Advances in Social Science and Culture ISSN 2640-9682 (Print) ISSN 2640-9674 (Online) Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 11 Original Paper Construction of Personality and Temperament of Chinese Male Homosexuality in the Social Media Environment Zhang Sitong 1 1 City University of Macau, Macau, China Received: December 12, 2022 Accepted: January 12, 2023 Online Published: January 24, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p11 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p11 Abstract Social media is a double-edged sword. It shapes a universal standard, which can be used to encourage or eliminate “beauty” through traffic. With the standard of “beauty”, guiding the public to make efforts towards the standard to generate motivation and behavior. Under the influence of social media, the character and temperament of Chinese male homosexuality mainly tend to be masculine. This paper analyzes the construction of their gender temperament from the visual and psychological perspectives, reflecting the top and bottom in the character and temperament of Chinese male homosexuality. At the same time, it is also found that the introverted temperament is easier to be accepted and welcomed, which is closely related to Chinese traditional culture. Keywords homosexuality, personality, social media 1. Aesthetic Shaping of Social Media Social media is a double-edged sword. It can enable children in remote mountainous areas to see the football match of the World Cup and cheer for their favorite sports, and it can also enable a young girl to start dieting and die because of negative comments. But everything is not perfect, which does not mean denying the necessity of its existence. How social media interferes with people’s rational behavior is the research content of many experts and scholars, for example, social media filters content, pushes popular parts, and hides the unpopular parts. The result is that the image of “beauty” is more universal. For example, the baby walkers, we generally believe that it is because babies need to learn to walk that they need to buy walkers, but in fact, this is an acquired business marketing strategy. Babies do not necessarily need walkers to learn to walk, but the walkers are using their own publicity to force consumers to create new consumption habits, which has become a common consensus, analogizing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 12 Published by SCHOLINK INC. image of “beauty” in social media, it can be understood as a kind of aesthetic hegemony. Beauty is diverse, but in social media, because we are filled with a single “beauty” every day, beauty is shaped, and is imperceptibly and passively accepted. We are filled with information. When processing images, businesses will use social media as a tool, not only to inject words and output ideas, but also to tamper with the standards of “beauty”. 2. New Behavior under Aesthetic Standards The universal standards of aesthetics in social media have come into being, and this kind of beauty is homogeneous. For example, female groups in China on social platforms will follow the principle of “thin for beauty”, “tiny face”, or “pure lust”. Stimulated by traffic and capital, they are followed by imitation. From a static process to stimulating behavior, people begin to work hard to achieve similar goals. There are many reasons for this motivation, such as jealousy. When others get attention, I will lose. Especially when others get attention externally, not internally. So, if I try to decorate my external part well, I will certainly get attention and traffic; Or it comes from anxiety. In fact, it is a lack of confidence in myself and an underestimate of my ability. I began to worry that if I wasn’t good enough externally, I would accomplish nothing. The image on social media is so pleasing to the eyes, but I am just an ordinary person; Sometimes selling active life is also a way to get traffic. People like somebody who love life and are willing to contribute traffic to them to urge themselves. Therefore, the new behavior generated by social media is a way to prove their hard life on the one hand, it is a way to earn traffic on the other hand; Some people simply want to be called “beauty”, so their behavior aims to follow the public’s aesthetic, get more approval and affirmation, then having greater social utility. 3. Personality and Temperament of Chinese Male Homosexuality The social styles of Chinese male homosexuality are divided into online and offline social networking, and the daily offline dating activities tend to be clear. They will choose to meet in restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores and other places, gradually from “hiding” to “going out”, which reflects the friendly and positive side of their temperament. Through this way, they get to meet more friends and communicate with each other. Although the public opinion environment of life is not optimistic, they are still on the way to pursue equality steadily. However, the character and temperament displayed by Chinese male homosexuality on social platforms are mainly masculine, which is mainly related to standard aesthetics and social evaluation. Many onlookers cannot accept the female male image. From their perspective, men should have a strong and masculine image. However, gay men, like other netizens, are affected by public aesthetics, so they gradually form a masculine character and temperament. The research orientation of masculinity includes naturalistic orientation, gender psychological orientation and constructivist orientation. The naturalistic orientation mainly believes that the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 13 Published by SCHOLINK INC. temperament is inherent and will not change. The masculinity is completely separated from the femininity, while the gender psychological orientation mainly determines its image temperament through the positioning of the sexual role. For example, the masculine temperament is competitive, active and enterprising, while the female temperament is mainly affinity, passive, empathy, etc. However, today’s constructivism orientation enriches the relationship between gender, image and temperament, and more comprehensively considers multiple elements such as sexual orientation, religion, culture and society. The formation of the personality and temperament of Chinese male homosexuality is externally manifested in two aspects, one is the visual presentation, the other is the performance of character. First, on the level of showing your own photos, it is not just visually pleasing, but in the process of historical development, human beings have innate judgment on courtship. Good looking people are regarded as proof of having more excellent genes and healthier bodies. Therefore, strong, handsome and healthy images are more popular among gay men, and to some extent, they also reflect the masculinity of personality. In the process of research, it was also found that the male homosexual group had a unique love for white socks. As a microcosm of a male homosexual group’s fetishism, white socks represented subordination. Cornell divided masculinity into dominance, subordination, collusion and marginality. The subordination symbolized that the male homosexual group would yield to the evaluation of others and change themselves to make themselves more popular. On the performance level of personality, we should understand why the popularity of tops and bottoms is different in the general environment, and secondly, the popularity of different personality performances is different, which will be explained in detail later. 4. The Popularity Hypothesis of Top and Bottom Roles Gay men have a common understanding that tops are more popular than bottoms. Why does this happen? In fact, it can be understood that more gay men have the desire to be dominated. They hope to gain more advantages, attention, care and concern by transferring their identity traits. Are there fewer top roles than bottoms roles? According to the online data, in fact, in the role selection, the proportion of tops and bottoms is almost the same, so we need to find the reason behind the hypothesis of less tops than bottoms. The reason why the tops rate is less than the bottoms rate is mainly because the two characters are different in temperament. The tops are masculine, which is introverted and practical, while the bottoms are motivated and enthusiastic. This difference will create a false impression. Because the active people are the bottoms, the tops will be deemed to be less than the bottoms rate. 5. Introversion Is More Popular than Openness In the ST (self-transcendence) dimension, men scored higher than women. The higher the ST score, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 14 Published by SCHOLINK INC. plainer, patient, creative, selfless and noble it is. In the eastern culture, it is usually described as smart, erudite and modest. They can accept the failure after hard work and will be full of gratitude regardless of success or failure. In gay men, masculinity is more popular, so introverted personality will be more easily accepted and welcomed. Although it cannot be concluded that all tops are introverted and all bottoms are exoteric, and the distinction between tops and bottoms is an uncertain issue, this article can affirm that the introverted temperament is more popular than the exoteric temperament in China, which is to some extent related to the traditional culture of China. Modesty and courtesy have been the model temperament of China since ancient times. The historical origin has also contributed to the praise of this excellent temperament until now. 6. Conclusion Social media has shaped a universal standard, which can be used to encourage or eliminate “beauty” through traffic. With the standard of “beauty”, guiding the public to make efforts towards the standard to generate motivation and behavior. The personality and temperament of Chinese male homosexuality are mainly masculine. There is a consensus among the group that the top roles are more popular, which is essentially the embodiment of subordination and passivity in the group character and temperament. At the same time, the introverted temperament is more easily accepted and welcomed, which is closely related to China’s traditional culture. To sum up, the temperament of Chinese male homosexuality is not innate and unchanging. It is influenced by social media and public opinion, to build the current mainstream temperament, that is, calm, introverted and masculine. Its external presentation is to build its popular image, that is, robust, handsome and healthy, etc. References Wang, Y. Y. (2022). Media Mirroring and Realistic Thinking. Shandong Normal University, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.27280/d.cnki.gsdsu.2022.001504 Qi, R. Z. (2016). Research on the social interaction of gay men. Reform and opening up, 2016(11), 66-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.16653/j.cnki.32-1034/f.2016.11.028 Yi, H. F. (2020). Body presentation and masculinity construction of gay men in social media. Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.26962/d.cnki.gbjwu.2020.000425 Cai, Q. C., Wang, X. M., Liu, H., Han, J. Y., He, Q., Xia, J., Shao, Y., Zhan, Y. H., & Liu, G. (2014). CLONINGER Claude Robert Distribution characteristics of 240 items of temperament and personality scale (TCI-R) in Chinese version in different gender and age. Journal of China Medical University, 43(12), 1078-1083.