Making Nüzhubo: Commodified Intimacy and Gendered Labour in Chinese Live/Life Streaming

Live streaming platforms have become extremely popular in China within the past five years, resulting in the formation of new industries and professions in the area of live media. Nüzhubo, meaning female live streamers in Chinese, is one of these emerging professions, with women making up two-thirds of full-time live streamers. A large number of nüzhubos produce a genre that I call “live/life streaming”, which invites audiences to participate in their mundane life events in a seemingly intimate setting. This is achieved through watching and commenting in real-time and is facilitated by the “beauty filter” and “virtual gift” functions of such platforms. Many nüzhubos make a living from hyper-gendered performance and sexually suggestive content that plays upon sexual tension with their predominantly heterosexual male viewers in exchange for money. This chapter examines the user practices of professional nüzhubos that developed around the technological features and economic mechanisms of Chinese live streaming platforms. I demonstrate how they engender different forms of labour nüzhubo perform in managing relationships with viewers and creating self-representations within the ecosystem of Chinese live/life streaming.