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Live-streamers in China are predominantly female and heterosexual, so their heterosexual male counterparts barely receives attention. In this paper, we invoke the concept of “emergent masculinities” to critically examine how male live-streamers engage this typically feminine profession. They come in three main types of decreasing prestige: e-sports athletes; shopping guides; and affective entertainers who attract female audiences with friendship and intimacy. This last type enacts a women-pleasing façade that also contradicts the men’s own hegemonic masculine upbringing. This tension highlights how China’s emergent masculinities develop in conversation with the country’s post-feminist sensibilities.
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Tan et al. (2022) studied this question.
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