The Managed Voice: The Platformization of Emotional Labor Among Female Game Companions

ABSTRACT In recent years, an increasing number of people have engaged in gig work as China's gig economy continues to expand. Game companionship, an emerging form of gig work, refers to the practice of accompanying clients in team‐based online games. This article examines how female game companions perform emotional labor on Bixin, one of the largest paid game companion matching platforms in China. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with 31 female game companions, this study reveals that their work is particularly shaped by algorithmic management, which governs job opportunities, monitors performance, and amplifies the isolation they experience. In the absence of established organizational or professional norms, female game companions perform three types of emotional labor on the platform, guided respectively by everyday social feeling rules, feeling rules borrowed from other service industries or peers, and commercial feeling rules. The study further demonstrates the gendered nature of emotional labor, as female game companions are expected to display traditionally feminine qualities that are often undervalued and considered deskilled within the context of their work.