Does danmei fiction truly generate feminist impacts? Evidence from Hong Kong fans’ declarative and nondeclarative transformations

This study engages with the debate over whether danmei fiction truly has feminist impacts. Its objective is to contribute to the debate by i) providing the necessary yet often ignored framing of this debate as but one of the many popular feminist sub-debates on various genres of feminist popular culture, ii) substantiating the sympathetic camp of the danmei debate in a more causally immediate, systematic, and direct manner than current studies do, iii) advancing the understanding of three scantily explored ways through which danmei generates feminist impact (i.e. shipping, non-binarity, and gender equality), and iv) and helping extend the empirical scope of the debate to Hong Kong data. This study also develops a general framework for analyzing popular fiction’s social impact by borrowing from cognitive psychology’s dual process perspective and literary studies’ concept of transformative reading. Our analysis finds that Hong Kong fans of danmei webnovels are led, consciously and unconsciously, by danmei content to take actions with feminist impact. This study’s data were collected from in-depth interviews with 22 Hong Kong fans.