Mapping Digital Game Culture in China: From Internet Addicts to Esports Athletes (East Asian Popular Culture)

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: Mapping China’s Digital Gaming Culture
	The Problematic
	Chinese Popular Culture and the State in the Era of Participatory Media
	A Topography of Digital Game Culture
	Youth Culture in China
	A Situational Analysis Approach to Culture
	Research Mechanics
	Chapter Overview
Chapter 2: Internet Cafés: Nostalgia, Sociality, and Stigma
	Internet Cafés in China and Beyond: The Literature
	A Once-Rebellious Social Space: High-School Experience in the Wangba
	Leaving the Wangba Behind: Changing Perceptions and the Spatialization of Class
	Nostalgia for the Impossible Return
Chapter 3: Spiritual Opium: The Internet Addiction Panic and the Spiritually Ailing Nation
	A Timeline of the Internet Addiction Moral Panic in the Chinese Press
	Visualizing Internet Addiction in the Chinese Press
	Spiritual Opium and Cultural Pollution
	Class Consciousness: The Double Discursive Construction of Opium/Internet
	Cultural Capital: Profiting from Opium/Internet Addiction
	Moral Panics and Their Consequences in the Era of Participatory Media
Chapter 4: Patriotic Leisure: Internet Games, Esports, and the Discourse of Productivity
	Internet Games: What’s in a Name?
	Late Socialist Neoliberalism and Patriotic Professionalism
	From Patriotic Professionalism to Patriotic Leisure
	Healthy Dianzi Jingji in Official Discourse
	Wangluo Games and Danji Games in College Student Narratives
	Blurred Boundaries
	Exceptions and Ironies of Patriotic Leisure
	Transforming Affect into Capital
	Speaking Patriotic Leisure, Confronting Internet Addiction
Chapter 5: Carving Out a Spiritual Homeland
	Online Videos: Extensions of the Game Space
	The War of Internet Addiction
	Belonging, Friendship, and Equality
	Residence and Mobility in a Beautiful World
	Sideways Mobility and Nostalgic Longing
Chapter 6: “Losers” “Acting Gay”: Internet Slang, Memes, and Affective Intensities
	Affective Intensities
	Glossing the Terms: Diaosi and Jiyou
		Diaosi (Loser; Literally: Penis Hair)
		Gaoji/Jiyou (to Act Gay/Gaming Buddy; Literally: Gay Friend)
	Toying with the Heteronormative in Game-Related Web Series
	Heteronormative Failure and the Crisis of Masculinity
	The Loser Transformed?
	The Internet and the Circulation of Affective Intensity
	The Semiotic Openness of Diaosi and Jiyou
	The Potential/Danger of Loser Affect
Chapter 7: Conclusion: Mainstreaming and Marginalizing Digital Games
	Protests of the Imagination
	Precarity, Privilege, and Affective Deficit
	Problematizing Escape
	Finding Space
	A Changing China and the Enduring Panic
Glossary of Chinese Terms with English Equivalents
Bibliography
Index