Abstract: From the perspective of youth subculture, this paper investigates the internal mechanism of mobile online games in respects of society, capital, subjective emotions of young people and media technology. The investigation reveals that the major reasons for the popularity of mobile online games are the media landscape of "gamification-based survival", the strong demand for youth to acquire sub-cultural capital, the self-identity of youth and the emotional needs of immersive experience. Mobile online games have positive significance in youth subculture. On the one hand, the online community of shared interest can help to build self-identity of youth groups. On the other hand, the online community based on mobile online games can serve as a connection between individuals and society, a channel for the youth to vent negative emotions, and thus contributes to social stability. However, mobile online games essentially satisfy the virtual emotional needs of the youth group instead of the real emotional needs; multi-role play in the virtual community will also affect the self-identification of the youth groups. The construction of mobile online games will also lead to the loss of subject rationality among the youth groups.

Key words: youth subculture, mobile online games, self-identification, subjective rationality, emotional consumption