“I feel like a ‘cyber-gypsy’”: BL fanfiction writers in China's changing landscape of fandom culture

Abstract

In 2020, Archive of Our Own, a renowned fanfiction website, became inaccessible in China due to mass reporting by a celebrity's fans upset about him being portrayed as having a gender identity disorder in a fanfiction. This event led to increased regulation of Boys' Love (BL) content on many Chinese fanfiction platforms, posing challenges for writers. This study interviews Chinese BL fanfiction writers post-incident and explores their strategies for navigating the shrinking creative space. It argues that China's current fandom culture is capital-driven, data-centric, and commercial, fostering a “fanquan (fan circle)” culture that redefines the meaning of “being a fan.”.