Momo Everywhere： Why do young people like anonymous society？

Who’s momo? Momo is not a person, but a group of people.

When users log on to platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douban and Zhihu with WeChat authorization, if they choose to skip the steps of naming and avatar, WeChat will provide you with a system default ID and a cute pink dinosaur avatar. When there are more such IDs, some Internet users find that momo’s identity has certain secrecy, which is equivalent to a kind of invisibility. So I took the initiative to put on the same nickname and avatar, and more and more people joined the "momo Army". Nowadays, momo has become a collective synonym for some young people. This is also the reason for momo.

So, why do young people choose to be momo? And why do people like this anonymous society?

Multiple reasons for anonymity of social media

First, anonymity of social media enables some users to avoid social pressure and social anxiety.. Without revealing their identity, they can interact with others more freely without worrying about being judged by others or the discomfort of face-to-face communication.

According to Erving Goffman’s self-presentation theoryIt expounds people’s impulse to control and shape their self-image in social interaction.Our daily life is like a stage play. People shape and deduce individual roles in every scene of social life. The original intention of our behavior and performance in social environment is to let others have a positive impression of ourselves.

Applying this to the anonymization of social media can be understood as an attempt to control self-image. On social media platforms, users often fine-tune their behaviors, speeches and contents to create an idealized self-image in the online world. However, sometimes this ideal image may not conform to their true identity or their self-image in real life. In this case, anonymity provides a solution. Because there is no need to disclose their actual identities in cyberspace, they can freely play any role without worrying about the possible adverse effects on real life.

At the same time, anonymity provides a sense of security for those who are deeply under social pressure and nervous or worried about making public statements. They can speak freely and express their views or emotions without the embarrassment, conflict or criticism that may be caused by revealing their true identity. This reduces their social anxiety to some extent, and enables them to express their opinions and feelings more freely on social media platforms without being judged or pressured by others. In an anonymous environment, users can share their views and experiences more directly, discuss sensitive topics or personal issues without worrying about being defined or tagged.

Secondly, anonymity of social media can satisfy people’s carnival desire to participate in group voyeurism.

We know that the essence of network society is a social connection, and the information age has brought us an interconnected network society. In such an interconnected network society, everyone subconsciously has the desire to peek at others.

According to Marshall McLuhan’s theory, the development of media forms affects the sensory ratio of human beings, and then affects the cultural structure of human beings. The cost of "performance" and "voyeurism" is greatly reduced in the network era. The unprecedented accessibility of mass communication makes voyeurism no longer confined to individuals, but a collective activity with the participation of the public, and also makes "collective voyeurism" a collective carnival for people to pour out their desires. At the same time, modern people are under too much pressure, and anonymous "performance" and "voyeurism" have become channels to relieve stress and relieve emotions.

Satisfy others’ desire to perform from the perspective of voyeurism. Erving Goffman divides social life into "foreground" and "background", where individuals play "formal roles" in social life and perform "formal performances" in accordance with the mainstream values and rules of society. The "backstage" is the place where BLACKPINK is unloaded and his true feelings and behaviors are displayed. The roles of "backstage" and "backstage" may be diametrically opposite. With the anonymity provided by momo, users can expose themselves to the dark side, debunk the illusion of formal performance in the foreground, adopt the narrative angle of being peeped by others, and gain the pleasure of "self-exposure" and "self-rebellion" by exposing their backstage behavior behind the "foreground".

Satisfy your desire to spy on other people’s secrets. In the real social circle, people generally suppress "voyeurism" because of the legal and moral restrictions and the difficulty of obtaining others’ privacy. Anonymous operation in the acquaintance social APP provides an opportunity to peek at the secrets of real friends. At the same time, the security of anonymous setting and simple use greatly reduce the threshold for restricting desire. This is also one of the demands of users to use the nickname "momo".

Satisfy the carnival desire to participate in group voyeurism. In real life, collective discussion of other people’s privacy is an important part of people’s social activities, and so is the network. People’s desire to "peek" is often mixed with their desire to "communicate with others" to form a "mass carnival". The interaction between commentators under secret content; Publishers and commentators’ comments under secret content hide their true identities from each other, thus satisfying the "group voyeurism and carnival desire".

Finally, users use the nickname "momo", which also plays a psychological role in privacy protection, self-identity exploration and spiritual catharsis.

Privacy protection: Some users choose to remain anonymous on social media because they are concerned about their personal privacy and security. They don’t want to reveal their true identity and personal information to avoid being tracked, harassed or identity stolen.

Exploring identity: For some people, the anonymity of social media provides an opportunity to get rid of the shackles of social ethics and vision, to explore different identities and roles, to try new speech styles or to explore their own interests and ideas without being limited by the real social circle.

The connection between anonymous strangers and users in the internet space is accidental, and absolute strangers are associated with the empty social characteristics of freedom and individuality; This empty freedom gives us the freedom to get rid of the ethical obligations in the community, and we can become all kinds of roles we want to be. It is completely personal freedom. In addition, the anonymity of the network has the characteristics of arousing non-inhibition, equality and depersonalization.（depersonalised）Due to the weakening of social clues, people will be more liberated and free, so that users don’t have to worry about their true identity being recognized, so they can also establish closer relationships with strangers.

Spiritual catharsis: Anonymity can be an outlet for some users to release their feelings and emotions. They may choose to share their personal stories, experiences or psychological puzzles anonymously on social media for support, resonance or advice.

What is the status quo of network anonymous society?

At the beginning of the development of social media, the social mode was mainly "anonymous stranger social mode" represented by BBS and forums, but with the emergence of social media applications based on acquaintances such as WeChat, the anonymity of netizens on the Internet began to be weakened. For example, on Facebook and Renren in the early days, even if you just registered your account for a short time, you are likely to find your primary school classmates or a friend who has not been in touch for a long time, just because you have some common friends.

With the excessive connection of these acquaintances’ social networks, people’s private feelings that can’t be vented on public social media began to escape to anonymous society media, and a kind of privacy guerrilla warfare was formed, which enabled people to skillfully hide and flow their privacy between social media and anonymous communication software.

This kind of hiding and flowing about privacy, Raymond Williams once put forward the theoretical point of view-"Mobile Tibet"（mobile privatization）This theory expresses a phenomenon that people can not only "flow" in the outside world, but also "hide personal wealth and goods" and achieve the purpose of "privacy", just as people watch and wander through a more active and open social media through the internet, mobile phones and other media, and at the same time, through the same media, they can create a quiet and private space like anonymous communication to achieve the enjoyment of hiding and privacy.

However, with the rapid development of science and technology, the concept of mobile privatization and mobile privacy theory not only creates personal privacy between geographical space and communication carriers, but also creates a new, richer and anonymous privacy space among multiple communication carriers.

Software that has been sought after by users in a short time because of anonymous gameplay has appeared at home and abroad. Since 2014, Secret, a popular anonymous dating software in the United States, was used by many Silicon Valley employees to spread Silicon Valley gossip which is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and strangers dating software such as Tinder, Down, Omegle, Soul and SanpChat appeared like mushrooms after rain. A number of social software with anonymous communication as the core gameplay, such as No Secret, Toast, Crow and Toilet MT, as well as exploration and exploration, have also emerged in China. It can be seen that being invisible and socializing with strangers really have different attractions for users.

Internet anonymous society has become more common in recent years. For example, Gas, an anonymous quiz game application launched at the end of August, 2022, reached the top of the US App Store free list within two months without large-scale promotion.

All this is because people pay more and more attention to online privacy, and they also hope to express themselves freely without being bound by real life.

Social media based on acquaintance relationship is also turning to develop various functions to meet the psychological needs of users. For example, as WeChat is more and more inclined to work and other functions from communication, it is becoming more and more open from the circle of friends that originally focused on private circles, which also gave birth to the functions of WeChat circle of friends being visible for three days.

Recently, the comment area of WeChat WeChat official account has been greatly revised, which supports various identity comments, including anonymous identity comments.

Users can create multiple virtual avatars, with an upper limit of three. They can choose their own avatars from the photo album and name themselves, or they can generate default names and avatars such as momo and Abai through WeChat system.

When leaving a message, choose identity switch, create a new virtual identity, and just set the image and nickname. WeChat also gave the system image and nickname intimately, and randomly generated it by clicking it. It also supports setting the image and nickname yourself, which is very convenient.

If you choose to leave a message with a personal WeChat account, information such as personality signature, gender and region will appear after clicking the avatar; If you use a virtual identity, there will only be an avatar and a region, and even gender information will not be available.

This is basically equivalent to the anonymous speech function in the comment area. Users can cut the trumpet to participate in the discussion, avoid the embarrassment of meeting acquaintances in the comment area, reduce social pressure, and protect personal information to a certain extent. Of course, the WeChat tweet comment area may also be occupied by the momo army like the Little Red Book comment area.

Some time ago, reading the App "WeChat Reading" also added a function: when users make comments or leave messages during reading, they can choose "Visible only to strangers". In this way, users’ messages only spread in the public domain, so don’t worry about friends seeing them. As soon as this product feature was released, it immediately caused a heated discussion on social media.

It seems that on today’s social network, the social behavior pattern is changing. People are still eager to connect with others, but only eager to be seen by strangers, but "stay away from acquaintances".Behind the popularity of "visible only to strangers", there is actually a long-standing social anxiety of today’s users.

Where will momo’s army go in the future?

In addition to the recent rise of momo army, the ever-changing anonymous forms of users have a long history, such as setting up accounts with ID "cancelled" and "charlatan" on Douban in the early years, as well as anonymous sections and anonymous functions opened by some platforms. One of the advantages of anonymous function is that it can encourage wider participation and let more people dare to express their voices and opinions. It is especially important for those who are worried about personal privacy or afraid of being attacked.

However, it should be noted that although anonymity provides users with more freedom to express themselves, it may also lead to some negative effects, such as cyberbullying, speech attacks or other malicious behaviors.

In July this year, more than half a month after Huang Yuanpu, the founder of Yiou, bombarded the "Zhihu Anonymity System", Zhihu officially announced the offline anonymity function. With the release of "Regulations on Information Governance of Cyber Violence (Draft for Comment)", the governance of network anonymity may have just begun.

The "Regulations on Information Governance of Cyber Violence (Draft for Comment)" mentioned that "it is forbidden to create topic sections and group accounts that publish misdirected content in the name of anonymous submission and shouting from a distance" is not aimed at Zhihu, and other anonymous phenomena on the Internet may be further regulated.

After Zhihu announced that it would cancel the anonymous function, it also issued a statement that it upgraded the user ID management mechanism in 2021. The so-called anonymous posting users have to undergo double authentication by binding their mobile phone numbers and real-name authentication in the background. Only when posting, I chose a unique nickname. This ID management mechanism is similar to the current mainstream community mechanism. Since then, the pulse platform has also indicated that there is no "anonymous posting".The so-called anonymity is often said, the front desk is anonymous, and the background is not hidden.

From the perspective of social governance, in order to promote the benign interaction between cyberspace and social life space and prevent the spread of false information and cyber bullying, we should constantly promote the continuous governance of cyberspace.

The first is to speed up the construction of social ethics and governance system suitable for Internet social space. Martin Heidegger put forward in Being and Time that the safest and most essential existence of human beings is the present existence in time and history. In this sense, when the Internet merges or even coincides with the real world at an acceleration, those who don’t transmit any information through the Internet are "non-existent", while those who are active on the Internet may exist in multiple identities at the same time. This phenomenon will lead to the unique social problems at present: the conflict between single ontology and multiple identities, the difference between virtual and real, the accumulation and spread of negative emotions, the strong mobilization and intervention of virtual space in real space, and so on. Therefore, the construction of social ethics and governance system for cyberspace is imminent.

Secondly, we should adjust the relationship between digital identity and real identity by law and technology. Internet is a product of technology and a new production tool. Cyberspace is a social product and a living space for people’s digital identity. In the future, we should start from the legal and technical aspects, standardize and guide the Internet social platform to attach importance to the attribute of users as "social people", and take the protection of users’ privacy rather than simple technical applications as its core service content.

At the same time, users should be cautious in using anonymous functions, abide by platform rules and ethics, respect the privacy and opinions of others, and maintain positive interaction and constructive discussion to maintain a positive network environment. Work together to build a more complete, safer and richer social life space.

reference data

[1] Wang Fengli, Si Qi, China Social Sciences Network-China Social Sciences News, Internet socialization reshapes social living space.

[2] Analysis of the social communication mode of "acquaintance" and "anonymity" —— Taking "Wumi" APP as an example, Liu Ying and Li Peishan’s "News Front" (No.3, 2016)

[3] Sun Zhichao, the flow of Tibetan private: On anonymous society.

This article comes from WeChat WeChat official account:Tencent Media Research Institute (ID: Tencent MRI), Author: Zhang Haoran, editor: Jing Tingting