Overseas Chinese parent wanghong on Douyin: Discursive constructions of diasporic parenthood

Abstract

This article explores how overseas Chinese parent wanghong (网红, internet celebrities) document, curate, and share their everyday life of parenting on Douyin, one of the most actively used short video platforms in China. Wanghong in this article refers to Chinese parents who were born in China and have migrated outside of the country with children or to form families, and who have attracted online audience and fame by sharing their everyday family life with children and as parents. Despite the technological boundaries between Douyin and its international counterpart (i.e. TikTok), many overseas Chinese, particularly the ‘new migrants’, were found to be avid users and content creators of digital platforms designed for the Chinese domestic market in their everyday life. This article begins with a critical review of emerging studies on diasporic wanghong/internet celebrities and the social constructions of ‘parenting’. Employing a multimodal discourse analysis approach, it then analyses a total of 27 videos posted by overseas Chinese parent wanghong on Douyin. Creators of these videos are physically located in 13 different countries. The analysis shows that while these videos construct diasporic parenthood in different ways, they share a common narrative to responsiblise parental obligations and decisions. The article discusses how these wanghong videos discursively construct and interpellate desirable qualities of ‘diasporic parenthood’, which draw on the various aspects of parent wanghong’s everyday experiences, observations, and values to distinguish themselves from parents within China.