




































Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

1 

 

 

 

 

Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 

www.jhkpress.com 

Volume 01, Issue 01, ISSN: 2766-791X 

 

Identity and Cultural Resistance: A Case Study of Fansubbing 

from a Cross-cultural Communication Perspective 

 

Xiaowei Zou1 

Wuhan, China 

xiaowei2639@126.com 

 

Abstract: In this study, a Chinese fansub group - QAF was selected as the research 

object, and the online observation method was adopted to establish a long-term trusting 

relationship with the fansub group members. The researcher observed the activities of 

members in the group, and conducted in-depth interviews with group members to study 

how they construct their own identity in a virtual community, and how the textual 

reproduction behavior in fan culture context reflects the characteristics of “affective 

play”. The research shows that the concept of “affective play” is embodied in the textual 

reproduction process of the members of the fansub group, and the emotional factor is an 

important factor that affects the textual reproduction behavior of the members.  

Keywords: fansub group, affective play, identity 

1. Introduction 

A fansub group is a community group that adds subtitles in their native language to 

audio-visual works and publishes them on file-sharing websites free of charge. As a new 

phenomenon of the subculture, the fansub group provides its members with a lifestyle 

different from the dominant culture and orthodox culture. As an intellectual group, the 

fansub group reconstructs its understanding and criticism of the world through 

deconstructing the video clip. They try to reconcile the contradictions between social life 

and media environment through their strength. Their appearance has become an 

opportunity for the audience to reject the strong discourse symbols of mainstream media 

and establish self-identity to some extent. The fansub group embodies the most 

fundamental characteristics of the Internet, bearing the selfless and volunteering 

mentality, promoting a spirit of freedom, openness and sharing, and bringing a new style 

of sub-culture. This research explores the concepts of identity and affective play through 

a case study of the Chinese gay fansub group QAF. 

                                                 

1The author’s contact information in Chinese(作者): 邹晓威 

http://www.jhkpress.com/


Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

2 

 

 

 

2. An interview with the group leader 

“Queer as Folk Fansub Group” (QAF) is a Chinese fansub group specializing in gay-

themed film and television translation. In recent years, the group has translated nearly 

1,000 gay films and TV series. In 2011, Danlan.org, a famous gay website, interviewed 

Xiao P, one of the leaders of the group and the interview transcription was published on 

QAF’s website (Danlan, 2011). This research analyzed the transcription and the relevant 

data about the group. The group QAF is named after the American TV show Queer as 

Folk. The original intention of the group was to provide a communication and video 

exchange platform for Chinese fans of the show. After the TV show ended, the group’s 

enthusiasm about the show did not decrease. The group hoped to gain access to additional 

similar shows, so they started to collect and subtitle film and television works, either gay-

themed or containing a gay sub-plot. 

Due to censorship in China, no gay film and television works have been officially 

introduced. With the official channels being blocked, the QAF group acts as a bridge: 

QAF selects a batch of excellent foreign gay movies and TV shows, translates them, adds 

relevant background annotations, and then presents them to the gay communities in 

China through the Internet. Though it is now China’s largest gay film and television 

production and publishing website, QAF did not intend to become so. QAF still hopes the 

Chinese radio and television censorship system can be more lenient and tolerant, and can 

provide an official channel for the import of gay-themed audio-visual works. 

From September 2004 when the group was established to 2011, the QAF fansub group 

has established a library with more than 400 films and television programs. Currently, 

they translate 2 ~ 3 new films or videos every week. The weekly workload was set, in 

consideration of group members’ Internet bandwidth, energy, time, as well as the fansub 

quality. From planning a subtitling project to the final product, the subtitling processes 

include the first translation draft, proofreading, second proofreading, timing check and 

quick double-check, then finally video-subtitles merging. By regulating the weekly work 

quota, QAF can make good use of time and fully guarantee the production quality, which 

is a key factor in QAF’s success of becoming a large film and television fansub group in 

China. Around 2011, QAF started translating and transmitting Chinese gay films online. 

According to Xiao P, some Chinese directors entrusted QAF to translate their films for 

export. QAF stated they would implement any decisions made by the film director. 

Moreover, QAF hopes to refine and retranslate the rushed translations of the classic old 

films they completed so fans could add the works to their collection. 

QAF started its operation translating Queer as Folk, one of the many popular American 

dramas available for Chinese online audiences. Nevertheless, according to Xiao P, QAF 

will not blindly follow or translate every popular drama. Rather, they plan to concentrate 

on gay-themed TV shows and films. According to QAF’s observation, mainstream 

American TV channels control and reduce the gay elements in their shows to ensure 

drama ratings. Also, Cable TV channels lack financial support, which makes it difficult 

for them to guarantee the quality of gay-themed dramas, so some QAF members turn to 

dramas containing gay sub-plots. Many popular American dramas with gay sub-plots, 



Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

3 

 

 

 

such as Glee and Modern Family, are not “pure” gay dramas in their eyes. QAF believes 

that a fansub production team’s energy and time are always limited, and complementary 

division of labor improves efficiency.  They think that there is no need to re-translate 

completed works since many other fansub groups have already subtitled popular 

American drama, so QAF tends to devote their energy to the production of pure gay or 

gay-themed dramas. 

3. Meaning-giving text reconstruction and cultural communication  

Fans of popular culture generally only stay on the level of appreciating and commenting 

on texts, while these fanatical cultural fans are active, enthusiastic and participatory in 

their input to texts. They reconstruct the text, delve deep into the meaning behind the text, 

and then disseminate to larger audiences. 

The Internet provides a broad platform for the general public to obtain information and 

share resources, and the class attribute of the general public became blurred in the virtual 

Internet community. People’s participation in the cultural industry and their choice of 

cultural products are mostly determined by their cultural interests, spiritual satisfaction 

and the need to realize self-worth, rather than by their regarding the cultural products as 

unique cultural resources of a particular class (Gauntlett, 2000). That contributes to the 

borderless nature of cultural communication in the online world. Abandoning class 

essentialism, the participants of mass culture, especially the fanatical fans, will devote 

more time and energy to text reconstruction and cultural communication, which is a 

process that transcends the dualistic opposition of suppression and resistance, elitism and 

populism simplification. Most members of the online fansub group have received higher 

education. Take the QAF fansub group as an example. This fansub group, with a history 

of nearly 20 years, is mainly engaged in the translation of gay film and television dramas. 

At present, it has more than 100 members, covering people born between the 1960s and 

1980s, including Chinese students from high schools and universities inside and outside 

China, white-collar workers, and overseas Chinese. They have plenty of time for 

computer use, and their foreign language proficiency is very high. Such a group, with 

different social identities and backgrounds, has an idealistic spirit of sharing and 

dedication, which can be regarded as the spiritual satisfaction and self-worth realization 

of the fan group. 

4. Affective play embodied in the textual reproduction 

Chinese internet users joined the group out of their interests and work voluntarily under 

high pressure. These fansub group members do subtitle translation as their part-time 

work, but they gained self-identity in that online Internet space. The audience’s 

recognition of fansub groups is an affirmation of their values or beliefs. There is 

competition among different fansub groups, and subtitles updated earlier can get more 

downloads. The return of voluntary labor has nothing to do with the profits, but it can 

strengthen the self-identity of fansub group members. 



Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

4 

 

 

 

The fansub group members are first the audience of film and television dramas, but the 

Chinese and English subtitles they produce are products viewed by Chinese audiences. 

Therefore, when they watch film and television dramas as audience members, they begin 

to develop narcissism and regard themselves as performers. Their process of multiple 

decoding and encoding, recoding and decoding of subtitles, shows the attitude of the 

fansub group as the audience interpreting the text. The interaction of dual identities has 

helped fansub groups transmit information effectively in small groups. 

Through the observation of activities of fans in the gay fansub group, and in-depth 

interviews with the group members, the study discovered that the fansub members 

constructed their own identity in the virtual community, and their textual reproduction 

behavior in fan culture context reflects the characteristics of “affective play”. The notion 

of affective play, according to  Hills (2002), is that space where the fan fiction writers can 

experience, feel and live playfully within the texts that are the subjects of their fandom. 

This research shows that the concept of “affective play” is embodied in the textual 

reproduction process of the members of the gay fansub group, and the emotional factor is 

important because it affects the textual reproduction behavior of the members. It is 

because of the emotional attachment of gay fansub group volunteers who joined the 

fansub group to reproduce the text. In the reproduction process, the original meaning 

expression of the TV or film text was eliminated, and a new set of texts with emotional 

identity were created by attaching to the original text with imaginative means. Besides, 

members of the gay fansub group construct their own identity through the role-playing of 

“foreground” and “background”. “Role-playing” mainly refers to identity construction 

through the roles of “manager”, “chief translator” and “opinion leader” in the virtual 

Internet community. Meanwhile, in the context of fan culture, fans of the gay fansub 

group also gain “identity” through “affective play”. Affect plays a vital role in 

distinguishing groups with multiple boundaries, because it constantly constructs the 

possibility of differences and constructs a way to highlight specific differences. The gay 

fansub group skillfully integrates their own cultures with foreign cultures to achieve 

localization through text and cultural reproduction, especially within the environment of 

new media technology, showing great initiative and creativity. As communicators, the 

gay fansub group effectively controls the second wave of transmitting gay culture in 

Chinese-speaking areas in the process of secondary coding and implanted some localized 

elements and Chinese culture, which promoted the new trend of cultural exchange to 

some extent.  

5. Constructing an identity through media use behavior 

From two aspects of self-identity and group identity, this paper examines how the gay 

fansub group constructs identity through media use behavior. Identity is accomplished by 

self-examination and exploration of one’s relationship with others. First, although each 

fan is an individual, his or her self-identity construction cannot be separated from self-

reflection and interaction with others. The author divides the study of self-identity into 

two parts. On the one hand, from the stage when the individual’s ideal self appears, the 

fan realizes the unity of “real self” and “ideal self” through a series of self-reflective 



Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

5 

 

 

 

activities. On the other hand, from the perspective of the relationship between individuals 

and others, without the reference function of others, the self is meaningless, and the 

evaluation and affirmation of others play a vital role in the construction of individual 

identity. In this paper, through the classification of fan types, the author discovered that 

these fansub group members received the affirmation, praise and recognition of others 

through their media use by playing different roles, such as group managers, opinion 

leaders and fansub group members, and building their identity from the specific media 

use behavior. Self-identity is to solve the problem of “who am I”, and the development of 

individuals can never be separated from the nourishment of the group. So, “who are we?” 

is the new question if we broaden the research scope from a gay fan to the gay fansub 

group. These questions involve group identity. The development of new media, 

especially the flourishing of the Internet, is the motive of identity construction of the gay 

fansub group. Meanwhile, the fansub group’s media use behavior can promote the 

establishment of identity labels. 

In the 1980s, scholars including Fiske demonstrated the initiative and creativity of mass 

culture. Instead of adopting ideological analysis methods, they argued that the masses 

were not just passively controlled objects; there is a kind of active and independent power 

hidden in mass culture (Fiske, 2010). The audience’s subjectivity in popular cultures such 

as film and television dramas is particularly obvious. As a member of popular culture, the 

members of the fansub group are, in a sense, acts of text reconstruction in the translation 

of texts, which is the outward release and embodiment of the receiver’s subjectivity. This 

culture of online downloading is also a kind of acquiescence to piracy. That makes this 

group appear marginalized. Subsequently, the interpretation of the causes, behaviors and 

participating groups of the fansub group entails the complexity of the cultural game. Fan 

culture is a participatory culture, and the interpretation of existing texts may lead to new 

texts, new cultures and new communities. 

6. Fansubbers’ social identity in modern society 

Gofman’s dramaturgical sociology holds that life is a performance, society is a stage, and 

the process of interpersonal communication is the process of people performing “self”, 

but this “self” is not the real self, but the “self” disguised by symbols (Goffman, 1978). 

Fansub groups have their own identities and roles in real life. These “selves” are often 

carefully decorated and play a regular role in front of others. The fixity and 

standardization in daily life, as well as the standardized living space, cause fan social 

self-alienation. Fans are more likely to regard the online community as a platform for 

self-presentation and extension so that they can more actively show themselves and vent 

their emotions in fan activities such as text reconstruction. Almost all online fansub 

groups volunteer to translate American TV drama resources without pay and regard 

subtitle translation as intervention and participation in modern life, as recognition and 

realization of self-worth. 

Meanwhile, the incompleteness and fragmentation of modern society also breeds the 

incomplete and fragmented self. For these online fansub groups active behind the scenes, 

the identity of fans is, in a sense, a psychological compensation for this atomized and 



Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

6 

 

 

 

isolated modern life (Giddens, 1991). Fans can prove the value of individual existence by 

participating in the dissemination or reconstruction of their favorite cultural and industrial 

products. The seemingly mysterious communication between fans can be seen as 

experiencing an illusory sense of community. In this virtual environment, fan imagination 

and creativity are stimulated, and they also incorporate more self-emotion and creativity 

in the process of text reconstruction, thus forming a new consumption of cultural 

industrial products. 

Corresponding to the official culture, the fan culture of the online fansub group belongs 

to folk culture in a sense, which has a unique set of cultural paradigm and power, 

sometimes showing amazing creativity in reconstruction and cultural communication, but 

sometimes also restricted and constrained by ideology. The fansub group, wandering on 

the edge of social norms in the traditional sense, is controversial and complex. The 

government intends to filter the cultural resources people receive, by controlling popular 

cultural products, but this stimulates piracy. The prosperity of Internet downloading, 

though decreasing DVD piracy, has become another type of piracy. In the virtual 

community, the members of the fansub group have the cultural rights and channels that 

are difficult to obtain in real life. Therefore, this is a kind of self-awakening and recovery 

of cultural cognition and ideology brought about by life in the information age. 

The mainstream cultural concept can easily regard the fansub group as a marginal group. 

They are regarded as being easily incited and sometimes blind. However, fans have 

formed another society that is contrary to mainstream society and formed a relatively 

open space where there is a confrontation between democracy and freedom. In reality, the 

members of the fansub group may not get such a channel to realize self-culture, and it is 

difficult to communicate with others due to ideological differences. In the online fansub 

community, it is easier to realize cultural rights and resonate with others’ thoughts, which 

adds a romantic color to the interpretation and reconstruction of the text. 

7. Conclusion 

Within a fansub group, fansub members build their identity from the specific media use 

behavior. In the context of fan culture, fans in the gay fansub group also gain “identity” 

through “affective play”. Affect plays a vital role in distinguishing from groups with 

multiple boundaries, because it constantly constructs the possibility of differences and 

constructs the way to highlight specific differences. As research on LGBTQ culture in 

China is limited, the author hopes to provide some valuable information for the study of 

online gay fansub groups through this study. 

 

 

References 

Danlan. (2011). Exclusive Interview with Danlan.org: QAF Chinese Fansub Group (in 

Chinese) [淡蓝网独家专访：同志亦凡人中文字幕组]. from 

http://www.qafone.co/viewthread.php?tid=140549 

http://www.qafone.co/viewthread.php?tid=140549


Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 01(01) 2021  

7 

 

 

 

Fiske, J. (2010). Understanding popular culture: Routledge. 

Gauntlett, D. (2000). Web. studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age: Edward 

Arnold, Ltd. 

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age: 

Stanford university press. 

Goffman, E. (1978). The presentation of self in everyday life: Harmondsworth London. 

Hills, M. (2002). Fan cultures: Psychology Press. 

 


