Affective communication and guanxi, seems to lie at the heart of fan practices, as both politics and ethics.
Ling Yang&Hongwei Bao. 2012. ’Queerly intimate: Friends, fans and affective communication in a Super Girl fan fiction community’ Cultural Studies, 26 (6) 855. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2012.679286
(The) gravity of guanxi seems to have shifted from kinship to friendship(…) Young people in urban China find their own ways of redefining and negotiating guanxi.
Ling Yang&Hongwei Bao. 2012. ’Queerly intimate: Friends, fans and affective communication in a Super Girl fan fiction community’ Cultural Studies, 26 (6) 859. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2012.679286
The phrase guanxi describes an economy where
in which people interact reciprocally with each
other in both material and emotional ways (Yang, M.M.-h. 1994).
Ling Yang&Hongwei Bao. 2012. ’Queerly intimate: Friends, fans and affective communication in a Super Girl fan fiction community’ Cultural Studies, 26 (6) DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2012.679286
Yang, M.M.-h. 1994. ’Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China’ Ithaca: Cornwell University Press.
Other than stories, images and songs are also common gifts circulated in the community to stimulate and encourage new writers. One talented GL fan drew a beautiful picture to be used as ’book cover’ for the fanon Pink Affairs. The Singer-Woman dedicated songs she recorded to a number of stories (in the community). She also started a thread for readers to post memorable quotations from their favourite stories (in the forum) as a small token of gratitude to the writers. A GL fan from Shanghai wrote a Yang/Shang thriller about love and trust to comfort a local fan whose mother recently passed away.
Ling Yang&Hongwei Bao. 2012. ’Queerly intimate: Friends, fans and affective communication in a Super Girl fan fiction community’ Cultural Studies, 26 (6) 855. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2012.679286
Do you have similar experiences of reciprocity in your own communities?