Artistic Prosumption with Initiative in the Youth Subculture of Original Character in China

China has witnessed in recent years a rapid development in digital economy and a unprecedented prosperity of various online subcultures, with the subculture of original character as a unique branch of them characterized by the large number of teenage female participants and the large volume of unsupervised transactions within. This article is based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews within this subculture. By meticulously examining the subculture members’ behaviors and applying the theoretical framework of both prosumption and post-subcultural theory to the subculture case study, this article construct the subculture members as artistic prosumers with initiative rather than passive consumers, free digital laborers or animalized youths in the post-modern society. It’s argued that by putting affections and creativity into the original characters by prosumption and spontaneously reflecting and regulating on the co-optation of the artistic and heterogeneous styles by subculture capital, the youth prosumers in the oc subculture retain a sustainable prosumption mode in which they can seek enchantment and practice collective wisdom.