【明報專訊】Many local Hongkongers, especially men, might be aware of the Hong Kong Golden Forum (香港高登討論區), which is one of the most popular — and many say the most notorious (聲名狼藉的) — online chat sites attracting a large number of male participants in active chatting. If you are not so aware of the forum, you might probably have a mental association of chatrooms (and internet chatting culture at large) with self-isolating nerdy men and geeky boys (宅男) — who the locals have labelled "solitary men" (獨男) or even "poisonous men" (毒男). Since the popularisation of the Internet, the idea in our society of nerds, who suffer from low social skills, and who therefore spend all of their time indulging (沉溺) in the Internet world engaging in somewhat sordid (猥褻的) activities, has been a common stereotype about a certain male population around the ages of 16 to 35. The same trend has been prominently (顯著地) reported in many other places with high Internet usage, including Japan, Korea, China and the US. It is as if a large portion of popular culture had gone digital — and "underground" — providing people with an open environment for new and creative ideas and relations to flourish. In Hong Kong, the Golden Forum has been perceived (理解) as a cultural hotbed for growing a male subculture for their free discussion of all things under the sun. I will write more about this in the next few weeks.