbols of youth subculture, allowing memes to be passed on and to "function as a memory and consciousness-awakening device”. The common characteristics of the youth are emphasized, and youth with similar interests and perceptions express their individuality and export their values by joining the carnival of deconstructing the authority of mainstream culture, and the imitative behaviors of other members further give them positive feedback, which strengthens the emotional-attachment and relieves the sense of isolation. Firstly, emoticons perform a similar function in the social and self-expressive processes of youth. “Collage” is a cultural process of impromptu adaptation whereby objects, symbols or behaviors are transplanted into different systems of meaning and cultural contexts so as to acquire new meanings. It is emphasized to combine multiple, unrelated and incongruous elements in order to achieve a homologous effect. For example, the aforementioned Fig. 11 (Step 4) is a combination of two incongruous elements, the cute and naive Bing Dwen Dwen and wretched slant-eyed smiling "panda head" to form a symbol that can express the values of banter and individuality. Secondly, emoticons have the function of differentiating groups. The mockery, irony and offensive jokes in Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons produced through collage and homology are not accepted by the serious mainstream culture, but can be understood by youth with similar cultural backgrounds. As part of the youth's daily social interaction and self-expression, emoticons build up a discourse BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 281 system to differentiate them from other groups and emphasizes the boundaries of their own social hubs to gain stronger self-identity. It is worth noting that the core connotations of the mainstream culture have not been rejected by the youth. Many young people are attracted by the simple and cute image of Bing Dwen Dwen and the traditional Chinese culture and Olympic spirit that it conveys , so they retain and even promote these connotations in the process of appropriating the official culture such as Fig. 12. In other words, the core connotations conveyed by mainstream culture are still understood and recognized by the majority of youth when they use emoticons, some of which have become key elements to appeal to and connect with youth, who incorporate mainstream values into emoticons to build an emotional community as well as gently convey official positive energy. Fig. 12 the official culture 5. The changing characteristics of the interaction between mainstream culture and youth subculture The upsurge in creation of Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons reflects heated interaction between mainstream culture and youth subculture in which some new features are presented different than before. Firstly, in the process of being appropriated, the mainstream culture's values have successfully sunk to the youth, influencing the formation of youth subculture. Unlike the previous emoticons mostly based on spoofing, there is small number of depreciated Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons, most of which largely retain officially-conveying connotations. When mainstream culture is presented in a cute form among young people, it is to a certain extent catering to youths aesthetic preferences, and the psychological proximity brought about makes it easier to develop emotional resonance. In the process, the youth discovers that the mainstream values do not have a strong, serious appearance, nor do they prevent themselves from creating individually or even being one of the necessary elements to become a strong meme, at which point the values of the mainstream culture are successfully integrated into the youth subculture, subliminally influencing the youth and even transmitting through the expression of the youth subculture. Secondly, youth groups are less defensive and less resistant in interaction than before. Although the unique discourse system in the Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons emphasizes the distinction of youth groups from other age groups or serious mainstream culture, the degree of understanding of youth subculture among those who willingly use emoticons varies greatly. Some people favor the simple and cute image of Bing Dwen Dwen, but not show a corresponding enthusiasm for the personalized expression of youth subculture, who, however, are also seen as part of the youth. The extension and blurring of the group's boundaries have led to the loss of definite object and direction of the resistance, confusion in the logic of group behavior and corresponding weakening of the sense of group belonging. 6. Conclusions This paper takes Bing Dwen Dwen as the object of study. Through semiotics analysis, we find that young people create new emoticons through collage and homology, which can be divided into four categories in terms of composition: adapted official pictures, hand-painted pictures, photos and post- collage; and four categories in terms of functions: communication-oriented, humor-oriented, catharsis-oriented, and irony-oriented. Secondly, as a social currency for young people, Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons are widely used in online social networking, and achieve emotional catharsis, satisfy BCP Social Sciences & Humanities SSMI 2022 Volume 17 (2022) 282 entertainment needs, and gain a sense of groups belonging through spoof, remix, and ironic expressions. At the same time, the young people's appropriation of Bing Dwen Dwen reflects that in the interaction between mainstream culture and subculture in the new media context, the preferences of aesthetics and communication of youth have been taken into account by official authorities. The youth have appropriated mainstream cultural symbols for entertainment and relief, while unconsciously spreading mainstream values, which in turn feeds the values of youth, achieving a successful sink. Moreover, the widespread emoticons have also blurred group boundaries and weakened subcultural resistance. It is worth noting that mutual exclusion and divergence doesnt appear in this interaction between mainstream culture and subculture. The popularity of Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons is largely due to the official campaign--the Winter Olympics. Mainstream culture takes the preferences and needs of youth into account in its design, and package itself in the form of youth preferences may become a viable path for mainstream culture infiltration in future. It is predictable that with the end of the Winter Olympics, the popularity of Bing Dwen Dwen will diminish, and unlike continuing updated film and television works or continuing active actors, Bing Dwen Dwen will not have the opportunity to become a hit again, and will likely return to the same lukewarm status as past mascots. What will happen to Bing Dwen Dwen emoticons after the end of Olympic Game? 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