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The internet is where trans people have come to become. Creating an identity in digital space can be important for how trans people learn about themselves, their communities, and the possibilities available to them. While the internet and digital space is not the only way of coming to understand oneself in a community, it is a space of liberatory possibility and creativity. There is room to invent what may not yet exist for gender on the edges of what many consider to be \"real.\" For many, digital life can be the site of play, joy, and connection –even while the internet is not a harm-free space nor universally available. This book seeks to understand the complexities at play in the digital realm and the implications that have for gender, digital life, and higher education.

This paper focuses on international sports personality in figure staking Yuzuru Hanyu, who plays for Japan, and his transnational fandoms in China, to examine the politicisation of his evolving fandom during and after his performance at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Our contribution is to illustrate the value of analysing fandoms in the Chinese social media as a method that seeks to advance a decolonised approach to communication studies. This study uses digital ethnography to collect data and conducts critical thematic analysis to illustrate the complexity of socially mediated fandom debates and flames. Consulting interdisciplinary literature in sports fandom and communication, athletic branding, and political communication, we propose a fresh critical approach to Chinese communication studies, which we have conceptualised as “fandom as method.” We offer a case study to illustrate this critical approach, which we argue is a contribution to decolonising scholarship by promoting inclusivity of alternative approaches, in communication studies in the global south. “Fandom as method” can excavate new terrain, rather than simply adding to West-centric theoretical advances. Findings underscore that critically analysing the complex interplay between fans, anti-fans, and the authorities through “fandom as method” can reveal previously undetected communication patterns. More importantly, fandom as method can help us interrogate the nuances of communications situated within complex, dynamic, evolving patriotic and nationalistic social media discourses. This approach helps to explicate opaque clashes of “mainstremeist belief and action” in the name of patriotism and nationalism which, in the Chinese context, are subject to intervention from the authorities as the ultimate other. It reveals how social media activity politicises a sports personality, a fandom trend that seems likely to spill over into other spheres of the entertainment industry.

K-pop fans are widely known to use social media as a platform for their activities. Over the years, they have built online communities, which are called fandoms. K-pop fandoms are zealous in fandom activities that some abused were detected, such as spreading false news and provocating fandom wars. These could potentially lead to cyberbullying and damage the quality of online social interaction. The fans are not careful about their actions as they are using the online social identity. Thus their real identity is saved. Hence, the purposes of this study are to analyse the online social identity of K-pop fandom members, how they were introduced to the K-pop world and the purpose(s) of the fandom activities. A total of 30 participants were interviewed online for this study. Thematic analysis of the interview was done based on three stages of Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (1979) which is (1) characteristic, (2) social identification, and (3) social comparison, and Bennett’s Four Areas of Fandom (2014) which are (1) communication, (2) creativity, (3) knowledge and (4) civic power and organisation. The findings of this research revealed six characteristics of the fans’ online social identity as K-pop fans, the influential factors that introduced them to K-pop, and details on their fandom activities. This study provides insights into the online social identity of Kpop fans and fandom activities on Twitter. Further research is recommended to explore the language used by the Kpop community for inter- and intra-group communications, which will further enrich the understanding of this online social community.

This article describes how the Chinese state borrows from the culture of celebrity fandom to implement a novel strategy of governing that we term “fandom governance.” We illustrate how state-run social media employed fandom governance early in the COVID-19 pandemic when the country was convulsed with anxiety. As the state faced a crisis, state social media responded with a propagandistic display of state efficacy, broadcasting a round-the-clock livestream of a massive emergency hospital construction project. Chinese internet users playfully embellished imagery from the livestream. They unexpectedly transformed the construction vehicles into cute personified memes, with Baby Forklift and Baby Mud Barfer (a cement mixer) among the most popular. In turn, state social media strategically channeled this playful engagement in politically productive directions by resignifying the personified vehicles as celebrity idols. Combining social media studies with cultural and linguistic anthropology, we offer a processual account of the semiotic mediations involved in turning vehicles into memes, memes into idols, and citizens into fans. We show how, by embedding cute memes within modules of fandom management such as celebrity ranking lists, state social media rendered them artificially vulnerable to a fall in status. Fans, in turn, rallied around to “protect” these cute idols with small but significant acts of digital devotion and care, organizing themselves into fan circles and exhorting each other to vote. In elevating the memes to the status of celebrity idols, state social media thereby created a disposable pantheon of virtual avatars for the state, and consolidated state power around citizens’ voluntary response to vulnerability. We analyze fandom governance as a new development in the Chinese state’s long history of governing citizens through the management of emotion.

The review discusses the edited volume Pro Domo. Kunstgeschichte in eigener Sache. The volume aims to analyse systematically an understudied sub-genre of art writing: texts that were written by confidantes of the artists, thus suggesting a specific authority and authenticity as they claim to have ‘in-house’ knowledge of the master’s mind. The review situates the volume’s concept and approach within recent discussions on subjectivity in art writing.

This study examines the psychological mechanisms through which BTS’s perceived star attributes—expertise, authenticity, likability, and similarity—influence fan loyalty within fandom-driven tourism. Anchored in activity theory and content theory of motivation, the proposed model identifies psychological need fulfillment and emotional satisfaction as sequential mediators linking celebrity perception to loyalty behaviors. Data were obtained from 916 BTS fans across six English-speaking countries via a structured online survey. To test the hypothesized relationships, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed. Results demonstrate that perceived star attributes significantly enhance psychological need fulfillment, which subsequently predicts emotional satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, the attributes exert direct effects on emotional satisfaction, supporting both reflective and intuitive engagement pathways. All hypothesized paths were statistically significant, and the model exhibited strong overall fit (SRMR = 0.039; NFI = 0.875). Theoretically, this study advances loyalty research by foregrounding the roles of symbolic consumption, emotional resonance, and identity-based alignment in global fandom contexts. Practically, the findings offer insights for tourism marketers, destination planners, and entertainment brands seeking to design emotionally immersive, narrative-rich tourism experiences. Recommendations are provided for developing BTS-themed content aligned with fans’ identity motivations to foster sustained emotional engagement and destination loyalty.

As the digitalization of fandom and the fandomization of digital platforms have both been discussed recently, this study intends to analyze how the logic of digital fandom was formalized in fans’ everyday media practices. Specifically, the study examines the new trends of digital fandoms in China from the perspective of emotional capitalism. Based on long-termed participated observation and semi-structural interviews, the study argues that the emotional engagement of digital fan practice was legitimated by the incarnation of virtual fan objects, the datafication of emotional labor, and the re-imagination of multi-social relationships.

This article explores how Girl Top/Boy Bottom (GB) genre in hetero-romance games creates critical spaces where fans actively engage in counter-heteronormative gender and sexuality politics. Using the concept of “constructive fantasy,” this paper examines how women fans negotiate and experiment with gender roles and sexuality in hetero-romance and how their efforts breach the boundary between fantasy and reality. We identify three ways in which constructive fantasy is manifested: (1) fans’ interpretative canonization of the fandom, (2) internal and external “border wars” that define and police fandom boundaries, and (3) the extension of fandom ideals, values, and preferences into other realms of social life. In this way, fantasies motivate individuals and communities to engage in various forms of constructive fan practices at different sociocultural levels. We argue that, by exercising constructive fantasy, GB fans generate new gender and sexuality politics through “female gaze,” challenge dominant beliefs about male effeminacy and amatonormative female representations, and articulate feminist sensibilities within and beyond fandom publics.

Theme parks have been described by scholars as asocial and placeless, but recent research by McCarthy demonstrated that Southern Californians exhibit a strong sense of placement attachment and sociality at Disneyland. With the third highest attendance among theme parks in Europe, De Efteling in the Netherlands provides a congruent comparison to Disneyland since both parks were based in large measure on fairy tales, opened in the 1950s near two large metropolises, and mainly designed under the creative vision of one person. This study uses mixed methods of in-depth interviews, an online survey, and participant observation to determine the sense of place attachment within cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions for De Efteling by local fans and then compares the results with Disneyland. The findings indicate De Efteling fans exhibit place attachment across the three dimensions largely in alignment with McCarthy's study on Disneyland, but also reveal key differences due to the nature and characteristics of the ownerships, theming, fans, and scales of operation of the two parks. This study not only further rebuts the long-held contention of theme parks as placeless and lacking sociality, but also calls for exploration and comparison with other global theme parks.

Why is shame so central to our identity and to our culture? What is its role in stigmatizing subcultures such as the Irish, the queer or the underclass? Can shame be understood as a productive force? In this lucid and passionately argued book, Sally R. Munt explores the vicissitudes of shame across a range of texts, cultural milieux, historical locations and geographical spaces - from eighteenth-century Irish politics to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, from contemporary US academia to the aesthetics of Tracey Emin. She finds that the dynamics of shame are consistent across cultures and historical periods, and that patterns of shame are disturbingly long-lived. But she also reveals shame as an affective emotion, engendering attachments between bodies and between subjects - queer attachments. Above all, she celebrates the extraordinary human ability to turn shame into joy: the party after the fall. Queer Attachments is an interdisciplinary synthesis of cultural politics, emotions theory and narrative that challenges us to think about the queerly creative proclivities of shame. Contents: Series editors' preface: After shame; Foreword, Donald L. Nathanson; The cultural politics of shame: an introduction; Queer Irish sodomites: the shameful histories of Edmund Burke, William Smith, Theodosius Reed, the Earl of Castlehaven and diverse servants - among others; Shove the queer: Irish/American shame in New York's annual St Patrick's Day parades; Expulsion: the queer turn of shame; Queering the pitch: contagious acts of shame in organisations; Shameless in Queer Street; A queer undertaking: uncanny attachments in the HBO television drama series Six Feet Under; After the fall: queer heterotopias in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy; A queer feeling when I look at you: Tracey Emin's aesthetics of the self; Bibliography; Index. Sally R. Munt is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex , UK. She has published extensively in cultural studies and is the author or editor of seven previous books including Heroic Desire: Lesbian Identity and Cultural Space (1998) and (as editor) Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change (2000). She has given numerous keynote speeches and invited lectures in Europe and the US.