Live streaming, intimate situations, and the circulation of same-sex affect: Monetizing affective encounters on Blued

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with 10 gay streamers and 30 viewers, this article analyzes a new feature of live streaming on Blued, a Chinese gay male dating app. Live streaming invites users to either perform themselves or watch others perform. Unlike western gay dating apps that monetize users’ hooking-up encounters, the business model behind Blued instead capitalizes on affective encounters among gay streamers and viewers. Through paid virtual gifts, which circulate as affective signs, live streaming fosters and intensifies viewers’ intimate attachment to gay streamers. The virtual intimacy produced by gay live streaming entails a significant economic dimension, and is therefore stigmatized. In consequence, gay streamers do not see streaming as sex-related work, and paying viewers do not portray gifts as consumption. In understating the economic and sexual underpinnings of affective encounters mediated by live streaming, gay streamers and viewers not only reinforce heteronormativity, but also produce homonormativity.

Chinese gay men pursuing online fame: erotic reputation and internet celebrity economies

“…The reasons are twofold. First, it was not easy for researchers to win trust from gay streamers because of ubiquitous online stigmatization based on stereotypes of transactional relationships between streamers and viewers (Wang 2019b). Second, a number of gay wanghong streamers to whom I made contact were expecting a media interview in order to increase their visibility (with some having made appearances on online talk/reality shows).…”

“…Likewise, the making of gay celebrity streamers involves a dual performance, although the duality of their online personas is mutually constitutive rather than inconsistent. Chinese gay streamers' performances revolve around the display of sexual desirability through practices that evoke erotic pleasure or intimate satisfaction in viewers (Wang 2019a(Wang , 2019b. The dual performance of gay streamers is therefore defined by the simultaneous construction of a desiring subject and a desirable object.…”

“…These performances involved forms that were both explicit (e.g., male genital displays and masturbation) and implicit (e.g., muscle flexing). Despite some gay streamers finding joy and pleasure in practicing eroticism, these behaviors were susceptible to slutshaming both from viewers and even some streamers (Wang 2019a;Shuaishuai Wang 2019b). In the Chinese gay community, people use the term wanghong as a sexual innuendo to refer to gay streamers begging for attention through erotic practices.…”

“…One may argue sexual censorship does not target gay apps in particular: these rules apply to all platforms where users' sexual behaviors are condoned. What makes gay apps a special case, however, is that they are the most popular (e.g., Blued has a user base of 40 million), if not the only, media space in which Chinese gay men can express their sexual identities and where their same-sex sexual/emotional needs can be openly discussed (Wang 2019b;Shuaishuai Wang 2020). This is particularly so considering the homosexual content ban enforced in web dramas and online programs.…”

“…Following the shutdowns of ZANK, BlueSky, and Peepla, other in-business gay apps not only erase content related to sexuality, but also prohibit flirtatious behavior (Wang 2019b). Although, as a result of this, gay men are disciplined to perform a normative, nonsexual male subject when livestreaming, viewers can nonetheless be sexually affected by performers' looks (masculine or sweet) voices, personal stories, and intimate interactions (Wang 2019b(Wang , 2020. Moreover, sexual censorship does not stop gay streamers from providing fans with sexual material.…”