Online feminist stand-up comedy: an emerging affective-discursive intervention on gender in China

This article focuses on online women's stand-up comedy in China and its intervention on gender-related and feminist issues. Acknowledging the role of affect in both stand-up comedy performance and the formation of feminist politics, we conduct an affective-discursive analysis of women's stand-up performances from the popular Chinese online stand-up comedy show Rock & Roast (脱口秀大会). In the analysis, we explore how the female comedians discursively and physically express two affects – disgust and shame – in ways that reveal their bodily and affective awareness of everyday gender inequalities. We argue that these online performances create a digital affective space which allows everyday affects of Chinese women to be expressed, circulated, and shared. These stand-up performances are affective-discursive manifestations of female comedians' self-authorship and self-empowerment in the contemporary context of Chinese digital feminisms.