Wang Yibo - Blog Posts

*WYB and XZ on a boat*

Director *in the loudspeaker* : hEy ! YOu tWo shOuLD KISS

Capa para a fanfic “Stand By Me” escrito por Wanian, com foco nos astros Xiao Zhan e Wang Yibo, eu não sei qual é o plot mas a capa tá bem sad então acredito que seja um plot bem sad... -qq

Se inspire! Não copie! Créditos a Cottonete e jinisxart pelos png's disponibilizados.

the untamed + text posts

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀➛⠀🌐̤̫⻨꯭⻰⠀゛ꗃ⠀(𝑡.)umblr﹗ネジ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀♡̶⠀完꯭璧꯭な 、yibo dark icons ੭⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀◖⠀⻩阘꯭⻡⻨꯭⻝꯭⺛⠀✮⠀゛🚈⠀༄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

little doodle for twitter lmao

Still trying to figure out why I like this look so much…

Would you be willing to talk about how standards of masculinity and femininity in Asia differ from those in Europe/North America? I know, it's a ridiculously broad question but I think you mentioned it in passing previously and I would be really interested in your answer especially in the context of the music industry and idols. I (European) sometimes see male Asian idols as quite feminine (in appearance, maybe?) even if they publicly talk about typically masculine hobbies of theirs.

Hi Anon,

Sorry that it took me over a month to get to this question, but the sheer volume of research that is necessary to actually answer this is significant, as there is an enormous body of work in gender studies. There are academics who have staked their entire careers in this field of research, much of which isn’t actually transnational, being that regional gender studies alone is already an incredibly enormous field.

As such, in no way can I say that I’ve been able to delve into even 1% of all the research that is out there to properly address this question. While I can talk about gender issues in the United States, and gender issues that deal with Asian American identity, I am not an expert in transnational gender studies between Asia and Europe. That being said, I’ll do my best to answer what I can. 

When we consider the concept of “masculinity” and “femininity,” we must first begin with the fundamental understanding that gender is both a construct and a performance. The myth of gender essentialism and of gender as a binary is a product of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in each culture where it emerges.

What you must remember when you talk about gendered concepts such as “masculinity” and “femininity” is that there is no universal idea of “masculinity” or “femininity” that speaks across time and nation and culture. Even within specific regions, such as Asia, not only does each country have its own understanding of gender and national signifiers and norms that defines “femininity” or “masculinity,” but even within the borders of the nation-state itself, we can find significantly different discourses on femininity and masculinity that sometimes are in direct opposition with one another. 

If we talk about the United States, for example, can we really say that there is a universal American idea of “masculinity” or “femininity”? How do we define a man, if what we understand to be a man is just a body that performs gender? What kind of signifiers are needed for such a performance? Is it Chris Evan’s Captain America? Or is it Chris Hemsworth’s Thor? What about Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? Do these characters form a single, cohesive idea of masculinity? 

What about Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen? Miller is nonbinary - does their superhero status make them more masculine? Or are they less “masculine” because they are nonbinary? 

Judith Butler tells us in Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) that what we call gender is inherently a discursive performance of specific signifiers and behaviors that were assigned to the gender binary and enforced by compulsory heterosexuality. She writes:

Insofar as heterosexual gender norms produce inapproximate ideals, heterosexuality can be said to operate through the regulated production of hyperbolic versions of “man” and “woman.” These are for the most part compulsory performances, ones which none of us choose, but which each of us is forced to negotiate. (1993: 237)

Because gender norms vary regionally, there are no stable norms that coalesce into the idea of a single, universal American “masculinity.” What I mean by this is that your idea of what reads as “masculine” might not be what I personally consider to be “masculine,” as someone who grew up in a very left-leaning liberal cosmopolitan area of the United States. 

What I am saying is this: Anon, I think you should consider challenging your idea of gender, because it sounds to me like you have a very regionally locked conception of the gender binary that informs your understanding of “masculinity” and femininity” - an understanding that simply does not exist in Asia, where there is not one,  but many different forms of masculinity. 

China, Japan, and South Korea all have significant cultural differences and understandings of gender, which has a direct relationship with one’s national and cultural identity. 

Japan, for example, might consider an idol who has long, layered hair and a thin body to be the ideal for idol masculinity, but would not consider an idol to be representative of “real” Japanese masculinity, which is epitomized by the Japanese salaryman. 

South Korea, however, has a very specific idea of what idol masculinity must look like -  simultaneously hypermasculine (i.e. extremely muscular, chiseled body) and “feminine” (i.e. makeup and dyed hair, extravagant clothing with a soft, beautiful face.) But South Korea also presents us with a more “standardized” idea of masculinity that offers an alternative to the “flowerboy” masculinity performed by idols, when we consider actors such as Hyun Bin and Lee Min-ho. 

China is a little more complex. In order to understand Chinese masculinity, we must first understand that prior to the Hallyu wave, the idea of the perfect Chinese man was defined by three qualities: 高富帅 (gaofushuai) tall, moneyed, and handsome - largely due to the emergence of the Chinese metrosexual. 

According to Kam Louie:

[The] Chinese metrosexual, though urbanized, is quite different from his Western counterpart. There are several translations of the term in Chinese, two of the most common and standard being “bailing li'nan” 白领丽男 and “dushili'nan” 都市丽男，literally “white-collar beautiful man” and “city beautiful man.” The notion of “beautiful man” (li-nan) refers to one who looks after his appearance and has healthy habits and all of the qualities usually attributed to the metrosexual; these are also the attributes of the reconstituted “cool” salaryman in Japan, men who have abandoned the “salaryman warrior” image and imbibed recent transnational corporate ideologies and practices. 

[...]

In fact, the concept of the metrosexual by its very nature defines a masculinity ideal that can only be attained by the moneyed classes. While it can be said to be a “softer” image than the macho male, it nevertheless encompasses a very “hard” and competitive core, one that is more aligned with the traditional “wen” part of the wen-wu dyad that I put forward as a conventional Chinese ideal and the “salaryman warrior” icon in Japan. Unsurprisingly, both metrosexuality and wen-wu masculinity are created and embraced by men who are “winners” in the patriarchal framework. 

The wen-wu 文武 (cultural attainment – martial valor) dyad that Louie refers to is the idea that Chinese masculinity was traditionally shaped by “a dichotomy between cultural and martial accomplishments” and is not only an ideal that has defined Chinese masculinity throughout history, but is also a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

When the Hallyu wave swept through China, in an effort to capture and maximize success in the Chinese market, South Korean idol companies recruited Chinese idols and mixed them into their groups. Idols such as Kris Wu, Han Geng, Jackson Wang, and Wang Yibo are just a few such idols whose masculinities were redefined by the Kpop idol ideal. 

Once that crossover occurred, China’s idol image shifted towards the example South Korea set, with one caveat: such an example can only exist on stage, in music videos, and other “idol” products. Indeed, if we look at any brand campaigns featuring Wang Yibo, his image is decisively more metrosexual than idol; he is usually shot bare-faced and clean-cut, without the “idol” aesthetics that dominate his identity as Idol Wang Yibo. But, this meterosexual image, despite being the epitome of Chinese idealized masculinity, would still be viewed as more “feminine” when viewed by a North American gaze. (It is important to note that this gaze is uniquely North American, because meterosexual masculinity is actually also a European ideal!)

The North American gaze has been trained to view alternate forms of masculinity as non-masculine. We are inundated by countless images of hypermasculinity and hypersexual femininity in the media, which shapes our cultural consciousness and understanding of gender and sexuality and unattainable ideals. 

It is important to be aware that these ideals are culturally and regionally codified and are not universal. It is also important to challenge these ideals, as you must ask yourself: why is it an ideal? Why must masculinity be defined in such a way in North America? Why does the North American gaze view an Asian male idol and immediately read femininity in his bodily performance? What does that say about your North American cultural consciousness and understanding of gender? 

I encourage you to challenge these ideas, Anon.  

“Always already a cultural sign, the body sets limits to the imaginary meanings that it occasions, but is never free of imaginary construction.” - Judith Butler 

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York, NY, Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York, NY, Routledge, 1993. Flowerboys and the appeal of 'soft masculinity' in South Korea. BBC, 2018,  Louie, Kam. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 71, Issue 4, November 2012 , pp. 929 - 943 Louie, Kam. Chinese, Japanese, and Global Masculine Identities. New York, NY, Routledge, 2003. 

A co-worker the other day commented on how he had heard that the Chinese government was trying to crack down on femininity in men in the media, and I went crazy trying to find that awesome video of Wang Yibo wearing Chanel runway looks. Women’s Chanel runway looks. And I was blathering on and on (while still trying to stay professional and not-weird-obsessed) about how Wang Yibo can just DO that, and I can’t imagine anyone being able to stop him, or even slow him down, just because he likes wearing dangly earrings and orange eyeshadow. And women’s jackets.

I couldn’t find the video again on tumblr, but I had some success on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/hIAOXIf9Alw

Enjoy!

can i just say how much it hurts to read this?? this is a kid, barely 18 years, and caught up in an unfinished vendetta of the adults around him. you can literally feel how confused he gets as the chapters go on and when it gets to the climax and you read this... goodness, it gets real. like you understand how fucked up this all actually is.

i cannot stress this enough that he is a kid. a kid and he watched as the uncle he loved and respected and admired and held upto a standard, the only adult who seemed to truly understood jin ling, who saw how lonely he was and got him a puppy because he couldn't make friends, confess that he was the one behind so much of the disasters and deaths that occurred around him. not only that, but jin ling realizing that the smile his uncle puts on his face is fake. that he can lie so boldly and without a second thought. that maybe he lied about everything; maybe this person isn't who he says he is. all of this in just a matter of seconds.

and then we get to the foundation of his character. in the beginning, jin lings character was all about revenge. for himself, for the death of his parents. all he carried inside of him was hate. it also probably didn't help that jiang cheng was grieving for his sister and his parents at the same time while punishing any could-be wei wuxian. seeing these things, how could jin ling not hate the people who caused him to lose so much?

and now, there is all these conflicting feelings about who the true murderer is. he knows wei wuxian is the yiling patriarch and involved in the death of his parents but he's spent far too much time with him to hate him now and knows that it wasn't really his intentions in the first place. the guy is actually very likeable and has helped jin ling in all the times that they have met. wen ning who was the cause was merely a corpse out of control at the time. he also feels a lot of guilt towards it. as much as those things didn't excuse the murder of his parents, it wasnt reason enough for revenge either.

and jin guang yao, who he thought was kind and genuine. turning out to be a fake. all the likeness he has for his uncle in the past, should he turn it into hatred now? but he really can't. or rather, the past 16 years of positive memories are winning over the hatred of a minute.

so who should he hate now?

because he didn't deserve anything that happened to him. his parents didnt deserve it too. so who should he hate now? who should he exact his revenge upon? who should he blame?

he cries. because these are all heavy emotions and complex feelings for a kid. all the anger inside of him, the pain of being deceived, pouring out of him the only way it can. it is weak and jin ling probably shouldn't cry in front of so many people but he can't help it anymore. he doesn't want to let go of the hate he's nurtured for so long yet he doesn't have the energy anymore, nor does he have anyone to put the blame on.

and then there are those three words that just really tugs at my heart - "he felt wronged".

p.s: the scene where he is unable to look and listen as his uncle takes his last breath. chills.

jin ling is my fav character from mdzs and i just wanted to make a post to appreciate him. he is honestly so underappreciated. the way his character develops from just a really angry child to a child wounded by the actions of others is just *chefs kiss* he is so traumatized i wanna wrap him up in a blanket and hug him for eternity 🥺🥺😭😭😭😭

Watched 24 episodes. 26 more to go. HERE ARE SOME SCREENSHOTS OF THE PICS I LIKED MORE.

Definition of Boring.

According to Wei Wuxian: When people don't talk at all.

According to Lan Zhan: When people talk like Wei Wuxian.

I'm watching the untamed and I'm loving it.