Imagining the Perfect Asian Woman Through Hate: Michelle Phan, Anti-Phandom, and Asian Diasporic Beauty Cultures. (15th May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tran, Tony
• Is Part Of: Communication, culture, & critique. Volume 13:Number 3(2020:Sep.)
• Page Start: 349
• Page End: 366
• Publication Date: 2020-05-15
• Subjects: Anti-Fandom -- Beauty Cultures -- Michelle Phan -- Asian American -- YouTube; Communication -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals; Criticism -- Periodicals."com; 300.5
• DOI: 10.1093/ccc/tcz057
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-9129

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the predominately Asian American "Anti-Phandom" community on GuruGossiper.com to explore how anti-fans of YouTube star Michelle Phan engage with ideologies of beauty cultures within Asian diasporic contexts. For many, Anti-Phandom provides an online space where personal concerns about female Asian beauty standards can be negotiated through Michelle Phan. Within these conversations, I argue Anti-Phans display forms of resistance to Phan's postfeminist forms of female empowerment on racial and ethnic terms. However, these counters to Phan's notions of beauty also produce a rubric of the beautiful Asian woman which renders difference as ugly, creating idealized definitions of racial beauty and Asian/American cultures based on essentialized categories that police diasporic women.