‘Watching Our Men Playing for the Nation’: Esports LPL’s Hierarchical, Gendered, and Mainstremeist ‘All-Chinese Team’ Fandom in China

This chapter develops a typology and critical analysis of the fandom groups of one of the world’s most popular computer games and esports, League of Legends (LOL), a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game developed by Riot Games and operated by Tencent in China. We focus on a particular fandom group, termed the ‘All-Chinese Team’ who are obsessed with the nationality of the players of the Chinese League, League of Legends Pro League (LPL), and examine the development of this hierarchical and gendered group. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews, we examine the complex entanglements between LPL fandom groups and follow this with a thematic analysis. We argue that LPL fandom shows highly gendered and hierarchical characteristics within which, Chinese male fans attempt to defend and monopolize national pride and masculinity. We offer insights into a neglected aspect of Chinese contemporary Chinese gender politics, in which gender issues are often both downplayed and intensified at the intersection of race and meritocracy. Racial and gender discrimination is often hidden and justified within a meritocracy-based and nationalist fandom discourse in socially mediated communication and even tolerated in national media outlets. This research makes a much-needed empirical and conceptual contribution to the field of esports fandom in China, considering the intersecting issues of gender, nation, and identity in an ever-polarized world.