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This paper explores how the rise of new modes of cute and girlish male imagery and ideals in 21st-century Japan can be understood as a form of inchoate mobilization towards new and digitalized relational and sexual futures predominantly via visual media and digital social space.

Paper long abstract

In Japan, younger male generations who might identify themselves sub-culturally as ‘love market dropouts’ or more unhappily as ‘unpopular’ (himote), are also theorized as ‘sexual weaklings’ who have become unable to adapt and survive the processes of neoliberalism or female empowerment. Evidence shows that the structural and sexual marginalisation of these men is configured with changes in employment structures, involving a forced flow of men into ‘non-regular’ labour and a ‘working poor’ existence. The ongoing dissolution of heteronormative modern society and its gender-based social classes based on middle and lower-class masculine labour privilege is the historical material context for many of the themes of otaku and idol fan subcultures and their increasingly ‘queer’ or nonbinary practices in East Asia. This paper explores how the rise of new modes of cute and girlish male imagery and ideals in 21st-century Japan can be understood as a form of inchoate mobilization towards new and digitalized relational and sexual futures predominantly via visual media and digital social space. Recent case studies in cute and nonbinary animation/game character and self-modelling (bedroom to video upload) fashion and vlogging will be discussed to draw out the deeper meanings of contemporary cute expressions online.

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As of 2025, nadenade (head-patting) is central to Japanese VRChat culture. Performed via cute avatars, mainly by male users, it offers iyashi (healing) through visually mediated communication of touch in VR. This paper presents social contexts and motivations based on ethnographic fieldwork.

Paper long abstract

As of 2025, users define nadenade—head-patts—as a central aspect of Japanese VRChat culture (Waruiko, 2025). While physical touch is described as rare offline, users report feeling closer to one another in virtual reality (Virtual Girl Nem, 2022). With their cute avatars, the majority male users engage in nadenade across different VRChat spaces and social contexts, following platform guidelines and community etiquette. Access to these environments is technologically stratified: spaces are typically restricted for high-end VR equipment users, despite one-third of VRChat users identifying as low-income (Nem x Mila, 2025).

Nadenade is said to foster intimacy and friendship (Iwasa and Matsuyū, 2022) and to express a desire to access healing (iyashi) (Irie-san, 2023). Informed by my previous research on “sweet relationships” (Bredihina, 2022), this presentation aims to extend existing scholarship on iyashi (Plourde, 2014; Robinson, 2019; Yumiyama, 1995) by focusing on nadenade as a more-than-human and non binary affective practice mediated by cuteness. This presentation examines 1) social contexts, 2) iyashi performance, and 3) users' latent motivations. It builds on findings previously presented in a poster session at Virtual Gakkai and in an upcoming publication. An ongoing ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since May 2025, including participation in events and themed worlds, as well as involvement as both staff and cast.

Bredikhina, L. (2022). Virtual “sweet relationships” in Japan: Navigating affection through technology. Communal practices, behaviours, and latent socio-cultural meaning. Comunifé, 22, 53-62.

Irie-san. (2023a). なでなでこそVRChatならでは説 [Nadenade koso VRChat-naradeha-setsu]. Note. https://note.com/dpc_fish/n/nc1973d5e3fcd [Accessed November 23, 2025]

Iwasa, T., and Matsuyū. (2022). VRChatガイドブック—ゼロからはじめるメタバース [VRChat Gaidobukku — Zero Kara Hajimeru Metabāsu]. Futabasha.

Nem × Mila. (2025). メタバース経済：ソーシャルVRライフスタイル調査2025 [Metabāsu keizai: Sōsharu VR raifusutairu chōsa 2025]. Note. https://note.com/nemchan_nel/n/na1bafd336399?magazine_key=mec378e2a9ad9 [Accessed November 28, 2025]

Plourde, L. (2014). Cat Cafés, Affective Labor, and the Healing Boom in Japan. Japanese Studies, 34(2), 115–133.

Robinson, A.S. (2019). Finding healing through animal companionship in Japanese animal cafés. Medical Humanities, 45, p. 190-198.

Virtual Girl Nem. (2022). メタバース進化論 [Metabāsu shinka-ron]. Gijutsu Hyoronsha.

Waruiko. (2025, July 8). 撫でを知らない [Nade o shiranai]. Note. https://note.com/warueecol/n/n390f8446d1a1 [Accessed November 10, 2025]

Yumiyama, T. (1995) Varieties of Healing in Present-Day Japan, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 22(2-3), 267-282.

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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the sub-cultural phenomenon in China known as Weiniang (fake girls, men performing hyper-feminine personas), who employ the cultural strategies of 'cuteness' and 'cosplay' to negotiate heteronormative expectations and social scrutiny.

Paper long abstract

“Such a cute child could not possibly be a girl!” (こんな可愛い子が女の子のはずがない) is a popular Japanese phrase widely circulated in manga, anime, and fan cultures, and commonly associated with narratives featuring cross-dressing or gender-ambiguous male characters. The phrase later gained significant traction in the contemporary Chinese digital sphere, where it is used to describe 2D and 3D characters from manga, anime, and games, as well as biological males who achieve androgynous or cross-gender presentations through performances of what is perceived as authentically “girlish” cuteness in everyday life.

These individuals are commonly referred to as Weiniang (偽娘, literally “fake girl”), a term that has come to denote a recognizable cultural phenomenon within Chinese online communities. This paper examines the Weiniang phenomenon through two primary case studies: the Alice Weiniang Group (愛麗絲偽娘團), a once-prominent all-male cosplay performance troupe, and Xuanmo Baby (軒墨寶寶), a well-known online streamer whose gender-crossing performances have attracted substantial attention on digital platforms such as Weibo and Bilibili.

By analyzing their performances, online self-presentation, and public reception, this paper explores how Weiniangs mobilize cosplay and cuteness as cultural strategies to negotiate heteronormative expectations and social scrutiny. I argue that, within the contemporary Chinese digital sphere, “cosplaying girlie cuteness” operates as a form of embodied resistance—an affective and aesthetic tactic that enables gender-nonconforming individuals to destabilize normative masculinity under the socially sanctioned frameworks of fandom, performance, and play. Although these performances are often ephemeral or commercially mediated, they nonetheless create discursive spaces for reimagining gendered identities in the context of streaming media and digital fan cultures.

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This presentation examines the possibility of a “lesbian cute” through the work of Korean webtoon artist Ch'ŏngkŏn and their webtoon Yŏjach’in’gu [Girlfriends], which juxtaposes the cute surfaces of shōjo manga-esque aesthetics with a more violently queer, almost misandrist lesbian impulse.

Paper long abstract

Paek-hap, also known by the name of yuri or Girls’ Love (GL) is a subcultural genre of female same-sex romance and desire that originates in Japan and has become widely popular across East Asia from the late 1990s to the present. Despite its sizeable queer readership and significant overlap with lesbian and queer cultures, the genre has frequently come under accusations by feminist critics for producing “cutesy” and palatable images of lesbian desire and sexuality. In South Korea, which has been site to a number of radical feminist movements in the past decade, the contemptuous attitude towards weak, or “cute” forms of femininity have subsequently resulted in paek-hap cultures also being denounced as anti-feminist or fetishistic images meant exclusively for heterosexual male pleasure. This paper responds to these ongoing conversations about the feminist ambivalences of paek-hap culture by exploring the viability of a “lesbian cute” as an aesthetic strategy that highlights the potential of cuteness as a queer relation between girls and women. I contextualize this “lesbian cute” in relation to the ways in which cuteness has functioned in the paek-hap genre at large as an erotic expression of same-sex intimacy and desire. I route these discussions through the work of Korean webtoon artist Ch'ŏngkŏn and their webtoon Yŏjach’in’gu [Girlfriends], which depicts how these expressions of feminine, girlish cuteness are often misread and misinterpreted under a heteronormative lens. Ch'ŏngkŏn juxtaposes the cute surfaces of shōjo manga-esque aesthetics with a more violently queer, almost misandrist impulse to the effect of a disorienting “lesbian cute.”