Playing live-streaming ‘love games’: mediated intimacy and desperational labour in digital China

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Chinese live-streaming industry is attracting an increasing number of young Chinese women into a new form of entertainment work, as camgirls. Despite the generally poor salary, these women believe that the added benefits of being a camgirl (gifts, sponsorship, internet fame) offer a better option for advancement than being dagongmei (factory workers). This article reports on camgirls working on the IT platform, Momo, framed by my personal experiences and observations as a camgirl. Camgirls represent a special kind of digital entertainer (labourer). They do not sell sex per se, rather they titillate their male patrons by selling sexual innuendo, and engaging in live-streamed games which often result in their degradation and misery (maican). These games aim to seduce patrons into gift giving, intimacy and rescue via becoming a camgirl’s dage (big brother). While these digital relationships last, they feed camgirls’ aspirations, but when they inevitably fail, the camgirls’ work becomes ‘desperational’ in order to attract their former patrons and regain lost ground. Through camgirls’ narratives, I explore the intersection of camgirls’ aspirations and desperation within the context of heterosexual relationships and the dark side of Digital China.