The real digital housewives of China's Kuaishou video-sharing and live-streaming app. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tan, Chris KK; Wang, Jie; Wangzhu, Shengyuan; Xu, Jinjing; Zhu, Chunxuan
• Is Part Of: Media, culture, and society. Volume 42:Number 7/8(2020:Oct.)
• Page Start: 1243
• Page End: 1259
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: China -- digital housewife -- exploited labour -- Kuaishou -- live-streaming -- video-sharing; Mass media and culture -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Wireless communication systems -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.2305
• DOI: 10.1177/0163443719899802
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0163-4437

Abstract

Recently, the smart phone app Kuaishou emerged in China with more than 400 million registered users. An app where users upload pre-recorded videos and a small number of vetted ones live-stream as zhubos, Kuaishou distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack with the unabashed earthiness of its contents. We have two goals in this article. First, we examine how the app's performers attract, cultivate and retain their fans to make money off their activities. Second, we treat zhubos as 'digital housewives', who produce two use values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Zhubos can earn money from their work, but they ultimately provide highly exploited labour to Kuaishou under a façade of innocuous play. Indeed, by selling their supposedly inalienable affects, zhubos embody 'digital housewife-ness' even more so than Jarrett's original formulation.