TY - JOUR
T1 - Chinese affective platform economies
T2 - dating, live streaming, and performative labor on Blued
AU - Wang, Shuaishuai
N1 - Funding Information:
The author would like to thank Jeroen de Kloet, Rachel Spronk, and Arjen Nauta for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. This project has been supported by a consolidator grant from the European Research Council (ERC-2013-CoG 616882-ChinaCreative).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - This article analyzes the political economy of sexually affective data on the Chinese gay dating platform Blued. Having launched in 2012 as a location-based dating app akin to Grindr, Blued has now become a multipurpose platform providing extra services such as newsfeeds and live streaming. Through the continuous imbrication of old and new functionalities and related affordances, users are transformed from dating subjects into performative laborers. Based on Internet ethnographic research that lasted 2 years, this article focuses on sexual-affective data flows (e.g. virtual gifting, following, liking, commenting, and sharing) produced by gay live streamers within the parameters of same-sex desires such as infatuation, sexual arousal, and online intimacy. It argues that these sexually affective data flows increasingly constitute key corporate assets with which Blued attracts venture capital. This analysis of live streamers and their viewers extends understandings of dating apps in two ways. First, it shows how these apps now function as business platforms on top of being channels for hooking up. Second, it emphasizes that whereas users created data freely, now it is produced by paid labor.
AB - This article analyzes the political economy of sexually affective data on the Chinese gay dating platform Blued. Having launched in 2012 as a location-based dating app akin to Grindr, Blued has now become a multipurpose platform providing extra services such as newsfeeds and live streaming. Through the continuous imbrication of old and new functionalities and related affordances, users are transformed from dating subjects into performative laborers. Based on Internet ethnographic research that lasted 2 years, this article focuses on sexual-affective data flows (e.g. virtual gifting, following, liking, commenting, and sharing) produced by gay live streamers within the parameters of same-sex desires such as infatuation, sexual arousal, and online intimacy. It argues that these sexually affective data flows increasingly constitute key corporate assets with which Blued attracts venture capital. This analysis of live streamers and their viewers extends understandings of dating apps in two ways. First, it shows how these apps now function as business platforms on top of being channels for hooking up. Second, it emphasizes that whereas users created data freely, now it is produced by paid labor.
KW - data
KW - dating app
KW - gay
KW - labor
KW - live streaming
KW - platform economy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071436274&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0163443719867283
DO - 10.1177/0163443719867283
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85071436274
SN - 0163-4437
VL - 42
SP - 502
EP - 520
JO - Media, Culture and Society
JF - Media, Culture and Society
IS - 4
ER -