Volume 4,Issue 5
Visualizing Textual People-Pleasing in Digital Communication: An Interactive Design Framework
The Chinese colloquialism “textual people-pleasing” describes the online use of tone softeners, affective particles, emoji, disclaimers, and repetition to maintain rapport and avoid negative evaluation. It is not a clinical diagnosis but a platform-shaped communication practice. This study combines a literature review, an interface comparison, and a retrospective analysis of the board game Please Don’t Say It Like That. It examines how relational maintenance, visibility competition, and persona management encourage tone softening, modifier accumulation, stance avoidance, and feedback dependence. These tendencies are translated into visual variables such as density, saturation, hierarchy, rhythm, and occlusion, and into rule variables including role constraints, cards, points, and penalties. The prototype uses six platform-based identities, a 74-space map, and a dual-feedback system that contrasts immediate rewards with delayed communicative costs. The analysis suggests that social issues become more open to critical examination when the media rules that shape them are made playable and open to discussion.
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[3] Sun ZJ, Xu GY, 2023, Online Manifestations, Real-World Causes, and Social Alienation Associated with Textual People-Pleasing. New Media Research, 9(2): 98–101.
[4] Zuo MM, Feng X, 2024, People-Pleasing or Friendliness? Manifestations, Functions, and Reflections on Textual People-Pleasing in Online Social Interaction. New Media Research, 10(5): 63–65, 70.
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[6] Zhang Y, Yang WX, 2024, Emoji in Short-Video Comments from a Pragmatic-Rhetorical Perspective. Journal of Hubei Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 44(6): 68–75.
[7] Deng J, Zhang JB, 2024, Pragmatic Functions of Emoji in Online Conversation and Their Theoretical Implications. International Public Relations, 2024(20): 77–79.
[8] Li Z, Wang L, 2024, Investigating Translanguaging Strategies and Online Self-Presentation Through Internet Slang on Douyin. Applied Linguistics Review, 15(6): 2823–2855.
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[11] Liu HH, 2017, Image Language from a Semiotic Perspective, thesis, Nanjing Normal University.
[12] Xiao YY, 2023, Visual Narrative Design of Online Persona Construction in Social Networking, thesis, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.
[13] Jia X, 2022, Mobile Motion Design Based on Visual Attention and Emotional Experience, thesis, Guangdong University of Technology.
[14] Pan XC, Lai YY, Qian ZY, 2024, A Situational-Cognition-Based Board Game for Teaching Children About Oracle-Bone Script. Design, 37(13): 30–33.
[15] Yang F, Zhang JM, 2024, Principles and Practice in Science Board-Game Development: The Giant Panda National Park Case. Science Education and Museums, 10(6): 82–88.
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[17] Jiang MX, 2024, Cultural and Creative Board-Game Design Based on Confucian Culture, thesis, Anhui Jianzhu University.
[18] Yan YQ, 2023, Thematic Board-Game Design Based on Canal Culture, thesis, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.
