Soft Subversion in Sound: Homophonic Pun Memes and Youth Cultural Resistance in China's Digital Sphere

Abstract

This paper examines homophonic pun memes on Chinese social media as hybrid cultural artefacts that fuse traditional wordplay with the dynamics of digital youth culture. Drawing on meme theory, semiotics, and youth subcultural theory, it explores how urban Chinese youth use these memes as playful yet politically inflected forms of expression within an algorithmically governed media environment. Employing a mixed methodology that combines digital ethnography with qualitative content analysis, the study investigates how linguistic creativity and visual humour intersect to produce participatory decoding practices and affective communities. The findings suggest that these memes function as soft subversion-a subtle mode of resistance and self-definition within a semi-authoritarian digital ecology-while simultaneously being neutralised and commodified through platform logics. By situating the Chinese case within broader debates on participatory culture and digital subversion, the paper contributes to a more inclusive understanding of how everyday online practices reshape politics, affect, and identity within the global meme ecosystem.

Keywords:Homophonic Pun MemesDigital Youth SubcultureSoft SubversionParticipatory CultureChinese Social Media