Paper short abstract:

Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork among Chinese otome game players, this study examines how hierarchies of various masculinities are constructed both within otome game player communities and through the process of ethnographic writing.

Paper long abstract:

Originally developed in Japan, otome games were specifically marketed to women and designed to encourage female users to incarnate as the heroine surrounded by attractive digital male characters in the gameworld with whom she could build heterosexual romantic relationships. Along with globalization, domestically produced otome games by Chinese companies have developed into a cultural industry that reflects China's gender landscape, creating tightly-knit player communities among young middle-class Chinese women living in urban areas.

Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork among Chinese otome game players in two major cities, this study reflects on how hierarchies of various masculinities are constructed both within otome game player communities and through the process of ethnographic writing. It examines this trajectory from the community’s "no-men-allowed" entry rule, to collective storytelling critiquing toxic masculinity in China’s offline world, and finally to the co-construction of "misandry" as a collective term emerging from dialogues between the anthropologist and her interlocutors.