Grindr? It’s a “Blackmailer’s goldmine”! The weaponization of queer data publics Amid the US–China trade conflict (original) (raw)
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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. Liu, T. (2016). Neoliberal ethos, state censorship, and sexual culture: a Chinese dating/hook-up app. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 30(5), 557-566. doi:10.1080/10304312.2016.1210794
Identity formation is an ongoing process that evolves over time depending on the cultural and geographical setting where one is located. This is particularly accurate for gay men who grow up in countries such as Iran where homosexuality is strictly forbidden, and immigrate to countries such as the United States, where same-sex marriage has recently been legalized. By using semi-structured interviews, I aimed to investigate how gay Iranian men navigate their online identities, cross-culturally, between their country of origin, Iran, and the country they have immigrated to, the United States. The medium utilized to observe gay Iranians online selves is the dating application Grindr. The results demonstrated that sexual identities are conflicted. On the one hand, the participants expressed unforeseen racism, stereotyping and fetishism coming from an alleged inclusive Western gay community. On the other hand, the group of subjects demonstrated similar identity patterns notably in regards to their maintained discretion.
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These days, queer social networking/dating/hook-up websites and mobile apps, such as gay.com, gaydar, manhunt, gay romeo, manjam, and mobile apps like grindr, and scruff, are wildly popular. In fact, phone app Grindr, whose tag line is find gay, bi, curious guys near you, recently reported that a record-setting 37.5 million messages were sent in the 24 hours of September 30, 2012. Men use these sites to meet other men for chatting, friendship, and most often for sexual and romantic encounters. Users create profiles, and, through these profiles, can see, search, and interact with one another, with the eventual purpose of moving online encounters offline. Each time users log on, they are introduced to masses of images, texts, ideas, practices, and subjectivities epitomizing queer sexualized and identitarian meanings within . These sites, according to Fletcher and Light, are cultural artefacts, defined by a range of social and political discourses and structures that frame sets of inherent queer discourses, imaginaries, and collective representations, to which users conform when constructing
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This paper investigates Chinese gay men's consumption of domestic pornography on international social network platforms following the country's anti-porn campaigns targeting live streaming. Set against the backdrop of China's illiberal digital landscape characterized by rapid platformization and evolving Internet governance, the paper draws on in-depth interviews with twenty-one Chinese young gay men to explore how they take advantage of digital platforms and algorithms to creatively and resiliently carve out a space for expressing same-sex desires in a precarious environment. It argues that, although these creative acts of sexual citizenship empower gay men in selfunderstanding and community-building, they are also critically limited by China's intertwining neoliberal and illiberal cultures.
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[PREVIEW] Immigrants on Grindr: Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
This book 1. Investigates how gay-identified immigrants and refugees experience feelings of inclusion or exclusion within a sexually-charged online subculture 2. Explores the response of ethnic minorities to demonstrations of racism and xenophobia within an intolerant European climate 3. Challenges political rhetoric that labels immigrants from Muslim-majority countries as sexually conservative and homophobic or as victims in need of saving This book examines the role of hook-up apps in the lives of gay, bi, trans, and queer immigrants and refugees, and how the online culture of these platforms promotes belonging or exclusion. Within the context of the so-called European refugee crisis, this research focuses on the experiences of immigrants from especially Muslim-majority countries to the greater Copenhagen area, a region known for both its progressive ideologies and its anti-immigrant practices. Grindr and similar platforms connect newcomers with not only dates and sex, but also friends, roommates and other logistical contacts. But these socio-sexual platforms also become spaces of racialization and othering. Weaving together analyses of real Grindr profile texts, immigrant narratives, political rhetoric, and popular media, Immigrants on Grindr provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between online and offline cultures, and between technology and society.