Pessimistic Proactivity: Everyday Algorithmic Resistance Among Chinese Gay Men

This study examines how Chinese gay male users resist algorithmic mechanisms that continually regulate and even constrain the visibility of gay content. Combining the frameworks of everyday resistance and algorithmic resistance, it draws on the algorithmic folk theories that users develop through everyday encounters with algorithms. Based on semi-structured interviews with 34 participants and thematic analysis, the study finds that through reflexivity, they recognized that the ambiguity surrounding gay communities across platforms, sociocultural norms, and political governance enabled resistance. Although participants were generally pessimistic about the effectiveness of resistance, they still developed a shared repertoire oriented toward survivable visibility. Their practices also demonstrated tactical immanence, as they appropriated and redirected the logics of moderation, search, and recommendation from within algorithmic systems. Such resistance also often relies on private physical spaces and on rewriting or reversing the temporal logics embedded in platforms. Based on these findings, this study proposes the concept of pessimistic proactivity to capture the logic of action underlying such resistance: Even without optimistic expectations about its outcomes, oppressed individuals may still adopt a proactive and pragmatic resistance to prevent further deterioration of their situation.