Good job on another enjoyable read! Thanks a great deal. However, regarding the earliest/most popular Neiyu RPS, I beg to differ. No one knew PDA better than the Bo-Bo (井柏然 and 付辛博）at the time and geez they had a massive CPFan base, and some of their heartbreaks and dramas even sustained into 2023 in their implicit competition(?) on being casted in 耽改 web series.
YES - you are absolutely right, I cannot believe they slipped my mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they the first male pop star duo of neiyu in a way? (and perhaps the only duo that debuted that way) I remember watching them on 快乐大本营 and seeing a very bro-like marketing image being adopted, but fans still went wild. I think the difference between Bo-Bo and TF/Yuzhou is how quickly the former went their separate ways, before their CPF can establish a semi community on platforms like Weibo (but definitely Tieba, I'd imagine).
The trend of past ships being revived that you mentioned is super interesting, I thought. Bo-Bo and their respective roles in two different dangai aroused major nostalgia, and also rumours of 胡军 and 刘烨 becoming co-stars in an upcoming film were explosive news too, especially considering both of these pairings were deliberately avoiding being associated with each other. I wonder if they are playing into fan demands for popularity...
I wasn’t actively following BoBo at the time(cuz of the rivalry that was kind of going on between 快男 and 好男儿), but I’m pretty confident that there has been dedicated, independent forums built to ship the duo(hence where we derive the infamous character 站 in 站姐、首站 nowadays.) The advent of Weibo definitely turned most fan base ecosystems upside down and sifted out a new class of 站姐 who were in power, though there wasn’t any 站子 anymore to begin with.
That's new information for me - thank you for bringing this up! Very very interesting and I need to track this down... Thank you for also bringing up 快男. The comparison between that and modern days Produce series would be a good issue too, especially if discussed in the context of platform ecosystems 🤔
Yes, it would be fantastic if you can write an issue on that. To be honest, reading AF is kind of growing into a habit of mine, and I look forward to a new post everytime I open up Substack. But by no means you should be giving any fcks about this. Please write what makes you happy and writing enjoyable. So long.
Yes! How can I forget about 军烨! And, immediately I’m thinking about 狄姜 at this moment because of it. We’re really going back history here! I think it’s kind of a far reach to try to include 狄姜 as Neiyu, but I’m definitely having a lot of fun walking down the memory lane. Thanks, Em. Good job to both of us.
Nice! Btw, the NiF fandom has a ton of amazing fics on ao3, some of them ginormously long, a lot of them in Chinese. One is apparently so well known that someone is currently translating it! (倾国 https://archiveofourown.org/works/35125336)
Oh amazing! Thanks for this, but as you must know, AO3 is down as of this moment...Will definitely check this out once the holy site is back online :)))
I loved this article! I'm a foreign danmei fan who discovered danmei through the release of CQL on Netflix, and since my Chinese is still not goid enough to get into the fandom, it's really awesome to see that you're writing about it in English. Thank you so much!
Moreover, I remembered there were vaguely some years before the term 同人 acquired its popularity, RPS and fictional male-male ships shortly borrowed the word 王道 as a label during mid 00s. Maybe you can look into it if feeling archaeological sometime.
Sorry for ranting in the comment section. I just really enjoyed your writings for that I think it’s exactly what this time needs but rarely talked about.
I love seeing comments! Never apologise for that and thank you for showing much love ❤️
And yes - I remember the same. No idea how it came about though. I think it can also be used to mean if something "rules", without the male-male connotation too, which makes it even harder to trace...
Good job on another enjoyable read! Thanks a great deal. However, regarding the earliest/most popular Neiyu RPS, I beg to differ. No one knew PDA better than the Bo-Bo (井柏然 and 付辛博）at the time and geez they had a massive CPFan base, and some of their heartbreaks and dramas even sustained into 2023 in their implicit competition(?) on being casted in 耽改 web series.
YES - you are absolutely right, I cannot believe they slipped my mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they the first male pop star duo of neiyu in a way? (and perhaps the only duo that debuted that way) I remember watching them on 快乐大本营 and seeing a very bro-like marketing image being adopted, but fans still went wild. I think the difference between Bo-Bo and TF/Yuzhou is how quickly the former went their separate ways, before their CPF can establish a semi community on platforms like Weibo (but definitely Tieba, I'd imagine).
The trend of past ships being revived that you mentioned is super interesting, I thought. Bo-Bo and their respective roles in two different dangai aroused major nostalgia, and also rumours of 胡军 and 刘烨 becoming co-stars in an upcoming film were explosive news too, especially considering both of these pairings were deliberately avoiding being associated with each other. I wonder if they are playing into fan demands for popularity...
I wasn’t actively following BoBo at the time(cuz of the rivalry that was kind of going on between 快男 and 好男儿), but I’m pretty confident that there has been dedicated, independent forums built to ship the duo(hence where we derive the infamous character 站 in 站姐、首站 nowadays.) The advent of Weibo definitely turned most fan base ecosystems upside down and sifted out a new class of 站姐 who were in power, though there wasn’t any 站子 anymore to begin with.
That's new information for me - thank you for bringing this up! Very very interesting and I need to track this down... Thank you for also bringing up 快男. The comparison between that and modern days Produce series would be a good issue too, especially if discussed in the context of platform ecosystems 🤔
Yes, it would be fantastic if you can write an issue on that. To be honest, reading AF is kind of growing into a habit of mine, and I look forward to a new post everytime I open up Substack. But by no means you should be giving any fcks about this. Please write what makes you happy and writing enjoyable. So long.
that made my day ❤️❤️❤️ thank you for reading and commenting, it really means so much!!
Yes! How can I forget about 军烨! And, immediately I’m thinking about 狄姜 at this moment because of it. We’re really going back history here! I think it’s kind of a far reach to try to include 狄姜 as Neiyu, but I’m definitely having a lot of fun walking down the memory lane. Thanks, Em. Good job to both of us.
Nice! Btw, the NiF fandom has a ton of amazing fics on ao3, some of them ginormously long, a lot of them in Chinese. One is apparently so well known that someone is currently translating it! (倾国 https://archiveofourown.org/works/35125336)
Oh amazing! Thanks for this, but as you must know, AO3 is down as of this moment...Will definitely check this out once the holy site is back online :)))
I loved this article! I'm a foreign danmei fan who discovered danmei through the release of CQL on Netflix, and since my Chinese is still not goid enough to get into the fandom, it's really awesome to see that you're writing about it in English. Thank you so much!
Moreover, I remembered there were vaguely some years before the term 同人 acquired its popularity, RPS and fictional male-male ships shortly borrowed the word 王道 as a label during mid 00s. Maybe you can look into it if feeling archaeological sometime.
Sorry for ranting in the comment section. I just really enjoyed your writings for that I think it’s exactly what this time needs but rarely talked about.
I love seeing comments! Never apologise for that and thank you for showing much love ❤️
And yes - I remember the same. No idea how it came about though. I think it can also be used to mean if something "rules", without the male-male connotation too, which makes it even harder to trace...