LGBTQ Influencers on Chinese Social Media
The final project for this course is to create a ten-page (minimum) mini-magazine (also called a zine) that engages concretely with the concepts and readings from this course.
• The zine can be literally ten pages long, i.e., three sheets of printer paper folded over into a booklet to make 10 half-pages with a front cover and a back cover, or it can be a digital media piece that represents a comparable amount of effort, depth, and reader time as a ten-page booklet.
o You must cite and engage with the ideas and concepts from at least two texts we have read this semester that you feel speak to the topic you’ve chosen for your zine. Make sure that your engagement with these texts and concepts is concrete and demonstrates in-depth knowledge of the text and how it fits into the themes, ideas, and concepts from this course.
Topic that I choose for my zine:
I want to focus on the current rising LGBTQ influencers on Chinese social media platforms, especially Douyin(Chinese Tiktok). You could focus on, and not limited to several points:
1. The summary and analysis of the current phenomena of LGBTQ KOL on Chinese social media, how influential they are, in what specific way
2. Who their targeted audiences are, Why are they gaining attentions/ likes by the audience(mainly Gen Z)
3. What difficulties / stereotypes they are facing in the Chinese society, where are those options come from, historically/ culturally
4. How they counter the traditional perspectives/ stereotypes that Chinese society has enforced?
5. Are there any surveillances/ regulations/ pressures from the government? Society? Their friends?
6. More importantly, how the new digital social media, Douyin in this case, differ from other platforms in helping their voice get heard and helping them find their LGBTQ community.
The readings that needed to be used for the analysis: (at lease two articles)
1. Warner, Public and Private from Publics and Counterpublics.pdf (file)
2. “An Oral History of the Early Trans Internet,” on Gizmodo https://gizmodo(dot)com/an-oral-history-of-the-early-trans-internet-1835702003
3. Lauren Berlant and Elizabeth Freeman, “Queer Nationality” (file)
4. Daniel C. Brouwer and Adela C. Lincona, “Trans(affective)mediation: feeling out way from paper to digitized zines and back again” （file）
Other material that needs to be included:
Besides in-depth analysis, there are also the need of relevant pictures, comic, screen shots etc,. feel free to be bold since it is a zine
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LGBTQ Influencers on Chinese social media
Summary and Analysis of the Current phenomena of LGBTQ KOL on Chinese social media
In our society, today have come across various information through media that have influenced the principles of human beings. Generation Z has been living with the media world since the year 1995 till now. Generation Z, especially during their high school period when the Gen Z were teenagers, was the primary audience mainly affected by the influence they witnessed from online social media platforms (Chernavina, & Kate, np). The active influencers are referred to as Key opinion leaders. However, the modern LGBTQ members in the digital world, including in China, have closeted their speech to keep their secrets safe from society. Gays mainly use closeted addresses. In the research of Daniel et al., magazines have been used by LGBTQ members to influence their audiences. Queer zines have been used to encourage the queer individuals the comes across the zines and access the content in the queer zines (Daniel & Adela 5). The Queer theory has been used for a long time to examine the gender norms of the LGBTQ globally. The KOLs in China have a significant influence on Gen z. Researchers show the LGBTQ KOLs in business brands that mainly sell products and services to Gen Zs. This brand will gain large numbers of consumers over a short time compared if the KOL was not gay or lesbian. Despite the tremendous support from the Chinese Gen Zs to the LGBTQ KOLs, the Society of China does not embrace LGBTQ members warmly. The discrimination against the LGBTQ individual comes from the families of the LGBTQ members, health departments, religious communities, and social services. As a result of their large population, their influence on China has a significant impact when they pass across messages on social media platforms. The LGBTQ are influential mainly on global social media like Tiktok, where their content is viewed by the Chinese population and the whole world. For example, the famous Chinese Tiktok user, Douyin. The TikTok account has various videos of LGBTQ members showing their love life in China. The videos from Douyin TikTok are liked by millions of viewers from Asia and the rest of the world. LGBTQ Targeted Audience Anyone working in the Chinese marketing department or any Generation Z individual who is a newbie in the digital market industry is familiar with KOL. The term is prevalent among Generation Z. They get a lot of influence from the KOLs on social media. For that reason, the main target of the LGBTQs is the generation Z individuals (Liu et al., 1-6). Many Gen Z gays claim they have not paid attention to their straight friends, and their opinions often do not matter. Therefore, when LGBTQ KOLs communicate with gays and lesbians, they receive much attention from LGBTQ members globally, especially Gen z, primarily active social media members. Many LGBTQ members are Generation Z who greatly influence their peers. Although there are aged LGBTQ members, most are teens who mainly appear on social media platforms and show themselves. Also, the Gen Z LGBTQs are aware that many Gen Z has not yet accepted themselves as LGBTQ members. It is hard to face society as an LGBTQ in China, primarily because of the discrimination. The LGBTQ members mainly use short clips to influence their audience on social media platforms. Gen Z is one of the social media influencers that posts LGBTQ-related videos. Gen Z is influential and has a lot of attention from both Chinese citizens and his fans from the rest of the world. Gen Z influencer market is an international influencing platform that focuses on advertising products and services since many consumers trust the Gen Z market. It influences all parts of the world. Gen Z mainly focuses on teens who are most of the time accessing the internet. Chinese Gen Zs is a supporter of LGBTQ. Many of the influencers of Gen Z organizations are members of the LGBTQ. Research shows that 32% of Gen Z are LGBTQ members. Teens usually define the characteristics of their friends. LGBTQ members who were interviewed claimed that their friends made them turn to lesbians and gays. For that reason, LGBTQ members who are mainly aged 24 years and below feels the urge to make their non-LGBTQ friends become like them. Gen Z trusts the influencers and ignores the product. So long as the influencer has advertised something, they will go for it (Laureen & Elizabeth 30). Gen z, who are LGBTQ, has a significant force in Making the teens try the gay and lesbian activities that they see in Tiktok videos and finally become LGBTQ members. Difficulties the LGBTQ Influencers Face in the Chinese Society China still has not initiated laws that govern and protect the LGBT from discrimination. No rules have been planned to be established based on the identification of gender. The Chinese LGBTQ face challenges also from the society condemning them and their behaviour (Tang et al., 1-19). The Chinese Society has strong beliefs against lesbianism and gay activities, saying they are immoral. Society defines men and women differently and does not favor the LGBTQ members who behave differently as the organization has described a man and a woman. China's vagueness about LGBTQ is hard for global brands. Both the millennials and Gen Zs are known for shifting their gender standards. China embraced LGBTQ issues a few decades ago after the pressure on the LGBTQ grew in the global range, and there was a need for the Government to welcome laws that considered LGBTQ Relationship...