I. Question raised: Gender research in games that lags behind the development of practice
Since the reform and opening up, the mainland has rapidly entered an entertainment and gamification society, and the earliest video gamer community took shape between 1995 and 2000. After 2000, China gradually joined the global game supply chain from the downstream position of the game industry chain. Most of the gamers at this stage are husbands and their young children from urban middle-class families. At the same time, capital accumulation, expertise, game culture, and uncreative work experience have spawned local self-developed game companies that can continue to launch high-quality games that appeal to domestic consumers. Nowadays, when we walk on the road, sit on the subway, or eat at a restaurant, we can see people playing games on their phones. According to a survey by niko Partners, a market intelligence firm, by the end of 2018, China had accumulated more than 600 million game users, surpassing the United States to become the world's largest game market. [1] Among them, the proportion of female gamers in mainland China has increased year by year, with female gamers accounting for 44.2% by the end of 2018 (MobData, 2018). The proportion of female game practitioners has also increased year by year, with about 1.45 million people working in China's game industry in 2018, of which women accounted for 27.3%, an increase of 1.9% over 2017 (China Music and Data Association Game Working Committee, Gamma Data, 2018). However, academic research on the interconstruction between gender and games has lagged behind the vigorous development of industry practices, and gender has not yet become the core category of local game research.
"Love and The Producer"
Among the many analytical categories of critical communication, this paper focuses on the interaction and inter-framing relationship between local video games and gender relations in mainland China. The idea of "gender" as an important category of analysis first appeared in Joan Wallach Scott's 1986 classic Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis, in which she discussed the importance of "gender"[2] in analyzing the relationship between men and women, kinship, social production organization, and social segregation. Influenced by Scott's ideas, Chinese historians He Xiao and Wang Zheng published "Chinese History: A Useful Category of Gender Analysis" in 2008. The article points out that gender can inspire scholars to explore a series of questions to ask, including: Under what political and economic conditions, gender roles of men and women are given a certain meaning and assigned a certain function? How does gender, along with concepts of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality, motherhood, family, and marriage, change with the stages of social development, interpersonal interactions, and historical context? [3] Influenced by these classic literatures, domestic scholars have also gradually paid attention to the importance of gender in media analysis.
Similar to traditional media such as film and television, through rich text, image and sound reproduction, social, political, cultural, religious, and gender content can be used as a script to enter the storyline of the game. In terms of social benefits, in addition to constructing a virtual entertainment world and providing a full range of sensory stimulation, games will also provide references to the meaning of all aspects of life through player participation and interaction, and shape new social relationships in terms of morality, social interaction, intimate relationships, and value changes. But games are different from traditional media such as movies and TV series. This lies mainly in four aspects: First, the game is a highly participatory medium in which the player is deeply immersed in the text and storyline in the form of manipulating the avatar. Second, the gaming experience is a medium immersion with no time limit, and the levels and stories of some games can be endlessly repeated and repeated indefinitely. Third, online gaming is a medium with social functions, and players can communicate a lot of interactive communication through text, voice, and message board messages. Fourth, on the mainland, film and television works have a strong official ideological propaganda and indoctrination function, but due to the pure entertainment nature of games, they have not yet fully entered the overall scope of ideological control work.
Inheriting the ideas of the above scholars, this article asks questions from the following three aspects in view of the media characteristics of local games. First, focus on how the gender structure affects the development, display and marketing of games through the productive relationships of each link in the design and development process. Second, pay attention to what kind of gender mechanism is injected into the game text (including sound and picture, character design, storyline, reward mechanism, etc.), and what kind of gaze relationship is carried out? Third, focus on participation, that is, on the interaction between players, the connection between players and online avatars, and the public space formed around the online social networking of the game: what kind of gender order is formed between players? When a player doubles on the control line, does his/her gender consciousness change? Did he/she become a different male/female? What kind of new gender order and subculture has been incubated in the public space of the game?
This article asks questions from three aspects: design and development, text reproduction and player participation, on the one hand, in order to comprehensively clarify the impact of local gender relations on game production, design and consumption under the contemporary capitalist production mode, and avoid short-sightedness in interpreting the relationship between games and gender inter-construction from a single link. Because official control of games focuses only on pornography, violence, and the protection of minors, games have not yet entered the realm of official ideological control. That is to say, the current mainstream game production in the mainland is not responsible for the indoctrination of thought, ethics, and morality in the source, and the underlying logic of its operation is purely around wealth growth and capital accumulation. This determines a study that can comprehensively dissect the relationship between games and gender interconfiguration, and needs to explore from the specific links of capital operation, how capital logic uses, restricts or promotes gender relations. On the other hand, unlike the development of Western games, because the progressive voices promoting gender equality in society as a whole are still on the margins, the related gender equality movement has not yet influenced the production and development of games. Based on this, this paper attempts to provide a localized case study of games on a global scale, interpreting why gender inequality in the video game world arises under specific socio-historical conditions, and how it is rationalized in the interlocking process of production, consumption and circulation.
Second, research methods and researcher positioning
This article takes the approach of critical discourse analysis [4]. Different from the literary analysis of the structure of the text, critical discourse analysis not only analyzes the text and audiovisual text, but also focuses on interpreting the production process, social meaning and power relations of the text. [5] [6] Specifically, the analysis and meaning of the game in this article comes from the following three empirical data.
First, from the first author of this article, he participatory observations on the domestic game design and development process. Since February 2020, the first author has participated in the peripheral management and maintenance of the important domestic secondary theme A website, and then served as the evaluation specialist of the domestic B label top game. Through first-hand observation, a large amount of information about the development of local games was collected.
Glory of Kings
Secondly, as deep gamers, the two authors have been immersed in a number of local games for a long time, mainly including "The Legend of the Paladin Sword", "Sword Net 3", "Three Kingdoms Kill", "Glory of the King", "Love and Producer", and so on. This article analyzes specifically the core culture of these games (i.e., the worldview built around the core rules of the game), the representation of women in game design, and the gaming experience of female players.
Furthermore, inspired by women's oral history methods that encourage women to tell their own stories,[7] the authors conducted in-depth interviews for more than two years with more than 40 female gamers. The interview revolves around women's experiences, preferences, and choices in video games based on their interactions with male players or male non-playable characters (NPCs), focusing on both the details of their specific game behaviors and the self-perceptions, positioning, preferences for men, and imaginations of intimate relationships that they display in the game. The interviewees were between the ages of 17 and 39 and lived in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities; most of them belonged to the upper middle class of the city, and 11 had experience studying abroad. Methods of interviews include face-to-face interviews and multiple online follow-up interviews. In addition to more than 40 female players, we interviewed 5 male players to outline men's understanding of women's positioning in the game world. [8]
The description, dismantling and interpretation of the relationship between game text and player experience in this article is inspired by the research on local game criticism in recent years. Around 2005, there was a fundamental change in the understanding of games in Chinese academic circles and the public. Before 2005, local academic research and media reports often used "Internet addiction" as the keyword, and carried out with paternalistic and persuasive thinking. The behavior, experience and identification of gamers are mostly understood as bad behavior that deviates from mainstream social values, and gamers are either considered victims of popular culture or activists who are considered to be potentially harmful to public order and good customs, so game behavior needs to be managed, disciplined, and even curbed.
Around 2005, more and more scholars realized the limitations of research ideas and began to dispel the assumption of transcendentality, recognizing games as the main medium form of entertainment and social interaction for teenagers. On this basis, some scholars believe that games can be used as a channel for young people to understand mainstream culture and social rules,[9][10][11][12][13][14] while others hold the opposite view, believing that addicted to games will lead to further deviations from mainstream culture among underclass teenagers. [15] Su Yihui's research on secondary vocational and technical school students brought a class perspective, believing that technical school students on the margins of society were difficult to integrate into the mainstream culture of the middle class, and playing online games in teams became an important way for them to socialize. [16] Scholars have also turned to description and analysis of game text, focusing on the intertextual relationship between game modes and player experience. For example, Zhang Gehao's research on fighting games introduces the perspective of body posture and martial arts research, pointing out that when players play fighting games, the body will unconsciously take on a body posture that responds to the avatar in the electronic screen. [17] These studies show, from different perspectives, the importance of understanding and analyzing game texts and player experiences within the socio-historical conditions that shape them, as well as in broader class, urban-rural power relations, and hierarchical systems. Some scholars have also paid attention to the relevance of games to gender issues. For example, some studies have pointed out that on the one hand, the mainstream games seen in the market, such as fighting, competitive, and war strategy games, are mostly developed by target groups dominated by male players, and fail to respond to the needs of female gamers. The reproduction of female characters directly in mainstream games always appears in the form of otherization, materialization, sexual desire, and auxiliary. On the other hand, female games developed with female gamers as the main target group, such as love management, dress-up classes, and palace fighting games, have a trend of aesthetic singleness, fun and young age, simple and brainless game design, and constantly strengthen stereotypes in the portrayal of gender relations. [18] [19] [20]
Third, gender issues in the process of video game design and development
The design and development of video games mainly includes: launch, planning, production, testing, license application, and release. The game launch process mainly completes the project initiation report, creative description, financing, and the formation of the required human resources team. Game planning includes main system planning, parameter setting, plot planning, executive planning, etc. Later, he entered the game production process, mainly carrying out program development, art, video and music design. Even though game producers may not have a strong ideological orientation, these design and development processes are all deeply embedded in gender ideology. There are also studies that show that white supremacy still controls huge cultural power in today's social relations, which has a profound impact on the global game production culture. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] This has led to a long-term imbalance in the gender distribution of the global game industry workforce, with the proportion of female workers increasing year by year, with the proportion of male workers remaining high, with a report by The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) showing that the proportion of female game developers worldwide accounted for 24% in 2019 and increased by 10% between 2009 and 2019. [26] In contrast to the situation of mainland game industry employees, female game employees accounted for 25.4% of all employees in 2017. [27] In the following, we will discuss the gender distribution pattern of the game industry workers, the simplicity of the game development environment, and the feminization of the game market.
According to our observation, in the development and production of games in the mainland, games as a whole are treated as "digital products" with high technical thresholds to operate and develop. A typical senior general manager position of a large label game product, its recruitment is usually not carried out publicly, almost all recommended by industry insiders. High-level strategic positions require a deep grasp of market dynamics, a deep understanding of the gameplay and operation of various types of games, strong financing capabilities, interpersonal resources, and the best programming technology, and can invest a lot of energy and time in the work, and these positions are rarely held by women. As for more specific product manager positions (such as being responsible for designing and developing a specific scene and certain characters), the requirements are generally commercial and technical execution. However, business knowledge is not considered to require a background in the industry, and in these positions, people with backgrounds in computer, software engineering and programming are preferred. As for the game development engineer position, it pays more attention to the technical background, and a typical job advertisement will cover these contents: "[Job Responsibilities] 1, according to the company's business development needs, participate in the development of engine and game basic components; 2, solve engine and component problems, optimize performance problems." 【Job Requirements】1. Familiar with common game engines, familiar with computer graphics, mobile rendering principles; 2, have strong learning ability, be able to read English technical documents proficiently, have strong analysis and problem solving skills; 3, familiar with mobile terminal development experience is preferred. [28] Under the current gender distribution pattern of higher education on the mainland, the vast majority of these important positions are held by men.
That's why, in the division of labor among game practitioners, men are in charge of the core tasks of management, decision-making, development and design, while women are always placed in administrative, marketing, clerical writing and customer service positions. According to our observation, most of the women who work in the game customer service, marketing and art departments are unmarried young women due to heavy work and perennial overtime, and very few women over the age of 30. In these positions, their work is also centered around the needs of male players. This is mainly because in the current gamer gender pattern, the majority of high-spending gamers are middle-class (heterosexual) men. Our interviewee, Qiqi (23 years old, female, game operations) said this:
Inside our gold daddy (consumer), male players can kryptonite to 6 figures, or even 7 figures, and they're our main customers, right? Female players are incomparable, they have krypton thousands of dollars already feel that they spend too much money for the game, and at most they can only krypton gold to 5 figures.
The image of Qiqi summarizes the current gender pattern of the game industry, and the production and service of games revolve around the player's consumption power and consumption willingness, and the consumption power and consumption willingness are highly gendered in the current social context. The jargon formed in this process is also quite gendered, and we often hear the phrase "golden father" in our research, but there is no corresponding "golden mother".
Through participatory observation of game development and promotion work, we also found that there is an unwritten collective understanding in the marketing of games, and the more "high-quality" vases and beautiful female players in a game, the more it can attract more male players with krypton gold. Therefore, attracting female players, and even arranging female players to accompany them for a fee within the game community, and setting up female anchors to introduce games is almost a task that must be promoted in the marketing promotion of many game companies. In this sense, the emphasis on female gamers does not mean that the gender relationship in the game world is more progressive, and the game of pleasing female players often objects women to the extreme, and emphasizes the binary idea that men and women are different, and women play games with men.
However, globally, as a result of the feminist tech empowerment movement and the process of simplifying the technological environment for game development, we predict that more and more female practitioners or gender nonconforming will be involved in the game development industry, which is expected to change the hegemony of (white) masculinity as a whole. The continuous optimization of the game development environment allows non-professionals with zero programming, zero art, and zero music foundation to be exposed to the work of developing games. In the past, the development of mainstream games was generally operated by large labels that combined resources, technology and capital. [29] With the development of technology, especially after the technical threshold for game production and release was lowered, many paid commercial or free and open source game development engines were born to meet the needs of developers, making it possible for grassroots teams and niche teams to develop games. In terms of game publishing, diversified game display and promotion platforms have gradually been built, especially in recent years, more and more independent game distribution platforms have emerged, providing a good incubation soil for game research and development. At present, the mainstream distribution platforms for overseas mobile games include Google Play and Appstore, and the mainstream domestic publishing platforms include Taptap, Haoyou Fast Explosion, etc.; the mainstream distribution platforms for PC stand-alone games are Steam, itch.io, Origin, etc. The construction and popularity of these game platform systems make the time and money cost of game publishing, promotion and maintenance lower, and the operation is more convenient and faster.
"Love and The Producer"
It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the accelerated development of the women's game market in the mainland has increased the participation of more and more female game users and female practitioners. For example, Suzhou Paper Network Technology Co., Ltd., which launched the explosive women's mobile game "Love and Producer" in 2017, has more than 220 employees as of 2018, of which the number of female employees is 150, accounting for up to 70%, and serves in important positions such as game planning. [30] Another platform loved by female game developers in China is Orange Light Games, which provides users with a free, simple creative editor and material library, and users can easily create their own interactive game works through drag-and-drop actions. On the whole, although the dominance of men within the industry has not yet been shaken, because female game practitioners have a deeper understanding of female user development, demand mining, thinking habits, game creativity and art style, etc., they have played an advantage in women's game development.
Fourth, the gender issue in the reproduction of game texts
(1) Text: character settings, storylines and rules of the game
Because male players are still the main marketing targets of major game companies, designing games around masculinity and heterosexual models is an explicit rule, which can be epitomized in video game texts. The earliest gender studies of game texts in the West in the 1980s were heavily influenced by Laura Mulvey's "male gaze" theory. Murvie argues that most films and television present a male-centered gaze: men watch and get pleasure from watching, women are watched, played with, and controlled. This viewing structure and power relationships determine how women present themselves on the screen, such as deliberately showing gentleness, sensuality and care qualities. [31] At the text level, gender theory analysis is not fundamentally different from film and television works, but because the game has a direct mechanism for physical substitution, the playable character directly constrains the player's gender imagination. Using Murvie's theory, the unequal relationship between the sexes in the earliest video game world was revealed: in the fighting and clearance games, male characters were always playable characters, and physical mobility, combat ability and sexual charm were exaggerated. For example, in the most classic single-player game Contra, the two main male characters that can be played are two muscular and skilled special forces. Women often appear in commercial video games and game pop-up advertisements as sexy, cute, delicate, and weak non-player characters (NPCs), and their functions are mainly to increase visual and aesthetic elements, as well as to assist and set off the shaping of major male playable characters from a narrative perspective. These video games are based on old gender assumptions and even spread the message that men can possess, possess, and enjoy women if they are strong enough. [32] [33]
The earliest game experience of Chinese players was also achieved within such a framework. For example, before the new century, in the single-player game "Super Mario Bros." known to Chinese players, the playable characters were two adult working-class men, Mario Bros. The story is set around a classic heroic rescue framework: Mario Bros. rescues Princess Becky, who is kidnapped by the demon Kuba, through a series of levels and battles; if the player completes the level, they can hold the beauty back. Like all the frail beauties in the classic heroic rescue theme works of literature, movies, and TV series, Princess Becky is innocent, helpless, and has no ability to fight, and can only wait for male heroes to rescue. Similar heroic narratives of saving the United States abound. After the new century, China's game industry has the ability to produce games independently, and the heterosexual model framework of strong men and weak women has not been overturned. The female characters in the classic card game "Three Kingdoms Kill", such as Sun Shangxiang and Zhen Ji, have continued to be popular in recent years, and the shapes of Ah Ke, Dai Ji and others in the current mobile game "Glory of the King" have not changed their weak and fragrant outfits because the characters' abilities have become stronger.
When local game manufacturers design games, character settings, storylines and game rules are always stuck and designed around the traditional heterosexual order. For example, the most classic role-playing single-player game in the history of domestic PC games, "Legend of paladin Sword" and its derivative products, take the martial arts story as the theme, and its game plot mainly revolves around a typical love triangle between two women and one man. The male protagonist, Li Xiaoyao, is a young man who is bent on practicing martial arts and fighting righteousness, and the other two important playable characters are Zhao Ling'er, the princess of Nanzhao, who has wandered to the Central Plains, and Lin Yueru, the daughter of the lord of the Wulin League. "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" adopts the typical narrative framework of Chinese martial arts novels, allowing the male protagonist Li Xiaoyao to learn, upgrade and complete one task after another, and in this process, Li Xiaoyao and the two beautiful and extraordinary female characters Zhao Ling'er and Lin Yueru produced an unforgettable love triangle. When the game was launched, it focused on creating a simulated feeling of a first-hand "hero dream" for male players, and set up two female characters with completely different personalities and looks - as long as they entered the game, the starting point of the player's gender imagination was difficult to get out of this love triangle framework. The two women assisted the protagonist in different places and died at different stages. Such a setting makes the game not only successfully capture male players with heroic dreams, but also successfully attract female players who are eager for romantic love elements. Such a love triangle narrative of two women and one man has always been in the center of the game text of "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" and the promotional animations of the past generations.
The Legend of paladin
In our interviews, several female players have played the Paladin series. When mentioning "Immortal Sword", I shared my feelings about entering the game text world from different angles. Their feelings reflect some of the information: through the combination of embodiment, plot, sound and animation, the game feelings and substitutions created for female players are highly gendered, and female players will follow the text to indulge in the understanding of romantic and poignant love in the game text. One of the interviewees, stressing the depth of the impact of Paladin III on her personally, has spread from pure games to her offline daily life. She said:
RCZ (29 years old, social worker): When I was in junior high school, I played Paladin III to the point of madness. Isn't there a three-minute speech in every language class, and the content of my speech at that time was the word that appeared in the game when Yukimi (the heroine of the story) died to protect the town demon sword. I still remember that song! ("Picking Mulberries and Desolate Snow", "Carved boats far away from the people to return, laughter is not evidenced.") The whispers are gone, and the soul is broken and the old feelings are abandoned. Xuan Bing carved remorse and hatred, and good dreams came to naught. Tearful eyes misty, looking at the spring flowers in the snow. When you play this game, you will be immersed in its storyline, and you will be particularly concerned about oh, the two of them have overcome a lot of difficulties together, it is a pity when Yukimi sacrificed for the male protagonist. You'll be completely plugged in!
Another female player, when mentioning "Paladin Sword", illustrates another side of the game: female players have a deep sense of substitution for the game stand-in, and will participate in the secondary creation of the game text. The in-depth substitution of the game text has become entangled with the trajectory of her life growth, and she believes that her understanding of the game will change at different stages of her life.
LL (27 years old, professional TV series screenwriter): In fact, everyone misunderstood, "Paladin Sword" is not a male game. Although Paladin is a fighting game, I think it actually has a large percentage of female players. As far as I was concerned, when I was playing, I was still young, and then the Xianjian players I knew in elementary school, junior high school, and high school were all girls, and they would write about "Xianjian" on blogs and Weibo.
First Author: What kind of article to write?
LL: The most classic ones, such as Lin Yueru and Zhao Ling'er, who is Li Xiaoyao's favorite, this dispute, are all girls fighting, so "Immortal Sword" should be more games for girls. [......] I've been thinking about these two female characters for years. These two female characters actually represent two very different kinds of women, and a very different gender relationship, two views of love. Zhao Ling'er represents the sacred and inviolable type of beauty, the goddess that men desire; Lin Yueru is not so beautiful, and Li Xiaoyao is a sweet feeling that the two are particularly matched, especially tacit understanding, and especially fun. When most girls play, they will either substitute for the role of Zhao Ling'er or the role of Lin Yueru. The first time I played when I was a child, I especially liked Zhao Ling'er, because she was the first woman to appear and was particularly beautiful, and she felt that Lin Yueru was particularly faceless. But when I was older and in high school, I especially understood that Lin Yueru and Li Xiaoyao were the real love. I would also argue with people on forums. But at this moment of course, I don't care who is the real love, you see I am almost 30 years old now, I now feel that two loves are true love, very beautiful, who said that life can only have a love?
The more recent mobile game "A Smile Is Enchanting" adapted from a popular romance novel also reflects the traditional male and female order, in which the male and female protagonists know each other through online games and develop a relationship in reality. After graduation, the male protagonist started a game company, and the female protagonist silently provided career and emotional support for him behind his back. A similar narrative is also reflected in the women's game "Love and Producer", although the setting of the female playable character is a film and television company producer on the verge of bankruptcy, the story narrative has less ink on how the heroine can turn the tide and run the company, and the romantic relationship between the heroine and the four perfect boyfriends is the core of the game. These games do not challenge the real male and female order, but rather reproduce the existing gender role expectations of society.
Mobile game "A slight smile is very overwhelming"
Another point worth noting is that in Western society after the new millennium, in response to the third wave of feminist movements' criticism of "micropolitics", especially the implicit political representations of gender oppression in popular culture, most of the pure "heroes save beauty" game settings have been adjusted. At the same time, the gaming industry realized that there were more and more women involved in the player base, and female players represented emerging markets with purchasing power, and their needs gradually attracted the attention of the industry. [34] [35]
Since then, the game design has deliberately reversed or adjusted the settings about gender roles. For example, Super Princess Biqi, released by Nintendo in 2005, completely reversed the setting of the Mario series, and Princess Becky became the only playable character to go through the level to save the kidnapped Mario. These subversive textual practices open a new window for us to imagine different game gender relations.
(2) Pornography of game promotion materials
Gender inequality and objectification of women in the peripheral promotional materials of local games are more significant. In the current highly gendered desire Internet economy, different from the mainstream discourse culture of equality between men and women in the socialist period, dominant masculinity is everywhere, male supremacy prevails, and in the male desire picture, women are highly objectified, regarded as dependent, passive existence, and placed in men's private consumption space. [36]
Pop-up advertising of vulgar pornographic content is particularly rampant at the beginning of the Internet era in the mainland, such as "beauty large-scale video resources, hundreds of the latest adult movies", "sexy dealers online card, accompany you to turn the sky" and other pop-up windows,[37] the picture is all graceful and sexy feminine image, coupled with provocative text to attract attention. With the national "sweep pornography and anti-illegality" office, the National Internet Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security to carry out "clean nets" and other special actions to clean up and rectify harmful information on online videos, the advertising chaos of disseminating obscene and pornographic and vulgar information in online pop-up windows has been improved, but the soft pornography of game promotion materials has become more and more popular.
On the one hand, soft attracts more clicks, which translates into greater advertising revenue. For example, in 2013, the hot game "Ninja Shogun" invited The Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa to do an event promotion for the game. The event is a lottery event in cooperation between the "Ninja General" game and the Orange Festival exercise mobile phone, and the slogan is "Ninja will have a discipline exercise, and one second becomes a local tycoon". And Maria Ozawa's promotion and forwarding content is "I want to exercise, who will help me?" Maria Ozawa herself has 2.09 million Weibo followers, and the Weibo has more than 3,300 retweets. [38] This kind of pornographic promotion method of rubbing the edge ball in a roundabout way has aroused heated discussion among netizens.
In addition, inviting popular sexy female stars as game spokespersons has also become a popular trend. In the game's promotional photos and films, the costumes and shapes of female stars are mostly graceful and cool, such as Fan Bingbing's promotional video for the game "Martial Soul" developed by NetEase, which has a large-scale crisp chest and half-exposed and naked back tattoos; [39] The game "Chu Liuxiang", endorsed by Liu Yan, takes "So many 'fierce' in Jiangshan" as the promotional slogan, with the picture for Liu Yan's feminine and proud chest, using "fierce" and "chest" harmonic stems, doing soft pornography marketing. [40] It follows that, both in game design and promotion, male-centric gazes are still prevalent, and women are still objects that are watched, played, and controlled. [41] Game manufacturers use sexy female spokespeople and female non-playable characters as publicity gimmicks and tactics to attract more male players.
In the industry, female soft performances that obey and please men are often seen as welfare and reward male employees. Some Internet companies invite Japanese adult film actresses to perform vulgar games at the annual meeting; in a company party, male employees are sandwiched between their legs, and female employees are required to kneel and open the bottle cap with their mouths, etc. [42], and women appear as objects of obedience, attachment, and pleasing to men. In the game peripheral industry, many female practitioners in order to cater to the desire economy, take the initiative to become female emotional laborers who please men's desires, such as online live broadcasts full of male gaze aesthetics, sweet and lovely female anchors are crisp and half exposed to attract fans, get more tips and fame. [43]
Fifth, female players participate in the game
(1) Second-class players in the mainstream game world
Dissecting in detail the current understanding of female target players in the Western game industry and the portrayal of female characters, Chess (2017) pointed out that although the game industry has noticed more and more female players participating in the game, it is gradually forming an emerging market with purchasing power, and the understanding of female players by game manufacturers still stays in the actual gender stereotype. In mainstream games, "first-class players" are still white middle-class men, and white, heterosexual, cisgender, and able-bodied middle-class women are the second-ranked "second-class players". Other women, including people of color, queer, and disabled women, are more marginal in the game world. [44]
In the mainland game world, in the current mainstream culture of male-dominated games, female players are still on the margins. The status of female "second-class players" is particularly obvious in large-scale, mainstream, competitive online games, and words praising men and insulting women can be seen everywhere in the game community, forming a "chain of contempt" for players. In important mainstream games, many insulting titles have been formed for female players, who are always considered to be not good at the game and drag down the team, such as:
· Upper bitch: refers to the female players who have no strength in "League of Legends", these players can only pray for the help, guidance, and teaming up of highly skilled male players to play qualifying matches and obtain higher rankings by playing petty, selling cuteness, selling feelings or bodies, etc.
Female college students: Literally means "female players who have not yet graduated from college", specifically referring to the female "rookie" players in "Glory of Kings" who drag down the group and can only be used as team assistance.
Lying bitch: In Glory of Kings, after the claim of female college student was questioned and lost its freshness, the insulting word that appeared at the end of 2018 was lying. Among them, "lying" is a pun, on the one hand, it refers to women's low game ability, and they can only win battles by hitchhiking, the so-called "lying to win", on the other hand, it refers to women's passive sexual posture. Both emphasize the inferiority and subordination of women to men. "Bitch" is close to the Meaning of "bitch" in English, which is a popular Chinese Internet term to refer to beautiful but impure women.
Lying Chicken Cute Girl: The title for female players in PUBG. "Absolute" is also known as "eat chicken" because it is similar to the pronunciation of "stimulus" and the slogan "Eat chicken at night" will be displayed on the game's winning page, so the game is commonly known as "eat chicken" in the player community. "Lying chicken" is similar to the meaning of "lying to win" mentioned above, meaning that female players do not have to work too hard, but only need to rely on male players to win. "Lying Chicken Cute Sister" is actually a female-only level nameplate for the game, under the same level, female players will get "Lying Chicken Cute Sister" with sexist nameplates, while male players nameplates are only "Lying Chicken" and do not indicate the corresponding gender.
Due to the large number of players in these popular competitive games, the overall user scale of tens of millions, and the high social influence, the use of these sexist titles has spread to other online games and offline daily life. According to Judith Butler's theory, all of the above are cultural markers based on gender stereotypes. The masculinity of the gangs in mainstream competitive games is repeated through these markers, constantly emphasizing the difference with the weaker player, that is, the female player, that is, the relationship with the other; if a male player does not play well, it will also be called playing like a. [45]
At the same time, another player culture also appears from time to time, which can be summarized as "sister" culture. There are two aspects to the culture of sisterhood: on the one hand, it is believed that male players "lead" female players to play games, or teach women how to play games, which is an indispensable part of the fun of games. The male players we interviewed have their own set of opinions on "what hero is suitable for taking girls", which can be summarized as the hero selected to have overall planning ability and lethality, and must be skilled in operation, so as to "play handsome" and "score fast". The sister-in-law discourse further reinforces the claim that women are weaker than men in the game.
One male interviewee in the interview said that if female players play well, it is mainly because of men leading, he said: "Many women do not have the strength to match the dan position. So why do some players, although they have no strength, are still in higher ranks? Because they have someone to bring. (XP, 35 years old, training institution personnel).
Another aspect of "bringing a sister" refers to the social functions of the game, including male players leading their girlfriends or wives to play, as well as male players meeting strange women in the game world and possibly developing online or offline relationships. In our interviews, some female gamers said they played the game to accompany their boyfriends or husbands, or to be more integrated into the social circle of acquaintances.
Being forcibly "carried" by male players is understood by some female respondents as "sexual harassment" that makes them feel unhappy. In our interviews, 9 female players directly stated that they had been sexually harassed by male players during the game. One of the interviewees said:
I once played a game with one of my female friends, and I met a male player who said, "Brother, I can lead the team, kill one person, and you two little sisters kiss me one by one." My friend and I were so disgusted by him that we scolded him madly while pushing the tower, and when we were done, we went to report him for an "unhealthy game."
Another interviewee said that because she knew that there would be a lot of sexual harassment by male players in the game, she chose to play the male trumpet (manipulating the male player character), saying that "from now on the ear root is clean." Although such a "gender-masking" strategy can effectively reduce the sexual harassment of men during the game, it inadvertently strengthens the concept that "the game is a masculine space, and women are still a minority",[46] forming a "silent spiral", that is, when the sexual harassment in the game intensifies and the game is filled with hostile, super-masculine players, the voices of other parties will be more easily covered up. [47]
There are also female respondents who believe that being "carried" by male players is a gender dividend. Like what:
CL (23, graduate student): I haven't been called a "female college student." On the contrary, several times, when I talked to strangers, they would be very patient when they knew that I was a girl. After winning, I will add my friends and chat with me when it is over. They should be trying to seduce me (flirt with me), hahaha. I have added WeChat friends to such men, and they often take me to fight until now.
In general, the "sister culture" repeats the statement that women are not as good as men from both game skills and social attributes, and is wrapped in the words that women belong to the words that need to be cared for, cared for and led by men.
Sexism in games occurs not only in the context of everyday entertainment players, but also in the international e-sports industry where professional players gather. The number of male and female professional players participating in e-sports is very different, super-first-class female professional players are rare, and the survival and development space of female players is small, which can be seen from the recruitment standards of male and female professional players in the electronic team, and the team often has special requirements for the appearance and height of female players. Taking the League of Legends team recruitment requirements as an example, the requirements for female players are more than that of male players: "Talents such as 165+ height, good facial features, singing and dancing are preferred.". [48] In the field of e-sports, which celebrates the supremacy of technology and "food is the original sin", excellent female professional players are still criticized even if they achieve the same professional standards as male players and achieve the same or even more dazzling professional achievements.
(2) Women to the kryptonite household in the game
As more and more female gamers join the gamer queue, "feminine" games that specifically cater to the female gamer market have also emerged. As a new genre of games, "Female Xiang" games (Japanese: 女向けゲー) position female players as the only target market. In order to win the female player market, game manufacturers consciously adjust the setting of gender roles in the game, increase positive female characters, with independent and powerful, full of ability, attractive but not overexposed and other excellent qualities. Japan was the first country to promote women-oriented games, followed by South Korea, and China's local women-oriented games were deeply influenced by Japan and South Korea in design and were still in the early stages of development.
The current local women's game mainly includes three categories. First, ordinary women are oriented, that is, simple puzzle games and casual games suitable for women to play, such as "Everyday Love Elimination" developed by Tencent, "Happy Elimination" of Music Elements, "Miracle Warmth" and "Shine Warm Warmth" developed by Paper Folding Games. Second, Otome, that is, a male-female love simulation game. Otome games have developed rapidly in recent years, and after the success of "Love and Producer" in 2017, there have been many follow-up works in the market, and major manufacturers have developed Otome games. Third, Tammy Direction, that is, a male-male love simulation game, players can bring in the male playable character perspective or God perspective, and start a virtual love affair with other male characters in the game. Both Otome and Tammy games are characterized by high consumption.
Happy Elements of "Happy Fun"
It is worth noting that the positioning and promotion of women to the game is generally a marketing strategy that caters to gender stereotypes and romantic love fantasies of heterosexual women, rather than a social movement that wants to promote gender equality. [49] In the design of female-oriented games, the design of male characters, most of the male characters in Western games are designed as muscular, powerful and masculine images, showing typical masculinity. Film and television products in Japan and South Korea are very different from women's games, and the gender signs of male characters are very vague and ambiguous. They usually have a feminine and delicate appearance, beautiful and lean lines, elegant taste, gentle and considerate temperament. Such men are called "bishounen" in Japanese, "kkonminam" in Korean, and referred to in mainland China by the Internet buzzword "small fresh meat". [50] The male image of small fresh meat highlights the feminine or neutral temperament, deliberately de-violent, weakens the masculine atmosphere, and strengthens the gentle and considerate temperament to cater to the tastes of female consumers. [51] [52]
These characteristics are reflected in the design of "The Star Of Counterattack", such as the design of the male protagonist, the three male protagonists are handsome and feminine youths, all with caring, caring for women, and family-centered qualities. [53] [54] The three men know how to speak sweetly or express their romantic feelings through actions, and they can always help the heroine at key points, and are even willing to risk sacrifice for her. The beautiful shape design of the three male characters reflects the extreme objectification and aestheticization of men from the perspective of female desire. The elaborate design and choreography attracts a large number of female players, who are emotionally satisfied by romantic interactions with virtual males in the game, and are therefore willing to pay for the game. The interaction between the heroine and the three male protagonists follows the antagonistic relationship between the female and the weak/the male is the savior, which belongs to the classic "Mary Sue" plot setting. [55] From the very beginning, the heroine entered the entertainment industry by chance to become an artist, in a dilemma of no experience and no resources, and constantly encountered challenges and troubles in the process of plot advancement, and the three male protagonists helped the heroine at different key moments. No matter what weaknesses the heroine shows in her personality or ability, it will not shake the three men's admiration for her.
In these female works, the male body is a symbolic object in the context of consumption, and female consumers gaze at and view it, thus obtaining spiritual and sensory pleasure. [56] Around the female-oriented game, a "power for love" fan culture with female players as the main force came into being. In the creation and consumption of fans around the world, the number of women has an overwhelming advantage. Female players usually take the interest as the starting point and voluntarily devote time and energy to emotional labor, such as reconstructing and adapting the original game text in fan fiction, comics, songs, videos, role playing (cosplay), etc., independently interpreting symbols, and reconstructing situations outside the game. Nakamura (2015) points out that women's unpaid labor in the digital space out of their own interests is actually a "passion project", and there is actually a layer of meaning behind this concept: women who want to get pleasure from the things they love must pay unpaid emotional labor, and even need to participate in secondary creation and consumption at their own expense." Cheap female labor is the engine that drives the internet." [57]
Many game manufacturers hold fan events to guide players to create secondary works, bring them free and continuous exposure, improve their influence, attract female players to pay out of their own pockets, and "generate electricity for love". In recent years, the most eye-catching female players participating in sexual activities at their own expense is the 2018 "Love and Producer" fans wrapped up the LED screen of Shenzhen Kingkey 100 Building at their own expense, and scrolled to play birthday wishes for the virtual character Li Zeyan. According to a person familiar with Weibo, the birthday celebration was not officially controlled, but was independently initiated by Li Zeyan fans of "Love and Producer" across the country, and the crowdfunding amount was as high as one million yuan. In addition, the player's participatory activities do not only stay at the level of publicity, they also participate in public welfare activities, doing public welfare in the name of virtual idols. These examples of bold consumption for games all reflect that in contemporary China, with consumption desire as the core, the consumption strength and willingness of female players, the imagination of fictional male characters and romantic love are rising exponentially. The free emotional labor of female players has won greater exposure for the game, expanded the popularity of the game, and helped the game manufacturers to tap potential customers to some extent.
Conclusion: The second sex in the game world
Previous achievements in the field of gender media research have pointed out that the information disseminated in the mass media carries many norms about gender performance, stereotypes the character image of gender temperament, and creates a knowledge gap between genders. Internet communication further encases these norms and gaps in its powerful social forces. Different from other forms of Internet communication, this new media carrier of video games has a higher degree of simulation, sense of substitution and deep sociality, and brings the internal character image and social relationships of the game to the real world through the offline fan economy. This paper attempts to use the feminist qualitative media critique method, through long-term participatory observation and in-depth interviews, to focus on how the gender order can construct the territory of contemporary video games through game design and development, text online, and player participation.
This paper finds that due to the need for capital expansion and market growth, the design and development of games, text familiarity, and player engagement are deeply embedded in the current gender structure. When it comes to design and development, gender inequality is significant, men account for the vast majority of developers, and important research and development jobs are always filled by men. The main "golden father" of video games is the main object of game development and customer service, which also determines that in the current local mainstream game text, the storyline, character settings, game rules and promotional materials are deeply embedded in the framework of strong men and weak women, dominated by male desire. Within this framework, the sexually suggestive objectification of female soft pornography has always been an important component of the video game economy, carrying enormous commercial value. When it comes to game participation, female players in large, mainstream, and competitive online games participate in the game as second-class players. In large competitive games, although the absolute number of female players has approached the same as that of male players, the game as a whole still exhibits characteristics related to stereotyped masculinity, including aggression, competitiveness, and contempt for the weak. The mainstream gaming community is plagued by a variety of unsightly terms and phrases used by dwarfed female and underage players. Female players automatically bring in the status of "second-class players", or recognize male dominance in exchange for "being brought" experience, or are willing to accompany male partners to play.
Also driven by the need for capital expansion and market growth (rather than the social ideal of gender equality), the spending power of female high-end users has been commercially recognized. In this logic, although the emerging women's games are mainly aimed at female players, they still have a marketing strategy that caters to gender stereotypes and women's romantic love fantasies. Many games target the spending power and secondary creative ability of female gamers for game development and marketing. In the female game, the male always appears as the image of the perfect, virtual ideal male partner, and the fun of the female player's game comes from appreciating, distinguishing and sorting the sexy order and care quality of the male non-playable character. Like all readers of the Mary Sue genre, female players wander between sober objectification and the fanaticism of appreciating men and indulging offline fanaticism. The ideal male lover does not bring egalitarian or transcend the imagination of class and gender relations, but rather reaffirms that men's high class nature can bring wealth to women, and men must be strong to protect women's gender presuppositions.
In summary, this paper is an exploratory attempt to identify key issues in the emerging research area of video game gender research. Due to word limits, this article does not fully cover the complex gender issues of the video game world. We also found in our research that the assumption that men are strong and female is weak is not completely free of gaps and cracks, and there are also a small number of female players who think that men are impulsive and focus on playing handsome but play badly. In addition, we have also noticed that "video games" are a field of great differences, and games rely on the community of players and divide them through boundaries to form a very different game culture. Within many role-playing gaming communities, there are many gender substitution practices and same-sex fandom subcultures that are actively challenging the stubborn mainstream gender culture. This article only throws bricks and stones, and looks forward to continuing to discuss relevant issues with colleagues in the academic community and industry.
exegesis:
[1] Niko Partners, China Market Model Half-Year Update, November 2018, http://nikopartners.com/china-games-market-model/, 29 October 2020.
[2] The following text uses "gender" to refer to "gender", that is, the sociocultural practices of femininity, masculinity, motherhood, heterosexuality, marriage and family that have developed based on differences in gender roles, which are different from biological sex.
[3] He Xiao and Wang Zheng, "Chinese History: A Useful Category of Gender Analysis," Social Sciences, No. 12, 2008.
[4] Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, “Critical discourse analysis,” Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction, vol. 2, 1997,pp. 357-378.
[5] Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, “Critical discourse analysis,” Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction, vol. 2, 1997,pp. 357-378.
[6] Myra Macdonald, Exploring media discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
[7] You Jianming, "Listening to Their Voices: Methods of Women's Oral History and the Use of Oral History," Taipei: Left Bank Culture, 2002.
[8] Among them, a comparative analysis of the female gamer experience of "Glory of the King" and "Love and Producer" has been published, as detailed in the article "From Non-player Characters to Otherized Participants: Game Experience in China's Female Digital Market" (Liu & Lai, 2020).
[9] Cao Dianyuan, "Interpretation of Social Role Theory on Adolescent Online Game Behavior", Journal of Henan Normal University, No. 6, 2007.
[10] Zhou Guilin, "The Influence Mechanism of Role-Playing Online Games on the Socialization of Adolescents", Heilongjiang Social Sciences, No. 6, 2009.
[11] Huang Shaohua, "The Influence of Online Game Awareness on Online Game Behavior: A Case Study of Young Netizens", Journal of Journalism and Communication, No. 2, 2009.
[12] Zhou Baohua, "An Empirical Study on the Use and Evaluation of New Media for the New Generation of Migrant Workers in Shanghai", Journalism University, No. 2, 2011.
[13] Danhong Zhu, Ziqiang Wu, lingfei Huang, "Social Interaction and Identity in Online Games", Journal of Lanzhou University, No. 5, 2013.
[14] Wu Xiaoling, "Research on the Consumption Behavior of Online Games of the New Generation of Migrant Workers", Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University (Social Science Edition), No. 3, 2012.
[15] Yana Liu and Yingtong Gao, "On the Impact of Online Games on Young People's Legal Awareness", Educational Research, No. 4, 2013.
[16] Su Yihui, "Online Games and the Formation of Low-Level Youth Subculture: A Case Study of Students at C City A School", Social Development Research, No. 1, 2017.
[17] Zhang Gehao, "Digital Kung Fu: Pose Phenomenology of Fighting Games," International Press, No. 5, 2018.
[18] Liu Tingting, "Online Games as a Dating Platform: A Critical Analysis of QQ Dance," Sociological Review, No. 3, 2017.
[19] Shanshan and Mei Mengdi, "Interactive Behavior and Identity of Young Women in Online Games: An Empirical Study Based on Users", Southeast Communication, No. 1, 2018.
[20] Liang Weike, Yang Huayan, Liang Weijing, "Female Youth in the Subcultural Practice of Digital Games: From Female Game Characters, Female Players to Female Game Anchors", China Youth Studies, No. 3, 2017.
[21] Sara Ahmed, “A phenomenology of whiteness,” Feminist theory, vol.8, no.2, 2007, pp. 149-168.
[22] Ergin Bulut, “White Masculinity, Creative Desires, and Production Ideology in Video Game Development,” Games and Culture, vol. 0, no.0, 2020, pp. 1-13.
[23] Shira Chess, Ready player two: women gamers and designed identity,Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
[24] Megan Condis, Gaming masculinity: Trolls, fake geeks, and the gendered battle for online culture, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018.
[25] Robin Johnson, “Technomasculinity and its influence in video game production,” in Nicholas Taylor and Gerald Voorhees eds., Masculinities in play, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018, pp. 249-262.
[26] International Game Developers Association, Developer Satisfaction Survey 2019 Summary Report, United States: International Game Developers Association, 2019.
[27] Gamma Data: Women's Game Report, May 28, 2018, https://gameinstitute.qq.com/community/detail/124969, last inquiry date: October 28, 2020.
[28] Liepin.com: Description of the Responsibilities of Game Engine R&D Engineers, https://www.liepin.com/jobsyouxiyanfagongchengshi/ September 1, 2020, last inquiry date: October 28, 2020.
[29] Rusel DeMaria and Johnny Wilson,High Score: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games. 1st ed, New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2002.
[30] Entertainment Capital: "Visiting companies: 70% of female employees, the door was broken by film and television companies", February 8, 2018, https://36kr.com/p/1722263633921, last inquiry time: October 28, 2020.
[31] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen,”Screen, vol.16, no.3, 1975, pp. 6-18.
[32] T.L.Taylor, Play between worlds: exploring online game culture, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2006.
[33] Marsha Kinder, Playing with power in movies, television, and video games: from Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Berkeley: University of California Press,1991, pp.1-38.
[34] Shira Chess, Ready player two: women gamers and designed identity,Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
[35] Brenda Laurel, Utopian entrepreneur, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2001.
[36] Pan Lingling, Wu Jing, "Spying on the Internet of Desire: A History of Erotic Cultural Change in China's Cyberspace," International Press, No. 2, 2020.
[37] Detailed image of pop-up ads is http://image2.sina.com.cn/dy/c/2004-11-25/1101338931_Ita4WE.jpg, last inquired on November 26, 2020.
[38] For details, see Maria Ozawa's Weibo post on October 31, 2013.
https://www.weibo.com/2669568935/AgzVnzAoJ?from=page_1006052669568935_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment, last inquiry date: November 26, 2020.
[39] For details, see the promotional video of Fan Bingbing's endorsement game "Martial Soul", https://v.qq.com/x/page/s0186336x7j.html, and the last query time: November 26, 2020.
[40] For details, see the advertisement for Liu Yan's endorsement game Chu Liuxiang New Biography, https://www.sohu.com/a/127299923_422254, and last inquiry time: November 26, 2020.
[41] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen,”Screen, vol.16, no.3, 1975, pp. 6-18.
[42] A company's annual meeting vulgar performance report, See September 1, https://old.marketing-interactive.com/%E8%85%BE%E8%AE%AF%E4%B8%BA%E5%86%85%E9%83%A8%E5%B9%B4%E4%BC%9A%E4%B8%8D%E9%9B%85%E6%B8%B8%E6%88%8F%E6%AD%A3%E5%BC%8F%E9%81%93%E6%AD%89/,2020 。
[43] Female network anchors usually attract viewers with sexy bodies and feminine postures, playing pornography and rubbing edge balls, see http://lushi.163.com/12018/, last inquiry time: November 26, 2020.
[44] Shira Chess, Ready player two: women gamers and designed identity,Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
[45] Judith Butler, Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex, New York: Routledge, 2011, pp.1-21.
[46] Wen Song and Jesse Fox, “Playing for Love in a Romantic Video Game:
Avatar Identification, Parasocial Relationships, and Chinese Women's Romantic Beliefs,” Mass
Communication and Society, vol.19, no.2, 2016, pp. 197-215.
[47] Rosa Mikeal Marteya, Jennifer Stromer-Galleyb, Jaime Banks, Jingsi Wu, Mia Consalvo, “The strategic female: gender-switching and player behavior in online games,” Information, Communication & Society, vol. 17, no.3, 2014, pp. 286-300.
[48] BB Ji Studio: "'Supposedly' Neglected Esports Female Contestants", January 17, 2019, https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv1880477/, last inquiry date: November 26, 2020.
[49] Hyeshin Kim, “Women’s Games in Japan: Gendered Identity and Narrative Construction,” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 26, no. 2-3, 2009, pp.165-188.
[50] Xin Wang, Chris KK Tan and Yao Wei, “Gaymi: Emergent masculinities and straight women’s friendships with gay male best friends in Jinan, China,” Sexualities, vol. 22, no.5-6, 2019, pp. 901-915.
[51] Michelle Clough, “Sexualization, Shirtlessness, and Smoldering Gazes: Desire and the Male Character,” in Heidi McDonald, ed.,Digital Love: Romance and Sexuality in Games（1st ed.）, New York: A K Peters/CRC Press, 2017, pp. 3-36.
[52] Gong Jie, "Masculinity and Production consumption of "small fresh meat" in the all-media era", Contemporary Film, No. 8, 2017.
[53] Monica Liu, “Devoted, caring, and home loving: A Chinese portrayal of Western masculinity in transnational cyberspace romance,” Men and Masculinities, vol. 22, no. 2, 2019, pp. 317-337.
[54] Karla Elliott, “Caring masculinities: Theorizing an emerging concept,” Men and masculinities, vol. 19, no.3, 2016, pp. 240-259.
[55] Camille Bacon-Smith, Enterprising women: Television fandom and the creation of popular myth, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
[56] Liu Di, "Interpretation of Male Body Consumption in Korean Dramas", Communication and Copyright, No. 6, 2016.
[57] Lisa Nakamura, “The unwanted labour of social media: Women of colour call out culture as venture community management,” New Formations, vol. 86, no. 86, 2015, pp. 106-112.