The Xiao Xianrou Subculture’s Challenge to Hegemonic Masculinity

In recent years, the xiao xianrou (小鲜肉) or ‘little fresh meat’ fashion subculture has become the site of a polarising debate in the People’s Republic of China. Xiao xianrou, a term coined by Chinese netizens, describes young male idol celebrities who value maintaining a slim-yet-muscular physique, while simultaneously engaging with beauty and fashion regimes that are traditionally associated with young women. Despite the various attempts made by the Chinese government to discourage the rise of this fashion subculture through social and cultural regulations, however, it continues to grow in popularity across contemporary Chinese media. Through a close reading of the reality survival television show Ouxiang Lianxisheng (Idol Producer), I complicate the definitions of xiao xianrou masculinity presented in the previous literature by proposing a fluid classification schema, thus highlighting the queer potentials of this subculture and complicating normative narratives of masculinity. I importantly reveal through my analysis of the aesthetics and gender performances of participants in Ouxiang Lianxisheng that, because xiao xianrou style is continually changing, the set of codes used to define the subculture and its associated aesthetics are neither singular nor constant. Finally, my analysis explicates how the ambivalence of xiao xianrou aesthetics present a hybrid cultural form that engages with gender outside of the isolated binary categorisation of wen-wu central to previous scholarship, revealing how xiao xianrou masculinity shift between hard and soft aesthetics. This case study will ultimately provide new understandings of the relationship between gender and sartorial performance within the context of the Sinosphere.