Online Subculture Gravity Model: Expanding the Hook model of Chinese Youth Online Subcultures

Abstract

This study constructs the online subculture gravity model to systematically analyze the mechanisms underlying Chinese youth’s progressive and persistent involvement in digital subcultures. Based on the Nir Eyal’s Hook Model, this study analyzes typical online subculture phenomena (e.g., ACG, fan communities, e-sports, social media culture, and online slang), and constructs the online subculture gravity model. Specifically, this study reconstructs the youth participation process as a cycle shaped by triggers, emotion-driven, reward feedback and reinvestment mechanisms. More specifically, this model explains how the coupling of algorithmic push and emotional vulnerability stimulates initial involvement, then deepens participation through social, informational and psychological multidimensional rewards. Thus, with the continuous increase of time, money, identity and emotional investment, youth are gradually locked into the subculture ecosystem of algorithmic screening and commercial manipulation. Therefore, this study reveals how symbolic participation interfaces with economic value extraction. Consequently, this study not only advances the development of Hook model by integrating behavioral models into social digital analysis, but also illuminate how youth identity is constantly constructed within subculture cycle.