Lisa Fairbrother

Professor

English Studies

This research focuses on how identities are performed, negotiated and challenged online. There may be unwritten rules governing membership in some online communities and the authenticity of the performance of certain identities, often performed solely through the use of written text and symbols, may be questioned. As Woolard (2016: 22) argues, ‘the authentic voice’ signals more about “who one is, rather than what one has to say”, and indeed, in some online communities, the identities of potential members may be directly challenged, if they are deemed inauthentic in some way. In the case of Chinese gay men who post dating ads online, Zhao, Liu, and Li (2022) found that many posters attempt to craft a nuanced self-representation, thus seeking a balance between personal authenticity and audience expectations.

This study focuses on online reactions to the performance of identity in Chinese gay men’s dating profiles. We analyzed the discourse in posts on the Chinese website Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), and our analysis revealed that the authenticity of the identities displayed in the dating profiles were contested in a number of ways, based on the specific wording used. These challenges centered primarily around the authenticity of the posters’ queerness, their gender performance, their dating intentions, and more localized concerns relating to the authenticity of posters’ academic achievement claims. We argue that these challenges have a gate-keeping function, reinforcing the boundaries of the online community, by judging what counts as authentic and acceptable self-representation, thus encouraging conformity to a very narrow set of identity displays.

Woolard, K.A. (2016). Singular and plural: Ideologies of linguistic authority in 21st century Catalonia. Oxford University Press.

Zhao, L., Liu, J., & Li, Z. (2022). Online dating beyond dating apps: An exploration of self-presentation of Chinese gay men dating on Zhihu. International Journal of Communication, 16, 2220-2238.

Paper presented with Tian Chuan at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference (IPrA), Brisbane, Australia, June 22-27, 2025.