Digital Media and Radical Politics in Postsocialist China
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ DIGITAL EPHEMERALITY: DIGITAL MEDIA AND RADICAL POLITICS IN POSTSOCIALIST CHINA A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in FEMINIST STUDIES by Yizhou Guo June 2020 The Dissertation of Yizhou Guo is approved: __________________________ Professor Neda Atanasoski, co-chair __________________________ Professor Lisa Rofel, co-chair __________________________ Professor Xiao Liu __________________________ Professor Madhavi Murty __________________________ Quentin Williams Acting Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Yizhou Guo 2020 Table of Contents List Of Figures And Tables IV Abstract V Acknowledgements V Introduction: Digital Ephemerality: Digital Media And Radical Politics In Postsocialist China 1 Chapter One: Queer Future In The Ephemeral: Sexualizing Digital Entertainment And The Promise Of Queer Insouciance 60 Chapter Two: Utopian In The Ephemeral: ‘Wenyi’ As Postsocialist Digital Affect 152 Chapter Three: Livestreaming Reality: Nonhuman Beauty And The Digital Fetishization Of Ephemerality 225 Epilogue: Thinking Of Digital Lives And Hopes In The Era Of The Pandemic And Quarantine 280 Bibliography 291 iii List of Figures and Tables Figure 1-1 Two Frames From The Television Zongyi Happy Camp (2015) 91 Figure 1-2 Color Wheel Of Happy Camp’s Opening Routine 91 Figure 1-3 Four Frames From The Internet Zongyi Let’s Talk (2015) 92 Figure 1- 4 Color Wheel Of The Four Screenshots From Figure 1.3 94 Figure 1-5 Let’s Talk Season One 95 Figure 1-6 Let’s Talk, Season 2, Episode 4 (1) 102 Figure 1-7 Let’s Talk, Season 2, Episode 4 (2) 102 Figure 1-8 Screenshot From Bilibili.Com 106 Figure 1-9 Let’s Talk, Season 1, Episode 5 (1) 111 Figure 1-10 Let’s Talk, Season 1, Episode 5 (2) 111 Figure 1-11 Let’s Talk, Season 1, Episode 5, With The Danmu Feature Turned On (1) (Access In August 15, 2019) 113 Figure 1-12 Let’s Talk, Season 1, Episode 5, With The Danmu Feature Turned On (2) (Access In August 15, 2019) 113 Table 2.1 Top 20 Of Films Tagged “Wenyi” On Douban Film Page 165 Figure 2-1 When A Registered User Clicks The “Watched” Button On A Film Page 177 Figure 2-2 The Author’s Douban Profile Page (Full Screen Mode) 184 Table 2.2 Douban Scores For Chen And Zhang Cinematography By Year 196 Figure 3-1 The Frontpage Of Inke Livestreaming Version 8.0 (Acquired March 26, 2020). 2707 Figure 3-2 The Frontpage Of Pepper Livestreaming Version 7.2 (Acquired March 26, 2020). 270 Figure 3-3 Screenshot Of A Livestreaming Booth Interface From Inke Livestreaming (Acquired March 26, 2020) 271 Figure 3-4 On-Screen Reality Vs. Off-Screen Reality (1) (Zou 2016) 274 Figure 3-5 On-Screen Reality Vs. Off-Screen Reality (2) (A Zhu Wu Wang Gao Nai Weng 2019) 278 Figure 3-6 On-Screen Reality Vs. Off-Screen Reality (3) (Zhang 2019) 278 Figure 4-1 Singer 2020, Episode 3. Television Screen Is Divided Into Small Screens. 283 iv Abstract Digital Ephemerality: Digital Media and RadiCal PolitiCs in Postsocialist China by Yizhou Guo Digital Ephemerality: Digital Media and Radical Politics in Postsocialist China visits three youth digital sites in contemporary China to explore the boundary and potentiality of our knowledge about politics in the digital time, precisely what counts as political desires, activities, and futurities in the condition of the postsocialist digital sphere. Analytically, I engage the concept of digital ephemerality, or the postsocialist temporal experience of historical lightness, present absence, and disjointed reality in the digital sphere that Chinese youth, in particular, the generation of youth that I term the postsocialist youth, has vividly felt, engaged and lived. Tracking the collective experience and affect of postsocialist youth about such ephemeral temporality on three digital sites, i.e., an online entertainment program, an interest-based film review website, and a virtual space of influencer economy, I pay special attention to those digital archives that were treated as redundant or disposable. Through collecting, engaging and interpreting with these surplus digital materials, I focus on how these postsocialist digital spheres premise alternative imaginaries of politics that a dichotomous confrontational discourse of resistance against the authoritarian state— a discourse of political that possesses the mainstream form of resistant politics— cannot afford to envision. v Acknowledgements Six years ago, I had zero idea about what an unforgettable life journey was lying in front of me. Looking back at this moment, when I am staring at this hundred-pages dissertation flickering on my laptop screen, all I can think are those people who have been there for me through this journey. Without the love, mentorship, and friendship of these precious people in my life, I would never reach this point. I would not have the privilege to invest six years of my life to reading, thinking, exploring and dreaming without the unconditional love from my parents Lao Guo and Lao Xu, especially my dearest mom, who has been there for me all the time and who is always ready to cheer me up with all the kind words she can think about. Without her “biased” belief on me, I would never survive those moments of life crisis and remain a whole piece. Mama, I will forever be your 妈宝. I am indebted to my great mentors. I am especially grateful for my dear advisor Prof. Neda Atanasoski, a mentor every graduate student would ever dream of having. Thank you for all the intellectual mentorship and warm caring you’ve given me these years. This dissertation would not have developed into anything without your mentorship. I am also grateful for Prof. Lisa Rofel, whose close reading of my work and whose critique of postsocialist China have helped me in framing and navigating my interventions and argumentations. Prof. Madhavi Murty shows me the critical power of teaching. And I have gained so many precious insights and inspirations from our lunch conversations, when you show me, every time, how to vi transform my “grumblings” about diasporic experiences into a radical critique of geopolitics and neoliberalism. I am also thankful to Prof. Xiao Liu, whose works on the postsocialist information society have inspired me since the beginning and who generously joins my dissertation committee. I depend on friendship as a way of life. I am thankful for my UCSC comrades’ support, both emotionally and intellectually. I thank Evelien for making my first year in the U.S. less scary; Kyu and Faye for our “East Asian/queer/cute scholar gang”; and Jen for lending me her excellent expertise in editing and polishing. Also, I thank the precious friendships I have received from Wang Daye, Jinsha, Melanie, Chi, Xiaozhang, Doru and Niuniu & Xiaomei. These six years of my life would not be that memorable and inspirational without you. Last but not least, I own a deep debt to my dear partner, Missy. I feel ecstatic and will continue to feel the same way for the rest of my life that all those magic coincidences have destined our encounter. Thank you for teaching me to be strong and independent (and spoiling me when I’m not ready to be strong and independent). And thank you for trust in me no matter what. I am so lucky to have you in my life. And I am grateful for all those feelings of insecurity, precarity, angst, uncertainty, irresolution, cynicism, and disillusionment I have gone through and more or less obsessed with all these years. Only at this point I would find out how they have transformed into all these pieces of words in the following pages, and how cracks have brought lights to the world. vii Introduction — Digital Ephemerality: Digital Media and Radical Politics in Postsocialist China On one episode of the Chinese idol-training show1 Youth with You (qing chun you ni), one participant, a 25-year-old woman who was a well-known Internet influencer before the show, confessed her anxiety about being forgotten: “I think an influencer’s career is quite fragile. I don’t know when everyone will stop paying attention to me, stop watching me, or stop liking me” (iQiyi 2020). Feeling insecure about her potentially fading fame, she came to the show with the aspiration of finding more solid and long-lasting attention. Ideally, the young woman would achieve her goal by becoming one of the nine finalists out of one hundred and nine competitors, all girls and young. Judging from this ratio, the chance of her achieving this ultimate goal was low. The survival logic of these talent shows is cruel: you either become the winner, or you are nobody. Unlike conventional talent shows, however, this idol-training show offers a quite different mechanism of attention that can enable young women such as the former influencer to achieve their goal of being seen, liked, and remembered. 1 The idol training show craze in China is a spinoff of the K-pop entertainment genre, a new form of the talent show genre that appeared and became popular in the Chinese digital entertainment industry within the last two years. Typically, a show like this features the process of “idol cultivation,” or the process of audience witnessing young idol-wannabes pursuing their goals by participating in and surviving a painstaking training camp, public performance competition, and multiple rounds of evaluation and elimination. See Kim 2011; Zhang 2019). 1 Instead of emphasizing one’s professional ability regarding a specified talent as conventional talent shows usually do, with the help of digital technology, this new genre of entertainment shows prefers a person’s likeability over his or her skill and focuses on audience participation over the opinions of professionals.