【by Mei-ting Li, June 2025】
Queer fandom studies have mushroomed in Asian cities, driven by the emerging queer representation in popular media and the visibility of digital fans, particularly in Korea, Mainland China, and Thailand. As one of the post-colonial cities in Asia which enjoy its popular culture heyday in the 1980s, Hong Kong has a rich history of queer representation and the consumption of local celebrities, which once marked a significant aspect of queer Asian popular culture. Recently, with the release of the first Boy’s Love (BL) Television drama, Ossan’s Love, an emerging queer fandom is gaining visibility in the public sphere. As an aca-fan of local queer celebrities and BL genre, I would like to highlight the intricate dynamics of conducting queer fandom research in post-colonial cities, using Hong Kong as a case study.
The Queer Gonggong in Hong Kong
The Chinese term for “public,” gonggong (公共), carries connotations distinct from the enlightenment-driven meanings prevalent in the West, shaped by a rich historiography. The first gong connotes things that are publicly accessible and equitable, while also implying things that are “officially owned.” The second “gong” connotes togetherness and sharing. In the context of Hong Kong, the notion of gonggong embodies a blend of connotations related to the Western concepts of the public sphere and civil society, influenced by colonial history and a post-colonial condition that diverges from that of a modern nation. Furthermore, in light of the recent regression in civic participation—severely impacted by the aftermath of the democratic social movements—Pang and Li (2025) argue that public spherein Hong Kong has become “a much less idealistic place: a political arena in a looser sense yet always already invested with different interests of different powers.” Thus, there is a pressing need for a more flexible understanding of the public, not only to examine Hong Kong but also to illuminate discussions on the “public” in other Asian cities.
As part of the public culture, the landscape of Hong Kong’s queer culture is also sitting at the intersection of heteronormative social norms and political uncertainty, shaped by the aftermath of postcolonial circumstances. Scholars have pointed out that the “trinity of governance” (Kong & Li, 2015)—comprising colonial government law, religion, and traditional Chinese family values—along with heightened feelings of uncertainty and geopolitical tension since 2014 (Liu & Li, 2024), exert considerable influence on the queer community in Hong Kong. Since 2020, we have witnessed significant challenges to queer visibility and activism in the public sphere. Members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) have debated the Hong Kong Gay Games 2023, conflating gender-related issues with Article 23 of the Basic Law concerning China’s national security law, proclaiming that queer community run contrary to Hong Kong’s and China’s interests (Chow & Ma, 2023; Ng, 2021; Suen, 2021; Wordie, 2023). A pivotal turning point for queer activism occurred in 2020 when the Hong Kong Pride Parade transitioned to a “Rainbow Market,” adopting a non-profit model as an apolitical gesture to avoid accusations of illegal public assembly, since the police force withheld its permit after the Anti-ELAB movement.[1] while the popular culture continues to sustain some level of queer visibility (Kam, 2022) and many local advocates are still working on the field, it is undeniable that the queer public culture is significantly affected by the prevailing political climate.
Furthermore, the shaking queer gonggong showcases not only the uncertain future of queer rights and policy advocacy but also undermines queer popular cultures, particularly subcultural practices. In 2024, a police operation targeting BL comics in local bookstores raised alarms about the government’s tightening grip and manipulation on the queer community (Mingpao Daily, 2024; The Initium, 2024). While some concerns may seem exaggerated, they alert me to revisit the research practices and methodologies in queer fandom in post-colonial Asian cities. How could we continue the research on queer public culture—or what I term the “queer gonggong” within the context of Hong Kong—and at the same time to queer the research method we employ to cater to this circumstances?
Researching Queer Fandom in Hong Kong
I would like to begin my discussion by addressing a challenge I encountered while researching on the BL shipping fandom, known as “coupling (CP) fan” (CP粉 in Chinese), of a Hong Kong local boyband, Mirror. Debuting in 2018—just a year before the Anti-Extradition Bill (ELAB) Movement—the group members emerged from an idol survival show on the local free-to-air television channel ViuTV. This survival show allowed fans to vote for their favourites, resonating with the public’s sense of disenfranchisement regarding their democratic participation at that time. When the boyband rose to fame in 2020, their fandom enjoyed hyper-visibility. The mass media depicted fans assembles in various public spaces, such as the ferry pier at Tsim Sha Tsui and the Hennessy Road at Causeway Bay, to chant for their idols, likening it to an occupation. Initially, the city embraced this joyful expression, particularly among those grappling with political disillusionment and pandemic-related depressed (New York Times, 2021).
Soon after, the locally produced BL drama, Ossan’s Love, premiered on ViuTV in June 2021, starring band members Anson Lo and Edan Lui. The popularity of the show fueled a rapid growth in the CP fandom surrounding Mirror, leading to an explosion of fanfiction on social media platforms such as Instagram (IG) and Archive of Our Own (AO3). The BL writers and readers formed a vibrant virtual community, sharing their thoughts and love for their idol CPs.
As a fan and a reader myself, I planned in 2023 to investigate the queer shipping fandom of Mirror using a mixed-methods approach, which included conducting semi-structured interviews with fanfic writers and data mining comments and discussions on their public IG accounts and AO3. I sent out thirteen invitations for interviews, and although I assured of anonymity, I received only five acceptances. Four writers declined my invitation, while the remaining writers did not reply. The relatively high rejection rate left me with a complex mix of emotions as I noted their shared reasoning: “As a BL fan-fiction writer, I don’t want to risk drawing unnecessary attention to my idol. While I appreciate discussions about my idol’s performances, publications addressing CP fandom could jeopardize their career. Therefore, we CP writers have decided not to accept any interviews, including academic ones.” The rejections underscored the precarious position of CP fans within an idol group in this post-colonial city, as revealed through their personal experiences. My feelings were stemmed not from concerns about my research—after all, one should anticipate a “no” when seeking consent for participation—but from the sensitivity displayed by these queer fans. This raises several questions: What do they mean by “unnecessary attention”? Why do they believe their BL fanfiction could jeopardize their idols’ careers?
Ultimately, I decided to suspend the project and refocus on understanding the emotions of queer fans, of whom I am one. Since the airing of Ossan’s Love, media attention has shifted from the public fanfare to the private joys of shipping fans and the gossip surrounding Anson Lo’s sexual orientation. Anson Lo, one of the most popular idols in the Mirror’s BL fanfiction, who has already suffered from the netizen’s negative comments about his soft-masculine appearance and queer dancing, further suffered under this scrutiny. Amid all these discussions, only one account from a shipping fan-writer was featured in the newspapers. Notably, the struggle for queer acceptance in the public sphere, as I previously mentioned, adds to the marginalization of this fandom. This already vulnerable group now fears exposure to power dynamics once again. My position as an aca-fan does little to help; rather, it risks creating a new power imbalance by dragging their popular culture joys into academic epistemology. In essence, there exists a gap between me, both a researcher and a fan, and them, as writers and fans. Moreover, the antagonistic environment towards queer celebrities and BL content, combined with the power disparities between CP fans and mass media, intensifies these dynamics.
The experience of double marginalisation faced by queer fans remind me of the critical reflections on “double colonisation” found in postcolonial and feminist studies. Minorities, such as women and queer individuals, endure oppression from both patriarchy and colonial power. Thus, there is an urgent need to revisit the positionality of aca-fans and the research on queer fandom in postcolonial cities like Hong Kong.
“Aca-fans” revisit
Quoting the thought-provoking question asked by Jack Halberstam (2011), “What kinds of reward can failure offer us?” I wish to revisit the discussion on aca-fandom and explore how research can reciprocate to the fan community. The term “aca-fan” was elaborated and popularized by Matt Hills (2002) and Henry Jenkins (1992, 2011). It challenges the traditional scholarly position to approach and research fandom as if fans are purely object of study, particularly those who aren’t fans themselves.
Jenkins emphasized the role of aca-fans, who demonstrate a “dual allegiance” (Jenkins, 2011) to both academia and fan communities. This creates a twofold discussion. On the one hand, scholars deliberate on the practical contributions their research may offer to the fan community. They reflect on who aca-fans can “go native” through deep participant observation in fandom (Roach, 2014) and seek innovative ways to return research findings to the community (Lee, 2021). On the other hand, they highlight that feminist methodology and reflexivity could illuminate new approaches to engaging with fan communities (Hannell, 2020), challenging the epistemological assumptions that govern research practices characterized by a dichotomy of rationalities.
Beyond positional privilege and elitism, the aca-fans also encompass the tendency to prioritize white fandom and the transnational, global fandom present in English-language scholarship. Previous scholarship has highlighted the invisibility of non-white and non-Anglophone fandoms in fan studies (Pande, 2020) and underscored the importance of researching Asian fandom (Lavin, M., Yang, L., & Zhao, J. J., 2017; Zhao, J. J., & Ng, E., 2025).
In Hong Kong, the role of aca-fans is not merely dual but multifaceted, occurring in the intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989, 2017) that the queer fandom encounters. Beyond academic gestures, the interplay of race, sexuality, class, governmental manipulation, and geopolitical tensions further complicates the queer fandom landscape in Hong Kong. When fans raised concerns about misrepresentation and misunderstanding of their community in the research. It appears that the central issue lies not in the accuracy of the research or the fans’ defences but rather in the fears and apprehensions circulating within the fan community regarding the visibility and overwhelming attention directed toward fandom. What alternative methods, aside from academic practices such as presentations, reports, and papers, could be employed to return research to the community while respecting the gift culture (Hellekson, 2009) and accompanies fans in their knowledge, reflection, and challenges to heteronormative norms?
Later in 2023, I was invited to watch a lecture-performance theatre titled “The Anonymous Many and Their Spotlighted One.” The show explicitly responds to the overwhelming attention from researchers and public on the fandom and the shipping fans of Mirror. Before the stage performance, the writer-director invited the audience, including fans and researchers, to participate in a forum following the play reading to discuss its contents. Unlike conventional research that tests hypotheses and predefined questions, the performance illuminated alternative ways for aca-fan participation. What about we look for a more transformative research approach that involves collaborative efforts between the aca-fans and fans? What about we suggest a continuous consent and discussion that allows one to constantly reflect on, or even put a pause on, their participation? Moreover, what if we encourage the fans to determine how our research feedback contributes to their community, while maintaining our integrity as scholars? Lastly, what actions can we, as aca-fans, undertake to safeguard the already vulnerable state of queer fandom against potential backlash?
Conclusion: Queering aca-fans practices to engage the public
In conclusion, my aim in revisiting the discourse surrounding aca-fans is not to undermine the value of fandom research but to advocate for more creative, interactive, and engaging practices that redefine the meaning of researching fandom in postcolonial cities like Hong Kong. I propose that the role of aca-fans in researching queer fandom extends beyond merely uncovering the queer practices of fans; it also involves queering research methodologies and practices in meaningful ways. Recently, I have been collaborating with queer fans to explore creative collaboration for co-producing and co-mapping the queer celebrity cultures they once enjoyed using digital tools. This research emerged from several conversations between us about the shared confusion and challenges we face when tracing back to the history of queer Chinese popular culture. If studying queer fandom involves discovering and rediscovering the fans’ meaning-making processes—illuminating not only queer subjecthood, queer desire, and queer identity-building but also how their actions destabilize, interrupt, or subvert normative discourses in the public sphere—then shall we, as aca-fans, begin by destabilizing our research methods and the forms of our outputs, in pursuit of non-normative discourses that engaging and collaborating with the fan communities?
AUTHOR
Mei-ting Li is lecturer in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include film and literature, media studies, popular culture, and queer studies in the Sinophone. She is a cultural critic and an awardee of the Hong Kong Young Artist Award in Arts Criticism in 2018.
NOTE
[1] In 2019, police banned Hong Kong Pride Parade but allowed a rally in Central, citing safety concerns. Many of the queer attendees of the rally chanted the Anti-ELAB movement slogans. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the police force issued a letter of objection for even the rally itself over social distancing restrictions (in a move that had the local LGBTQ+ community question whether it is for political reasons). Therefore, The Hong Kong Pride Parade changed its annual parade into an online streaming stage show. Afterwards, they changed the parade again into a “Rainbow Market,” hosting around 30 different booths run by LGBTQ+-friendly businesses and 20 other booths providing other activities, including a photo-taking area. The format of the marketplace continued in 2023. See Nadia Lam (2021) and Sammy Heung (2023).
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