Shipping on the edge: Negotiations of precariousness in a Chinese real-person shipping fandom community

Abstract

The fandom community has been one of the most engaging and active segments in the global participatory culture. However, fans face multilevel and intertwined constraints from various social forces while seeking pleasure and fantasies. This study zooms in on a real-person shipping fan community in China where shippers are doubly marginalized as they fantasize about two male idols being in a romantic relationship in a society with both the derogative projection of fans and low levels of acceptance of same-sex relationships. Relying on a mixed-methods approach, this study found that the radical and disruptive practices are the results of tactical and calculative negotiations in relation to political, social, and technological risks while being driven by pleasure-seeking. I call these practices precarious shipping. The contextualized understanding of the fandom community emphasizes the importance of realizing the local tensions that are rarely addressed in previous literature that focuses on Western fandom.

Issue Communication Network Dynamics in Connective Action: The Role of Non-Political Influencers and Regular Users

“…Among the many social media platforms in the Chinese fragmented online public sphere (Shao & Wang, 2017), Weibo is a microblogging site launched in 2009, often referred to as “the Chinese Twitter.” It is now one of the most popular platforms in China with nearly 600 million monthly active users as of Q3 2022 (Thomala, 2022). The open architecture and large user base, though with a certain level of censorship, have rendered the platform a critical digital public space where the Chinese public engages in concerning controversial social issues (Shao & Wang, 2017; Tang, 2023). In its early stage, there was a famous slogan “attention changes China” 2 meaning that public engagement on social media could meaningfully impact the government’s decision-making process and even the political system in China (G.…”

“…The propaganda machine on social media further moderates the power of influencers in shaping public opinion (Huang et al, 2018). Besides, the commercialization logic of Weibo as a publicly listed company since 2014 complicates what was once one of the very few public spaces for political discussion such that it is now an amalgam of advertising, entertainment, and public deliberation site (Jia & Han, 2020; Tang, 2023). Is digital connective action still possible in China?…”

“…The government’s use of the insulting word niangpao (equivalent to “sissy”) in a policy document added fuel to the fire. Despite the political and technological risks associated with Chinese social media (Ma & Zhang, 2022; Tang, 2023), thousands of Weibo users criticized and satirized the policy and the outdated stereotypical gender image it promoted, which also appeared in an education policy in 2020 aiming to prevent feminization of male teenagers (Yu & Sui, 2022). Over a 4-month period, various entertainment bloggers, movie recommenders, cartoonists, and regular users engaged in digital connective action, sharing dissenting views and successfully transforming the term yanggang (masculine) into a negative description of simplistic and traditional masculinity.…”