Socializing Once More: The Dialectical Meaning-Making of “Social Phobia” Among Chinese Gen Z

• In Event: 30868 - Digital Communities, Cultural Narratives, and Social Trust

Abstract

“Social phobia” has emerged as a cultural symbol prevalent among Gen Z on social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of face-to-face interactions. Appropriated from the psychological disorder, social phobia has become a legitimate discourse that articulates shyness, introversion, and lack of social skills. The articulation constructed alternative meaning construction of social interaction among self-identified social phobia and dialectically formed solidarity in online communities that featured this identity. Based on in-depth interviews with 55 individuals identified with social phobia and text analyses of over 66,000 posts from online groups, supplemented by non-participatory observations, this paper reveals that the term “social phobia” underwent a gradual legitimization in a joint of medicalization and entertainment of discourse, constructing it as a symbol for youth to express previously stigmatized emotions. The cultural representation in the public realm credited and validated personal experience. Entailed by the prevalence of such identity, the instantaneous self-identification of social phobia retroactively altered the interpretation of past experiences. Their identities are not the natural condensation of personal history. Instead, they are stimulated by popular culture, like social phobia, which initiates a retrospective explanation process and then consolidates the identity. The new-found identity leads them to seek recognition and meaning within online communities, facilitates an alternative understanding of social interaction, and further rebuilds solidarity based on this anti-sociality symbol. The dialectics between its anti-sociality meaning and its factually positive effects on sociality points to the loci of modern self: now and among the crowds. In the examination of the multifold meanings buried in the symbol of social phobia, this paper contributes to 1) the socio-cultural understanding of the dialectical effects brought by seemingly negative symbols and 2) the renewed understanding between social media, popular culture, and the self in this dialectical movement.

Author

• Yingyu Zang, University of Virginia