Influencers and social media: gentrification aesthetics and prosumption through China’s wanghong economy

Abstract

Considering the emerging wanghong (social media and influencers) places in China that share high commonalities in their urban landscapes, I chose Dongshankou in Guangzhou as a representative case study by discussing the universalism revealed from the particularities of China, to explore the possibilities of building dialogues with gentrification scholarship to enlighten future research. By engaging with the concept of gentrification aesthetics, I first argue that what is happening in Dongshankou shows that consumers’ check-in activities – attracted by something online and visiting the place onsite – reveal the changing nature of consumers and that prosumption, rather than merely consumption, contributed digital/gentrifiable capital to Dongshankou. Based on this new feature of prosumption, I use gentrification aesthetics to contend that places with exotic urban landscapes offer a place for consumers to showcase their exquisite consumption tastes and social identities. Therefore, I extend the concept of gentrification aesthetics by arguing that it is a prosumption process, whereby Chinese consumers with middle-class tastes are consuming places with aesthetics and produce new aesthetics through their exquisite urban lifestyles. This shows that gentrification aesthetics is an aesthetic-seeking and building-up process initiated by consumers’ prosumption practices, which in the end enhances the cultural representation of one place.

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