Anchored in the “Hegang” phenomenon and the recent contradictory buzzwords on Weibo, this study proposes a theoretical framework of digitalized cruel mobility that demonstrates how digital discourses on social media platforms do not merely reflect but actively construct and intensify a forced, cyclical mobility of young skilled migrants between two objects of cruel optimism. Through a qualitative analysis of Weibo discourses and supplementary Hegang-migrants’ interviews, this study draws upon the concepts of “cruel optimism,” “cruel (im)mobility,” and “cruel optimism of mobility,” further unpacking the complicated paradoxes and cyclic dynamics of hope and cruelty constructed by skilled migrants on Weibo. The findings demonstrate the precarity of fendou dreams in first-tier cities, shown in the paradoxes of material and affective aspects, while migrants discursively construct and imagine Hegang as their hopeful promises and alternative desires. However, such new promises have ended up being debated and critiqued, which leads to a new cruel optimism of mobility.
AhmedS (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge.
2.
BerlantL (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
3.
BraunVClarkeV (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology3(2): 77–101.
4.
ChenJ (2008) The imagined Beijing—The “Beijing floaters” in urban anthropology films. Movie Literature6: 33–35 (in Chinese).
5.
ChenJHuMLinZ (2019) Does housing unaffordability crowd out elites in Chinese superstar cities?Journal of Housing Economics45: 1–14.
6.
CoatesJ (2019) The cruel optimism of mobility: Aspiration, belonging, and the “Good Life” among transnational Chinese migrants in Tokyo. Positions Asia Critique27(3): 469–497.
7.
CresswellT (2006) On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World. New York: Taylor & Francis.
8.
CuiCGeertmanSHooimeijerP (2014) The intra-urban distribution of skilled migrants: Case studies of Shanghai and Nanjing. Habitat International44: 1–10.
9.
FaircloughN (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.
10.
FaircloughN (2013) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Routledge.
11.
FoucaultM (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Penguin Books.
12.
GuXMaoEZ (2023) The impacts of academic stress on college students’ problematic smartphone use and Internet gaming disorder under the background of neijuan: Hierarchical regressions with mediational analysis on escape and coping motives. Frontiers in Psychiatry13: 1–12.
13.
GuoM (2019) Intertextuality and nationalism discourse: A critical discourse analysis of microblog posts in China. Asian Journal of Communication29(4): 328–345.
14.
HardingJPribramED (2004) Losing our cool? Following Williams and Grossberg on emotions. Cultural Studies18(6): 863–883.
15.
Hegang’s Bureau of Statistics (2023) Hegang Statistical Yearbook. Hegang, China: Bureau of Statistics in Hegang.
16.
HuangQ (2023) The discursive construction of populist and misogynist nationalism: Digital vigilantism against unpatriotic intellectual women in China. Social Media+ Society9(2): 1–13.
17.
HumbrachtMWilliamsAMCohenS (2023) Cruel (im) mobilities and the nearly utopian intimacies of Italian migrants’ personal relationships. Global Networks23(1): 188–202.
18.
HuntP (2016) Drifting through the Capital: “Floating” migrants and masculinity in Xu Zechen’s fiction. Journal of the British Association for Chinese Studies6: 1–34.
19.
JackaTKipnisABSargesonS (2013) Contemporary China: Society and Social Change. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Cambridge University Press.
20.
KallebergAL (2009) Precarious work, insecure workers: Employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review74(1): 1–22.
21.
KopytowskaM (2022) Proximization, prosumption and salience in digital discourse: On the interface of social media communicative dynamics and the spread of populist ideologies. Critical Discourse Studies19(2): 144–160.
22.
LiCThorntonJLLiC (2021) Social transformation and youth studies in China: A review of sociological research from the past decade. In: China’s Youth (pp. 39–62). Brookings Institution Press.
23.
LiJ (2019) “Beipiao” youth’s willingness to leave Beijing and its influencing factors—An analysis based on the “2015 Beijing Youth Population Development Survey” and the population changes in the Tokyo metropolitan area. China Youth Study6: 54–60 (in Chinese).
24.
LiaoBWongDW (2015) Changing urban residential patterns of Chinese migrants: Shanghai, 2000–2010. Urban Geography36(1): 109–126.
25.
LinXRenTWuH, et al. (2021) Housing price, talent movement, and innovation output: Evidence from Chinese cities. Review of Development Economics25(1): 76–103.
26.
LinZYangL (2020) A digital promised land? Digital landscape as a heterotopia for disabled people in China. Information, Communication & Society23(8): 1220–1234.
27.
LinZZhaoY (2022) The politics of naming: The online carnival in China. China Perspectives2: 65–73.
28.
LiuTWangYLinZ (2022) The cruel optimism of digital dating: Heart-breaking mobile romance among rural migrant workers in South China. Information, Communication & Society25(11): 1614–1631.
29.
LoukianovABurninghamKJacksonT (2023) The patterning of the discursive space in search for the# goodlife: A network analysis of the co-occurrence of Instagram hashtags. The Information Society39(1): 62–78.
30.
MacgilchristF (2019) Cruel optimism in edtech: When the digital data practices of educational technology providers inadvertently hinder educational equity. Learning, Media and Technology44(1): 77–86.
31.
NiuGZhaoG (2021) State, market, and family: Housing inequality among the young generation in urban China. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment36: 89–111.
32.
OkekeDE (2025) Race, violence in the US, and digital (news) discourse: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis of Jordan Neely’s racialization. Communication, Culture & Critique18(4): 322–337.
33.
RobertsK (2002) Female labor migrants to shanghai: Temporary “Floaters” or potential settlers?International Migration Review36(2): 492–519.
34.
SchneiderF (2017) China’s “Big V” bloggers: How celebrities intervene in digital Sino-Japanese relations. Celebrity Studies8(2): 331–336.
35.
SuW (2023) “Lie Flat”–Chinese youth subculture in the context of the pandemic and national rejuvenation. Continuum37(1): 127–139.
36.
SuYHuMYuX (2023) Moving up the social ladder: Homeownership and expected socioeconomic status among migrant young adults in China. International Journal of Housing Policy. Epub ahead of print 9 March 2023. DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2023.2178819.
37.
SumNL (2017) The makings of subaltern subjects: Embodiment, contradictory consciousness, and re-hegemonization of the diaosi in China. Globalizations14(2): 298–312.
38.
SunPZhaoGLiuZ, et al. (2020) Toward discourse involution within China’s Internet: Class, voice, and social media. new media & society24(5): 1033–1052.
39.
SvenssonM (2014) Voice, power and connectivity in China’s microblogosphere: Digital divides on SinaWeibo. China Information28(2): 168–188.
40.
SzablewiczM (2014) The “losers” of China’s Internet: Memes as “structures of feeling” for disillusioned young netizens. China Information28(2): 259–275.
41.
WangSZhouTO (2024) Being recognized in an algorithmic system: Cruel optimism in gay visibility on Douyin and Zhihu. Sexualities27(7): 1185–1204.
42.
WilliamsR (1977) Marxism and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
XiangB (2021) Suspension: Seeking agency for change in the hypermobile world. Pacific Affairs94(2): 233–250.
45.
XingYWangXQiuC, et al. (2022) Research on opinion polarization by big data analytics capabilities in online social networks. Technology in Society68: 1–12. DOI:10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101902.
46.
YanH (2008) New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
47.
YangJ (2013) Social exclusion and young rural-urban migrants’ integration into a host society in China. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science648(1): 52–69.
48.
YangXHuN (2024) # girls help girls#: Feminist discussions and affective heterotopia in patriarchal China. Feminist Media Studies24(6): 1298–1313.
49.
YinJJiYNiY (2023) Does “Nei Juan” affect “Tang Ping” for hotel employees? The moderating effect of effort-reward imbalance. International Journal of Hospitality Management109: 1–11.
50.
ZengCCroucherSM (2017) An exploration of organization dissent and workplace freedom of speech among young professional intra-urban migrants in Shanghai. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication10(3): 201–218.
51.
ZhangP (2013) Social inclusion or exclusion? When Weibo (Microblogging) meets the new generation of rural migrant workers. Library Trends62(1): 63–80.
52.
ZhangXYanFChenY (2021) A floating dream: Urban upgrading, population control and migrant children’s education in Beijing. Environment and Urbanization33(1): 11–30.
53.
ZhouBZhongY (2022) Young floating population in city: How outsiderness influences self-esteem of rural-to-urban migrant children in China?International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health19(3): 1863.
