China 101
Bilibili
B站
A video platform that grew out of anime, comics, and gaming fandom into China's defining Gen Z video community, famous for its bullet comments.
Bilibili, nicknamed B zhan (B site), started in 2009 as a fan site for anime, comics, and games, modeled partly on Japan's niconico. Its signature feature is danmuReal-time viewer comments that scroll directly across the video screen, turning solo viewing into a shared, chat-like experience.: viewer comments that fly across the video itself, creating a feeling of watching together.
Over the 2010s it broadened far beyond fandom into documentaries, study content, tech reviews, and knowledge videos, while keeping an unusually strong community identity. Becoming a full member historically required passing a quiz on community norms, which filtered for committed users. Creators, called UP-zhu, enjoy fierce loyalty, and Bilibili's annual events and memes set much of Chinese youth internet culture.
For trend coverage, Bilibili is where deeper, longer-form takes on Chinese youth phenomena appear, and its rankings show what young China is actually watching rather than just scrolling past.