Final published version
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - It is imperative and obtainable
T2 - the construction of confidence culture by female toubu vloggers on Xiaohongshu
AU - Xu, Min
AU - Zheng, Sharon
PY - 2025/3/31
Y1 - 2025/3/31
N2 - In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of confidence-focused discussions led by female vloggers. Despite the proliferation of self-improvement content on Chinese social media platforms, few studies have explored the discourses that emerge and circulate in these spaces. This study explores the confidence culture constructed by the female toubu vloggers on Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle platform widely popular among young women in urban China. The results show that the female toubu vloggers, as Chinese wanghongs, create content about confidence in noticeable, shared patterns, emphasising individuals’ multifaceted efforts to actualise perceived self-empowerment. The findings also suggest the limitation of the localised postfeminist ideas manifesting through confidence messages. By revealing the characteristics of the wanghongs’ confidence culture in the Chinese context, this essay contributes to the discussions of female confidence in non-Western contexts in an age of precarity.
AB - In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of confidence-focused discussions led by female vloggers. Despite the proliferation of self-improvement content on Chinese social media platforms, few studies have explored the discourses that emerge and circulate in these spaces. This study explores the confidence culture constructed by the female toubu vloggers on Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle platform widely popular among young women in urban China. The results show that the female toubu vloggers, as Chinese wanghongs, create content about confidence in noticeable, shared patterns, emphasising individuals’ multifaceted efforts to actualise perceived self-empowerment. The findings also suggest the limitation of the localised postfeminist ideas manifesting through confidence messages. By revealing the characteristics of the wanghongs’ confidence culture in the Chinese context, this essay contributes to the discussions of female confidence in non-Western contexts in an age of precarity.
U2 - 10.1080/19392397.2025.2484102
DO - 10.1080/19392397.2025.2484102
M3 - Journal article
JO - Celebrity Studies
JF - Celebrity Studies
SN - 1939-2397
ER -