The cruel optimism of digital dating: heart-breaking mobile romance among rural migrant workers in South China

ABSTRACT

Based upon thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in South China, this study employs Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism to examine how Chinese rural migrant workers – an economically and culturally disadvantaged group – use digital dating services and select dates. It juxtaposes the rural migrant workers’ encouraged engagement with digital dating with interview accounts which reveal that digital dating presents a large sum of obstacles to the fulfilment of sexual and romantic desire. Our research shows that these obstacles (both ‘virtual' and ‘real') are highly gendered, which is partly related to a cultural shift towards materialism in the Chinese society. Specifically, rural migrant men have described themselves as being harshly excluded or exploited on the dating scene, whereas rural migrant women have reported that they have unwittingly dated men with deceptive profiles or developed romantic relationships that were dashed by economic turmoil. Hence, the study empirically extends the literature on digital dating beyond its traditional focus on Western contexts. It also clearly demonstrates that, while digital dating ignites a sense of possibility and desire, particularly among individuals of lower socioeconomic status, it fails to support these users in tackling the structural inequalities obstructing realization of their desire.

KEYWORDS:

• Cruel optimism
• digital dating
• migrant workers
• mobile romance
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For details, see: https://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrhifsa0.html (visited on 9th June 2020).

2 For details, see: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/128583707 (visited on 25th Novemver 2020).

3 Moments (pengyou quan) is a fundamental WeChat feature. On Moments, one can post text-based updates, upload up to nine images, and share videos and articles, similar to Facebook Timeline or Twitter.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tingting Liu

Tingting Liu (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. Her research interests centre on new media, gender, sexuality, and their intersections. Recent publications include peer-review journal articles on Information, Communication & Society, Critical Arts, China Information, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Television & New Media and Feminist Media Studies. [email: [email protected]]

Yinan Wang

Miss Yinan Wang is a Master’s candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. [email: [email protected]]

Zhongxuan Lin

Zhongxuan Lin (PhD) is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan Uni- versity, Guangzhou, China. His research interests include disability studies, cultural studies and communication studies. His work has appeared in Media International Australia; Chinese Journal of Communication; International Journal of Communication; International Journal of Cultural Studies; Media, Culture & Society; New Media & Society; and Information, Communication & Society among others. [email: [email protected]]