Cover not available
Part of
Influencer Discourse: Affective relations and identities
Edited by Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Alexandra Georgakopoulou
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 349] 2024
► pp. 43–74

Chapter 2
The divided affective connections with the influencer

Teacher Guo and fans’ digital carnival on Douyin

| Tilburg University
This study explores the multimodal Chinese language discourses of an emerging type of influencers on the short video platform Douyin, the domestic counterpart of TikTok in Mainland China. Their hilarious performance is scornfully celebrated for vulgarity and absurdity. In public discussions, they are described as “pretending craziness and selling stupidity”. The analysis takes “Teacher Guo” as an example. Her funny, awkward and obscene performance, and audiences’ participation in China’s heavily regulated online space inspire the current study to adopt the theoretical lens of carnival. The study examines how audiences’ affective connections with Teacher Guo manifest through both the influencer’s and the audience’s carnivalesque semiotic practices. Findings show that Teacher Guo performs a vulgar and obscene image through her grotesque body and comic language. Audiences’ negative affective connection with her results from rejecting such social transgression: the vulgarity and obscenity are considered as a bad object in today’s wanghong culture. In contrast, the positive connection with Teacher Guo is manifested through the carnivalesque participation by those who temporarily transgress the norms of being serious, positive and polite online, thus conducting light-hearted cultural resistance with mischievous fun.
Keywords: influencer, wanghong, Douyin, carnival, mock impoliteness, platform content moderation, digital ethnography
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
    • 2.1Wanghong culture in China
    • 2.2The affective connections between audiences and media figures
    • 2.3Carnival and its digital manifestations
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • Teacher Guo’s performance of grotesque body
    • Teacher Guo’s comic verbal composition and the audience’s mimetic uptake
    • The audience’s mock abusive comments
    • Frontstaging the content moderation practices of the platform
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (38)
References
Abidin, Crystal. 2018. Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame online. Emerald Group Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and his world. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, Ying Lu, and Kunming Li. 2021. “From the Self to the Selfie.” In Non-Western Identity, First Online: 233–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bond, Bradley J. 2016. “Following your ‘Friend’: Social Media and the Strength of Adolescents’ Parasocial Relationships with Media Personae.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 19 (11), 656–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Wengang. 2004. “滑稽之美学品格新论 [A new discussion on the aesthetic characteristics of huaji.]”. 石油大学学报社会科学版 [Journal of University of Petroleum Social Science Edition], 2004(3): 82–86Google Scholar
Chen, Xu, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, and Jing Zeng. 2021. “# PositiveEnergy Douyin: Constructing ‘Playful Patriotism’ in a Chinese Short-video Application.” Chinese Journal of Communication 14(1): 97–117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Craig, David, Lin Jian, and Stuart, Cunningham. 2021. Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. “Towards an anatomy of impoliteness.” Journal of pragmatics 25 (3): 349–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. “Impoliteness and Entertainment in the Television Quiz Show: The Weakest Link.” The Journal of Politeness Research 1(1): 35–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, Stuart, David Craig, and Junyi Lv. 2019. “China’s Livestreaming Industry: Platforms, Politics, and Precarity.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 22(6): 719–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Díaz-Cintas, Jorge. 2018. “‘Subtitling’s a carnival’: New practices in cyberspace.” Jostrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation 30: 127–149.Google Scholar
Dibble, Jayson L., Tilo Hartmann, and Sarah F. Rosaen. 2016. “Parasocial Interaction and Parasocial Relationship: Conceptual Clarification and a Critical Assessment of Measures.” Human Communication Research 42 (1): 21–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duffett, Mark. 2013. Understanding fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture. Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Gray, Jonathan. 2003. “New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-fans and Non-fans.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6(1): 64–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. “How do I dislike thee? Let me Count the Ways.” In Anti-fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age, ed.by Melissa Click, 25–41. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Guo, Mengjun. 2018. “Playfulness, Parody, and Carnival: Catchphrases and Mood on the Chinese Internet from 2003 to 2015.” Communication and the Public 3 (2): 134–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herold, David Kurt. “Human Flesh Search Engines: Carnivalesque Riots as Components of a ‘Chinese democracy’”. In Online Society in China, eds by David K. Herold and Peter Marolt, 139–157. New York: Routledge.
Hills, Matt. “From Para-social to Multisocial Interaction.” In A Companion to Celebrity, eds by Marshall, P. David and Redmond, Sean, 463–482. Malden: Wiley Blackwell.
Hung, Jason. 2022. “Hukou System Influencing the Structural, Institutional Inequalities in China: The Multifaceted Disadvantages Rural Hukou Holders Face.” Social Sciences 11(5) 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huxia. 2020, June 24. Live-streaming Platforms Reprimanded for Disseminating Vulgar Content. Xinhunet. [URL]
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, Nancy, and Meryl Alper. 2016. “Young Children’s Positive and Negative Parasocial Relationships with Media Characters.” 33(2): 96–102.Google Scholar
Jones, Rodney H., Alice Chik, and Christoph A. Hafner. 2015. Discourse and Digital Practices. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Khamis, Susie, Ang, Lawrence, and Welling, Raymond. 2017. “Self-branding,‘Micro-celebrity’ and the Rise of Social Media Influencers.” Celebrity Studies 8(2): 191–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Jian, and Jeroen de Kloet. 2019. “Platformization of the Unlikely Creative Class: Kuaishou and Chinese Digital Cultural Production.” Social Media+ Society. 5(4): 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, Kevin Ziyu. 2020. “From Invisible to Visible: Kwai and the Hierarchical Cultural Order of China’s Cyberspace.” Global Media and China 5(1): 69–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Paul Pablo, and Valerie R. Renegar. 2007. “The Man for His Time” The Big Lebowski as Carnivalesque Social Critique.” Communication Studies 58(3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McLean, Polly Bugros, and David Wallace. 2013. “Blogging the unspeakable: Racial politics, Bakhtin, and the carnivalesque.” International Journal of Communication 7: 20.Google Scholar
Olbrys, Stephen Gencarella. 2006. “Disciplining the Carnivalesque: Chris Farley’s Exotic Dance.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. 3(3): 240–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Santaoja, Minna, and Piia Jallinoja. 2021. “Food out of its usual rut. Carnivalesque online veganism as political consumerism.” Geoforum 126: 59–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tovares, Alla V. 2018. “Trolling as creative insurgency: The carnivalesque delegitimization of Putin and his supporters in online newspaper commentary.” Discourses of (De) Legitimization, eds by Andrew S. Ross, Damian J. Rivers, 228–247. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2021. “Online Political Trolling as Bakhtin’s Carnival: Putin’s ‘Discrowning’ by Pro-Ukrainian Commenters.” Approaches to Discourse Analysis, ed by Cynthia Gordon, 159–174. Georgetown University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Varis, Piia. 2016. “Digital Ethnography.” The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, ed by Alexandra Geogakopoulou and Tereza Spilioti, 55–68. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williams, Gemma A. 2021, September 3. China’s Latest Cancellation Catapults TikToker to Face. Jing Daily. [URL]
Xu, Jian, and Xinyu Zhao. “Changing Platformativity of China’s Female Wanghong: from Anni Baobei to Zhang Dayi. 2019.” In Female Celebrities in Contemporary Chinese Society, ed. by Shenshen Cai, 127–158. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan
Xu, Yang, Vanden Abeele, Marieke, Hou, Mingyi, and Antheunis, Marjolijn. 2023. “>Do parasocial relationships with micro-and mainstream celebrities differ? An empirical study testing four attributes of the parasocial relationship.“ Celebrity Studies 14(3): 366–386.Google Scholar
Zhang, Ge, and Gabriele de Seta. 2018. “Being ‘Red’ on the Internet.” In Microcelebrity around the Globe. ed. by Crystal Abidin. and Megan L. Brown. 57–67. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zulli, Diana, and David James Zulli. 2020. “Extending the Internet Meme: Conceptualizing Technological Mimesis and Imitation Publics on the TikTok Platform.” New Media & Society. First Online: 1–19.Google Scholar