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Abstract
Based upon the case of Momo, a popular Chinese dating/hook-up social media, this article examines an understudied aspect of social media: the kinds of sexual activities a social media tends to encourage, facilitate and mediate, and the sexual ideologies a social media site/application chooses to align with in its advertising and promotional strategies. With a critical conversation with existing scholarships concerning the intersections between feminist/queer theories and media studies, the article considers how sexualities can constitute a useful lens for understanding social media so as to provide a glimpse into the complex interconnections between political, cultural, economic and the ‘private’ realms of sexual experience.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Dr Anna Cristina Pertierra, Dr Fiona Nicoll, Nguyen Thu Giang, Jingshu Zhu, Jin Gong and Fangfei Lin for taking the time to think through related issues with me. Thanks also go to Jennifer Rowe, Dr Sally Babidge and Prof David Trigger. The International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and UQ Centennial Scholarship (UQCent) from the University of Queensland supported the project.
Notes
1. It should be noted that Momo has changed between the time it was analysed for this article and will surely continue to change, so there will be discrepancies between the descriptions given here and what can be observed on Momo. A weakness of this article also lies in the absence of a closer examination of the negotiation between what Momo designs it to be and what Momo’s users understand Momo through everyday usage. This negotiation is slightly touched only because of the limited space I was allowed in one article.
2. As China’s most popular online social networking service enabling users to send, resend and read public messages that are shorter than 140 characters, Sina Weibo was considered to be the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.
3. A staff of Socialab provided information about this ‘name-cleaning’ project.