The sound of silence: Chinese Deaf creators’ self-presentation,labour practices and the visibility paradox on Douyin

Abstract

Self-media entrepreneurs from marginalised communities face unique challenges in the rapidly evolving global creative industries. This study examines the lived experiences of Deaf creators on Douyin, China’s leading short-video platform, highlighting how they navigate the socio-technical and economic pressures shaping their labour experiences. Drawing on the ethnographic approach, we uncover the tension between the platform’s promise of visibility and the reality of constrained creative autonomy. Deaf creators are frequently compelled to conform to hearing-centric and commercially driven norms, leading to the commodification of Deaf identity and the reinforcement of Deaf stereotypes. Such practices not only normalise societal insensitivity towards Deaf culture but also reduce sign language to superficial and dismissive representations. By applying Callon’s concept of socio-technical agencements, our study critically examines how platform architectures enable and constrain the creative agency of marginalised groups. Our findings reveal how platform labour perpetuates systemic inequalities for Deaf creators, reinforcing cultural subordination and economic dependence within a hearing-centric digital space.

Introduction

Siying, a 22-year-old Chinese Deaf creator on Douyin, recalls a comment she once received from a hearing viewer: ‘God covers your ears so that you won’t hear the noise of the world’. Encouraged by these words, Siying responded by creating a transformation video, beginning with her sleepy, pyjama-clad appearance and ending with an elegant figure in an evening gown. With a gentle smile, she carefully enunciates each word of the caption aloud: ‘Thank you, darling. Your presence has warmed my entire world’. Her voice, soft and hesitant, falters at times, yet each syllable is shaped with visible effort. Over the past year, Siying has uploaded 180 videos, sharing vlogs and beauty tutorials with her 80,000 followers, garnering 2.7 million likes.

Creators operating on user-generated content (UGC) platforms now represent a significant segment of the global creative industries. By December 2023, China’s short-video platforms hosted over 15.08 million content creators, serving 1.074 billion active users, making it the world’s largest market for short-form video (China Netcasting Services Association, 2024). In China, such individuals are often called self-media (zi meiti) creators, denoting those who produce and disseminate content individually via digital platforms without institutional backing. However, as research highlights, self-media work is fraught with precarity, inequalities and exploitation, driven by unpredictable algorithms, audience trends and inter-platform competition (Duffy et al., 2021). Despite these challenges, the aspirational labour narrative – that success is attainable with passion, entrepreneurial spirit and a smartphone – continues to attract millions (Duffy, 2017). Amid this growth, self-media entrepreneurship has become a viable career path for China’s 85.91 million disabled individuals (UNPRPD, 2024), exemplified by Deaf creators like Siying. In China, less than half of working-age disabled individuals are employed, often facing discrimination and poor conditions (China Disabled Persons’ Federation, 2024). Inspirational stories of disabled creators are frequently celebrated in media as examples of self-reliance (China Central Television, 2024), with Douyin alone hosting over 14.1 million pieces of content from disabled creators by late 2022 (Zhang, 2022).

The empowerment of disabled creators through digital media remains a contested issue. On the one hand, scholars have argued that new media affords disabled individuals opportunities to challenge dominant narratives and reclaim authorship of their own stories (Goggin and Newell, 2003; Södergren and Vallström, 2023). On the other hand, critical perspectives caution that digital platforms may reproduce and exacerbate existing forms of exclusion. The concept of ‘digital disability’ draws attention to infrastructural inaccessibility (Goggin and Newell, 2003), while recent studies highlight how algorithmic biases on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram subject marginalised users to increased scrutiny and visibility constraints (Duffy and Meisner, 2023). Moreover, research by Dobson and Knezevic (2018) and Huber and Baena (2023) suggests that social media often operates as a mechanism for reproducing entrenched stereotypes – particularly those relating to gender, race and socio-economic status – thereby reinforcing social marginalisation rather than dismantling it. In the Chinese context, these concerns are further complicated by deeply rooted ableist discourses, exemplified by the pejorative term can fei (‘deformed and useless’), which continues to stigmatise disabled individuals and sustain their socio-economic marginalisation (Pattberg, 2017). Such cultural dynamics underscore the importance of examining how digital environments might either challenge or inadvertently reinforce discriminatory norms (Lin et al., 2018).

Despite calls to address the inequities and algorithmic punishment faced by marginalised groups, Deaf creators remain notably absent from this discourse. Research on disabled creators tends to focus on those with visual, physical or intellectual disabilities (Choi et al., 2022; Södergren and Vallström, 2023), mainly overlooking the Deaf community. As Lazaroo (2014) notes, Deafness is often perceived as an invisible disability, further obscured by the historical marginalisation of sign language as an independent linguistic system. Considering that over 5% of the global population – or over 430 million people – experience disabling hearing loss, with projections rising to 700 million by 2050 (World Health Organization, 2024), this omission underscores the need to include Deaf creators and their creative labour in platform studies.

This study seeks to address this gap by focusing on the lived experience of Deaf creators on Douyin. With approximately 748 million monthly active users (iiMedia Research, 2024) and its international version TikTok boasting 1.6 billion active users (Curry, 2024), Douyin serves as a critical intermediary for self-expression among disabled communities and is deeply embedded in the sociocultural fabric of its user base. Recent statistics further highlight Douyin’s significance for disabled users, with over 70,000 sign language teaching videos uploaded to the platform by the end of 2022 (Beijing Evening News, 2022) and more than 471,100 disabled users registered as of December 2020 (Accessibility Research Association, 2022). Furthermore, China’s limited recognition of Deafness as a cultural identity provides an important context for discussions on digital inclusivity and social equity. Lane et al.’s (2011) characterisation of Deaf individuals as ‘people of the eye’ highlights Deafness not as a medical impairment but as a distinctive cultural identity. Through their analysis of the American Deaf community, Lane et al. (2011) argue that Deaf individuals constitute a linguistic and cultural minority, united primarily by sign language, which serves as the core of their cultural identity, social practices and collective historical memory. In contrast, despite hosting the world’s largest population of Deaf individuals, China predominantly frames Deafness in pathological terms – as a biological deficiency rather than a cultural identity – resulting in an emphasis on rehabilitation through speech therapy and hearing restoration (Li and Prevatt, 2010). Within this context, platforms such as Douyin raise critical questions about the extent to which digital environments empower Deaf individuals to articulate their identities, protect their creative labour, or alternatively reinforce cultural oppression, identity marginalisation and labour exploitation through dominant ableist narratives.

Our study adopts Callon’s (2008) concept of social-technical agencements to examine how Deaf creators in China express their creative agency and navigate self-presentation within the platform ecosystem. Callon’s (2008) framework highlights how individual agency emerges through interactions with other agents and technologies within a socio-technical field. We explore the characteristics of Deaf creators’ online content and trace how their creative practices are shaped by negotiations between personal motivations and the platform’s socio-technical structures, including both human participants and technological features. Our findings reveal how their creative agency is simultaneously enabled and constrained within Douyin’s socio-technical configuration. While Douyin provides tools such as AI dubbing, ostensibly enhancing Deaf creators’ ability to articulate themselves through text-to-speech conversion, our research examines how these features, in conjunction with other human and non-human agents, may contribute to reinforcing hearing-centric domination, prioritising mainstream linguistic norms and commodifying Deaf identities. In doing so, we consider whether digital platforms genuinely empower marginalised communities or perpetuate new forms of stereotyping and ableist ideologies in digital spaces.

Current research on disabled self-media creators

Bishop (2020) and Duffy et al. (2021) stress the importance of studying minority creators’ lived experiences to understand the challenges they face on mainstream platforms. Within this context, research on disabled creators has focused on their creative strategies and motivations for self-presentation. For instance, Södergren and Vallström (2023) argue for moving beyond stereotypical portrayals like pity narratives or ‘inspiration porn’, adopting the concept of complex personhood to identify four themes: empowerment, playfulness, resistance and responsibility. Choi et al. (2022) examine disabled YouTubers’ motivations, such as seeking social support, promoting diverse representations and monetising content. Seo and Jung (2021) and Rong et al. (2022) similarly highlight how visually impaired creators on YouTube and Douyin prioritise sharing disability knowledge and fostering community support.

Existing research also highlights various technological barriers confronting disabled content creators. For instance, Heung et al. (2024) emphasise that despite considerable additional labour, disabled creators frequently do not enjoy equal opportunities compared with their non-disabled peers. Choi et al. (2022) and Rong et al. (2022) further illustrate this inequity by identifying algorithmic visibility echo chambers on platforms such as YouTube and Douyin, wherein disability-tagged content tends to circulate primarily within disabled communities, severely limiting its broader audience reach. On YouTube specifically, prosthetic-related content is often misclassified as sensitive material, thus restricting its promotion and negatively impacting monetisation opportunities for disabled creators (Choi et al., 2022). Moreover, Rong et al. (2022) report that visually impaired creators face substantial difficulties engaging in real-time interaction during live streams and encounter considerable post-production barriers due to incompatibility with screen reader software.

While these studies provide rich insights into disabled creators’ motivations and the influence of platform technologies, they exhibit certain limitations. Some studies group different disabilities – such as physical impairments, visual disabilities and Down syndrome – into a single category, overlooking the unique challenges faced by specific groups. For instance, although Choi et al. (2022) include three visually impaired participants, their analysis primarily focuses on algorithmic discrimination experienced by creators with physical disabilities. The findings of Rong et al. (2022) and Simpson et al. (2023) underscore that different types of disabilities lead to distinct technical and social barriers. Failing to account for these differences risks omitting crucial details about platform affordances and digital inclusion. This gap is particularly evident for Deaf creators, who remain largely absent from existing studies. Hearing impairment, as one of the most common forms of disability globally (World Health Organization, 2024), represents a significant yet underexplored demographic. Focusing on Deaf creators on Douyin, our study addresses this void, integrating their lived experiences into the broader discourse on platform labour and creative production.

Existing research on creators also underscores the non-autonomous nature of self-media work. While UGC platforms are often positioned as empowering spaces for self-expression (Pearson and Trevisan, 2015), platform labour is shaped by complex socio-technical and economic forces. Platforms act as intermediaries connecting content producers, audiences and advertisers in a multi-sided market (Evans and Schmalensee, 2016; Gillespie, 2010) while exerting editorial control through algorithmic curation, moderation and interface design (Poell et al., 2021). With advertising revenue at the heart of platforms’ monetisation, creators are positioned as secondary beneficiaries, subsidised in relation to audiences and advertisers (Nieborg and Poell, 2018). Despite differences in subsidy strategies across platforms, a common principle persists – to gain visibility and partake in monetisation, creators must attract larger audiences and secure brand sponsorships (Nieborg and Poell, 2018; Poell et al., 2021). We argue that disabled creators’ practices go beyond mere interactions with technical systems and are instead embedded within a socio-economic configuration mediated by platform technologies. In the following section, we introduce Callon’s (2008) concept of socio-technical agencements. This framework helps analyse how interdependent relationships between human and non-human agents mediate the creative agency and online practice.

Understanding online practices: from individual agency to socio-technical agencements

In the creative industries, both creative outputs and workers’ agency are cultivated (Siciliano, 2020). Traditionally, agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently, guided by their will and resources. However, Callon (2008) introduces the concept of socio-technical agencements, arguing that agency in contemporary socio-technical landscapes is inherently interdependent and distributed. Individuals are embedded within social ecosystems, relying on collective resources – economic, social, cultural and emotional – and collaborating with both human and non-human entities, such as technologies, tools and infrastructures. Callon’s framework highlights that agency is fluid and negotiated through interactions within these assemblages. Actions emerge not from isolated individuals but through the coordinated contributions of diverse actors, forming a distributed process where outcomes depend on collective facilitation rather than individual autonomy alone.

As key infrastructures within the networked information economy, platforms embody Callon’s concept by interconnecting individuals, automated technologies and socio-economic processes in dynamic and interdependent ways (Van Dijck, 2012). Online creative production emerges not as a pure expression of individual will but as a collective endeavour shaped by negotiations and interactions among creators, other human actors (e.g. audiences, brands, platform owners), business models and technological architectures (e.g. algorithms, software interfaces and features) (McIntyre and Srinivasan, 2017). Callon (2008) emphasises the need to comprehensively describe these ‘strange assemblages’ to understand actions within the networked environment.

Building on Callon’s insights, we aim to identify the key technological settings embedded in Deaf creators’ workflows, examine creators’ perceptions of and interactions with these technological agents and explore how these engagements shape their creative practices and labour experiences. Beyond technology, we also consider Deaf creators’ interactions with other human agents. Platforms thrive on network effects generated by interactions among complementors – such as audiences, brands and content producers – whose engagement shapes content production, dissemination and consumption (Evans and Schmalensee, 2016). We argue that these cultural, economic and emotional relationships are materialised in the content produced by Deaf creators. Through netnographic observation and in-depth interviews, we aim to uncover how Deaf creators’ distributed agency emerges and manifests within Douyin’s socio-technical agencements. This approach enables us to understand the complexities of their experiences and broader implications for platform-mediated creative labour.

Methodology

This study adopts a netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2002), which adapts ethnographic methods to online contexts through immersion in digital fields, observation of interactions and interpretation of social and cultural dynamics. We emphasise sustained and ethically reflexive engagement, focusing on contextual immersion to explore Deaf creators’ practices within their digital environments (Pink et al., 2015; Postill and Pink, 2012). From September 2023 to February 2024, two researchers engaged daily with Deaf creators’ Douyin channels, spending 1–1.5 hours per day browsing videos, comments and profiles – totalling approximately 500 hours of immersion. This approach allowed us to contextualise Deaf creators’ practices and uncover the meanings embedded in their discourses and actions within broader sociocultural dynamics. Combining online observation with thematic analysis and in-depth interviews, we explore Deaf creators’ self-presentations and lived experiences in a shifting digital landscape.

Recruitment of participants

We identified creators on Douyin through targeted keyword searches, including terms such as ‘hearing impairment’, ‘hearing loss’, ‘sign language’, ‘Deaf girl’, ‘Deaf boy’ and ‘Deaf person’. Our selection criteria included: (a) the creator self-identifies as Deaf and have disclosed their hearing condition on their channel; (b) they have actively uploaded videos, with at least 10 posts in the past 6 months; and (c) they manage and operate their channels as self-media entrepreneurs. Interview invitations were sent via Douyin’s messaging system or email. To ensure diverse representation, we selected 15 Deaf creators with varying audience sizes, whose follower numbers ranged from 800 to 1.61 million. We adopt the capitalised term Deaf rather than deaf to describe our participants. Following Woodward’s (1972) widely accepted distinction, deaf typically refers to individuals with hearing loss in a medical or audiological sense – who may not use sign language and do not necessarily identify with the Deaf community. By contrast, Deaf denotes those who primarily communicate through a visual language (sign language) and identify culturally and linguistically as part of a distinct community. This linguistic choice reflects our methodological emphasis on cultural affiliation rather than clinical diagnosis. In this study, our participants use sign language as their principal mode of communication and explicitly identify as members of the Deaf community.

Content analysis

We analysed 484 videos posted by the 15 participants between September 2023 and February 2024. Using Clarke and Braun’s (2017) inductive thematic analysis, we categorised the videos into themes. We identified thematic clusters reflecting distinct narrative and stylistic patterns through repeated viewing, coding and memo writing. After iterative refinement, we classified all 484 videos into 7 themes. In addition, we calculated a ‘popularity index’ for each video based on cumulative likes, comments, shares and saves. This index quantified each video’s reach and reception, helping identify trends in audience engagement and content performance.

Interviews

We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 selected creators via Tencent Meeting, each lasting 90 to 140 minutes. Interviews were primarily conducted in Chinese Sign Language (CSL) by one of the authors, a proficient CSL user who has worked as a part-time CSL instructor and organiser of Deaf theatre workshops over the past several years. Ethical protocols included informed consent, with participants fully briefed on the study’s aims, their rights and the option to withdraw. Pseudonyms were used to maintain confidentiality. The interviews explored three main areas: participants’ backgrounds and motivations for becoming self-media creators, their content creation and channel management practices, and reflections on their career trajectories, challenges and future plans.

Findings and analysis

What are deaf creators producing?

Through thematic coding and analysis of the 484 collected videos, we identified seven distinct themes across the channels of the 15 Deaf creators. Table 1 outlines the number of videos per thematic category and their respective popularity index. Using this data, Figure 1 combines a bar chart showing the number of videos per theme with a line chart depicting the popularity index, enabling a comparative analysis of content volume and popularity across themes.

Table 1.

Thematic distribution and popularity index of Deaf creators’ content on Douyin.

Theme	Number	Popularity index
Comment replies and reaction	55	1,708,310
Deaf-themed films and sign language songs	54	1,690,598
LGBT relationships	36	734,289
Beauty and fashion	86	628,467
Deaf daily life vlog	90	278,867
Deaf awareness/anti-discrimination	127	457,557
Sign language teaching	36	54,704

Figure 1.

Comparison of content themes by number and popularity index.

Content closely related to deaf identity

Regarding video frequency, we identified themes aligned with previous studies on disabled creators (Choi et al., 2022; Södergren and Vallström, 2023), particularly those focusing on personal daily life or disability explanations. The themes ‘Deaf Daily Life Vlog’ and ‘Deaf Awareness/Anti-discrimination’, both aimed at promoting public understanding of the Deaf community, were the most and second most prevalent. Additionally, the theme of ‘Sign Language Teaching’, which is closely linked to the identity of Deaf creators, also contributes significantly. Together, these three themes constitute 52% of the total videos, reflecting their strong connection to the creators’ Deaf identity and lived experiences. Many creators use their channels to share personal experiences of discrimination, address common misconceptions about Deafness, and raise awareness to challenge societal prejudices. Their videos address topics such as the causes of deafness, the limitations of hearing aids and cochlear implants, how Deaf individuals acquire driver’s licences and whether sign language is universal:

Many think Deaf people are uneducated, foolish, or second-class; I want hearing people understand that their minds are not superior to ours. (Interviewee Mengyao)

Interviews revealed that Deaf creators initially felt a strong enthusiasm for creating content to increase public understanding of the Deaf community, a sentiment supported by other studies on disabled social media users (Dolphin, 2011; Duval et al., 2021). Several Deaf creators mentioned that positive viewer feedback boosted their motivation and confidence:

Deaf individuals are not detached from society; we are not worthless. I strive to impact society personally and to inspire others. Engaging in this makes my life feel meaningful. It is not just about performing; it is about motivating others too . . . (Interviewee Jiayi)

A discussion centred solely on individual freedom in content creation and uploads might suggest that platforms empower disabled creators by providing opportunities to share their perspectives and engage with disability issues. However, popularity metrics reveal stark disparities in content reception, underscoring the link between visibility and thematic focus. For instance, while ‘Deaf Awareness/Anti-Discrimination’ and ‘Deaf Daily Life Vlog’ are the most frequently uploaded themes, they generate only 8% and 5% of total traffic, respectively. In contrast, the top four themes – ‘Comment Replies and Reaction’ (videos where creators respond directly to audience comments about Deafness), ‘Deaf-themed Films and Sign Language Songs’, ‘LGBT Relationships’ and ‘Beauty and Fashion’ – account for 85.7% of total data traffic despite representing only 47.7% of the sample – the discrepancy between content volume and traffic performance warrants further investigation.

Content oriented towards hearing audiences

Content closely tied to the creators’ Deaf identities often reflects spontaneous expressions of their lives, while themes that attract higher traffic typically require external inspiration, aligning with societal trends and tailoring content to perceived audience preferences. A clear example of how prevailing trends influence Deaf creators’ output is the thematic category ‘Deaf-themed Films and Sign Language Songs’, which garnered the second-highest traffic in our study, coinciding with the release of Zhang Yimou’s film The Twenty during our data collection period. Featuring a Deaf protagonist played by Zhao Liying, the film explores issues of justice and social inequality, sparking widespread debate about ‘justifiable defence’ under Chinese law. Of the 15 Deaf creators interviewed, 9 incorporated content related to the film, praising Zhao Liying’s efforts to learn sign language and the film’s depiction of the bullying and unjust treatment faced by Deaf individuals in Chinese society. While many creators expressed genuine interest in the film’s subject matter, they admitted that the potential for increased traffic was the primary incentive. As Interviewee Haoran explained,

I did not initially plan to make a video, but I saw viral clips online and realised the celebrity factor’s appeal. I quickly capitalised on the trend by discussing the sign language used in the film, and the video went viral.

Moreover, sign language songs, inspired by Douyin’s popular ‘gesture dances’ with rhythmic hand movements, represent another innovative video format by Deaf creators. Deaf creators adapt popular songs into sign language, blending them with music and rhythm to create engaging sign language performances. For example, creator Jiahao received 320,000 likes and over 5800 comments for a sign language song, with audiences praising the visual appeal of his performance, appreciating his graceful signing and genuine demeanour that set him apart from hearing creators. The ‘Beauty and Fashion’ theme, predominantly embraced by female Deaf creators, features content where they document makeup applications and fashion experiments in a selfie format. These creators actively engage with their audience in the comments, discussing the featured products.

Bishop (2019) highlights how YouTube creators often rely on speculative ‘folk theories’ or ‘algorithmic myths’ to navigate opaque algorithms and optimise content visibility. For Deaf creators, this ‘black box’ extends beyond algorithms to include the elusive preferences of hearing audiences, who dominate Douyin’s user base. Most Deaf creators acknowledged targeting hearing viewers from the start despite initial uncertainty about what might resonate. Through extensive observation, analysis of others’ content and repeated experimentation, they have developed their own ‘folk theories’ about hearing audiences’ preferences:

At first, I was also bewildered and lost. Over time, I began to study other people’s videos for inspiration, looking at how they filmed, especially their most popular videos, then I would borrow from their works and compare them with my style. (Interviewee Zhiyuan)

The ‘contingent’ nature of platform creation requires content to be adaptable and responsive to user feedback (Nieborg, 2015). For Deaf creators, the perceived preferences of the predominantly hearing audience heavily influence their content’s traffic performance. To cater to their audiences, Deaf creators not only follow societal trends but also respond directly to viewer requests, as exemplified by the high-traffic theme ‘Comment Replies and Reaction’. In this category, Deaf creators record their reactions to audience comments, often absurd or playful jokes referencing Deaf identity, such as ‘Does a handshake between two Deaf people count as a kiss?’, ‘Do you sign in your dreams or just move your mouth?’ or ‘If you break your arm, does that mean you lose your voice again?’ In their reaction videos to such comments, Deaf creators express a spectrum of emotions, from helplessness and frustration to playful feigned anger. Huang and Li (2018) argue that Deaf individuals’ reliance on vision as their primary communicative mode gives rise to distinct linguistic and behavioural traits that differentiate them from hearing individuals. As Lane et al. (2011) argue, the cultural grammar of Deaf communities is shaped by sign language – a visual language characterised by concreteness, spatial representation and explicitness – which contrasts markedly with the indirectness and ambiguity commonly found in spoken-language cultures. Nevertheless, when using sign language, Deaf individuals’ gestures, body movements and facial expressions are frequently perceived by hearing audiences as overly animated, exaggerated or even ‘abnormal’ (Huang and Li, 2018). However, it is precisely this expressive and emotionally resonant self-presentation that draws attention from hearing viewers, prompting interaction – often evident in comments adopting a playful tone. One viewer, for example, remarked: ‘When I “bully” him, I just close my eyes so I cannot see his sign language, making him cry all day’.

Creators frequently invoke the term ‘persona’ when discussing their creative processes. Originally derived from video games and anime, which refer to the detailed design of a character’s appearance, style and personality, in the Chinese Internet context, ‘persona’ has come to denote the crafted public image and character traits of celebrities (Xu, 2024). A ‘persona’ constitutes a constructed symbol, a projection of style encoded into the audience’s imagination, designed to satisfy their expectations and foster identification (Xu, 2024). We observed that Deaf creators deliberately cultivate a persona that resonates with their audience’s preferences, serving their tastes:

My persona is innocent, naive, and akin to a ‘cute little puppy’ . . . It was not my choice when I started posting videos. It was the fans who perceived me as innocent and cute, and gradually, they attributed this persona to me. (Interviewee Muyang)

My fan base largely consists of ‘mom fans’, who are deeply invested in our lives and often care for us like their own. They enjoy ‘shipping’ us (referring to himself and his same-sex partner). Hence, I post content that caters to their ‘shipping’ desires. (Interviewee Jiahao)

Xu (2024) suggests that a persona possesses a ‘disguised nature’ – a constructed identity that may overlap with, amplify or significantly diverge from the individual’s actual self. Rather than being a straightforward reflection of the creator’s personality, the persona operates as a performative layer shaped by strategic self-presentation and audience feedback. As this mediated identity becomes increasingly recognisable and expected by followers, Deaf creators often find themselves negotiating between expressing what they genuinely wish to communicate and producing content that aligns with the audience’s expectations of the persona. This tension may require them to compromise their original intentions in order to sustain the visibility and coherence of their crafted image:

My fans like to see my face, and what I can offer is happiness and emotional value. If I post based solely on my own ideas, it may not align with what the fans want to see. I once filmed my daily life at school, but viewers found it uninteresting and dull. (Interviewee Muyang)

Although my videos talk about wanting to date and find a girlfriend, my real aim was to grow my following. I was surprised to find that many of my new followers were gay men! Previously, my audience was mostly female, so this shift caught me off guard. I quickly had to rethink my strategy to address this change. (Interviewee Zhiyuan)

Dong et al. (2021) described short video platforms as ‘emotional takeaway factories’, where creators serve as sources of emotional nourishment tailored to satiate the audience’s emotional needs. Deaf creators, through the strategic construction of ‘personas’, establish and maintain a nuanced yet virtual intimacy with their audience, transforming their video content into ‘emotional commodities’ for consumption by hearing users. By constructing personas that are cute, submissive or longing for love, Deaf creators position themselves as the weaker party within virtual, ambiguous relationships with their audience. This reflects a societal paternalism imposed by hearing individuals onto the Deaf community. As Lane (1988) argues, ‘hearing paternalism begins with defective perception, because it superimposes its image of the familiar world of hearing people on the unfamiliar world of deaf people’. Hearing audiences not only misinterpret Deaf culture but also trivialise and make fun of it, such as perceiving a handshake between Deaf individuals as a kiss or viewing the use of hand cream to relieve ‘speaking’ fatigue as unusual. These distortions reflect not only a lack of understanding but also a deliberate disregard for Deaf lifestyles, language and values, perpetuating stereotypes rooted in paternalistic attitudes. Hahn (1986) highlights how paternalism allows dominant groups to express sympathy for minorities while positioning disabled individuals as ‘helpless, dependent, asexual, economically unproductive, [and] emotionally immature’ (p. 130). Laforteza (2014) further suggests that such representations contribute to the cute-ifying of disability, where characteristics like vulnerability or childlike affect are aestheticised and made consumable for able-bodied audiences. Disability is framed as visually appealing yet inferior – an object of fascination that reassures the viewer of their own normative status. In our sample, leading Deaf creators adopt personas – such as the ‘speechless puppy’ or the romantic figure longing for love – that align with these stereotypes. These portrayals evoke pity from hearing audiences, reinforcing physical and emotional subordination and perpetuating unequal power dynamics.

Reflective discussions with creators reveal a paradox: Although many initially aim to raise awareness about Deaf issues, they often deprioritise these goals when Deaf-centric content fails to attract significant engagement. Instead, they adopt hearing-centric strategies that align with perceived hearing viewers’ aesthetic preferences and exaggerated perceptions of Deaf life. Huang and Li (2018) argue that hearing audiences’ excessive sympathy often stems from a sense of superiority. By catering to these preferences, Deaf creators gain visibility and approval but risk reinforcing stereotypes, perpetuating economic and social subordination within the framework of hearing paternalism.

As noted in our literature review, while Deaf creators are direct agents in content production, endowed with autonomous will and responsibility, their agency becomes part of a broader socio-technical agencement within the platform’s domain, evolving through interactions with both human and technological agents in the platform ecosystem. In the following section, we will explore the self-motivations driving the practices of Deaf creators within this socio-technical context and analyse the roles played by other key agents in facilitating the actions of Deaf creators on the platform.

Deaf creators within the socio-technical sphere

Content creation as a livelihood

As noted in our literature review, research on creators with disabilities often emphasises cultural aspects, such as identity and self-presentation, while offering limited analysis of the socio-economic factors shaping their practices. Economic income is rarely seen as a primary motivator, with studies like Choi et al. (2022) framing monetisation as a supplementary benefit rather than a driving force. In contrast, our findings show that economic considerations are central to Deaf creators’ engagement with self-media creation and heavily influence their content strategies.

According to the China Disabled Persons’ Federation (2024), only 42.9% of disabled individuals in China are employed. Even among young Deaf adults aged 20 to 32 with tertiary education, respondents report substantial challenges in securing satisfactory employment. Statistics show that 56% of Deaf individuals earn less than 4000 yuan per month (approximately 550 USD), compared to the urban average of 5500 yuan (approximately 760 USD) (Southern Weekly, 2024). For example, respondent Jiahao, a university graduate, shared that his monthly salary as a graphic designer is just 2000 yuan (approximately 276 USD), far below that of his hearing peers. Such income disparities reflect broader patterns of discrimination and exclusion in the workplace rooted in their hearing status:

Sometimes, employers arrange interviews but immediately rescind the offer when they discover I am Deaf. (Interviewee Ruolin)

During meetings, my colleagues often exclude me because they consider it bothersome as I cannot hear. When colleagues went out for meals, I could not participate; they would laugh and talk, and I was left to eat in silence, making life quite dull. (Interviewee Jiayi)

The lack of inclusivity in China’s job market and the potential injustices faced by Deaf individuals make self-media an attractive career choice for young Deaf people. The economic opportunities it offers and the ability to avoid overly social work environments add to its appeal. Our respondents, while valuing audience encouragement, recognise that the income derived from the platform provides them with the necessary support and confidence to sustain their lives:

Growing up in a rural area was tough. I felt overlooked due to my modest background until social media gave me visibility, and people started considering me impressive. I can now support myself financially, which makes me feel proud. (Interviewee Muyang)

My family’s poor financial situation motivated me to earn money. My primary focus now is on generating income to support my video production; without financial success, I cannot continue creating. Earning money is my main motivation. (Interviewee Zhiyuan)

According to the platform’s business model, advertisers and users form the two key pillars of monetisation, with creators serving as bait to capture user attention for the benefit of both the platform and advertisers (Nieborg and Poell, 2018). Unlike YouTube, which automatically matches pre-produced advertisements with creators and shares revenues, monetisation on Douyin requires creators to await proactive engagement from advertisers. This raises the monetisation barrier for Deaf creators, as it necessitates that their channels not only display impressive traffic metrics but also maintain a style that aligns with advertisers’ services and products and cultivates a stable audience with substantial purchasing power to stand out among numerous accounts and capture advertisers’ attention. Interviewee Jiahao’s channel gained popularity by sharing amusing stories about his life with his hearing boyfriend, and he described his strategic pivot to us:

Initially, I presented myself as a positive-energy Deaf big brother, offering advice on dealing with distress and negativity. However, this was not financially rewarding. After quitting my job, I needed to monetise my content and attract brands. I switched to sharing sweet daily moments with my partner, which resonated with female fans who ‘ship’ us. They find me handsome and cute, eagerly buying recommended products and tipping generously, which has provided a more stable income. (Interviewee Jiahao)

Deaf creators continue to face significant income instability despite their efforts. Ruolin, a respondent who has been running her channel for 2 years, candidly shared her struggles. As a Deaf mother, she once earned 20,000 yuan (approximately 2750 USD) in a month by partnering with maternal and baby brands to create customised content for infant care products. However, by January 2024, she had gone 3 months without advertising deals, with her last ad earning just 3000 yuan (approximately 410 USD). She reflected: ‘For Deaf creators, it is all about money – how to earn and monetise. However, now, I find it hard to understand the hearing world, and I have lost inspiration’. Despite economic uncertainty, the potential to earn more through brand partnerships than traditional jobs discourages Deaf creators from returning to conventional employment, driving them to refine content strategies and experiment with themes in an attempt to optimise traffic performance. This behaviour reflects the ideology of ‘aspirational labour’ (Duffy, 2017), where the promise of future rewards drives present effort. Respondents frequently described poor metrics and earnings as ‘bad luck’ or attributed success to ‘good luck’, effectively internalising the platform’s ‘nested precarity’ as a matter of individual chance. Without reliable income, the ambitious goal of raising public awareness about the Deaf community is indefinitely deferred, replaced by the immediate priority of improving their own and their families’ livelihoods. The focus on metrics and income reshapes Deaf creators’ practices, forcing them to align with the need of key economic actors within the socio-technical ecosystem – audience and brands.

Aligning with hearing peers

The concept of ‘affordance’ refers to the potentialities technology provides its users, enabling them to use it in specific ways (Callon, 2008). Despite the communication barriers Deaf creators face in daily interactions due to challenges with hearing and spoken language, platform technologies significantly enhance the communicability between Deaf creators and hearing audiences online. Douyin’s video editing interface offers users multiple forms of linguistic expression, including subtitles, AI synthesis dubbing, background music and decorative text.

Table 2 presents a statistical analysis of linguistic expressions used in the videos of Deaf creators from our sample. Our findings indicate that content produced by Deaf creators is largely accessible to hearing viewers, with 86.8% of videos including Mandarin subtitles. Spoken Chinese appears in 70.7% of videos, surpassing the use of Chinese Sign Language (CSL), which features in only 34.5%. While those who speak tend to do so slowly and with unclear articulation, careful enunciation combined with subtitles generally makes their speech intelligible. This linguistic emphasis reflects broader patterns in Deaf education in China, where spoken and written Mandarin are prioritised, and sign language is treated as a supplementary tool (Li and Prevatt, 2010). This approach, which stresses auditory training, pronunciation and oral reading, has long been criticised for impeding the natural development of sign language among Deaf individuals (Martin et al., 1999; Wang and Huang, 2022). Many respondents expressed frustration with such methods, describing oral training as laborious and ineffective. Seven interviewees reported using Signed Chinese – a gestural system based on Mandarin grammar – rather than natural CSL, which operates independently of spoken language. As Zheng (2011) notes, Signed Chinese is essentially a manual encoding of Mandarin, differing fundamentally from CSL in both grammar and cultural function. While such systems have been widely criticised in contexts like the United States for imposing spoken language norms on sign languages (Reagan, 1995), they remain common among our respondents. As Ruolin explained, ‘Signed Chinese corresponds word-for-word with what I say, making it easier for hearing audiences to understand’. This tendency to prioritise spoken and written forms over natural sign languages has more profound cultural implications. Lane et al. (2011) argue that sign language in the Deaf community functions not only as a complete linguistic system but also as the cornerstone of cultural identity, social norms and historical continuity. In this light, the marginalisation of CSL in favour of oral and written Chinese may risk undermining the linguistic autonomy and cultural expression of Deaf creators. The prevalence of AI dubbing and background music further underscores creators’ multimodal strategies to reach broader audiences. However, these practices may inadvertently contribute to sidelining sign language as a primary mode of expression.

Table 2.

Linguistic features of Deaf creators’ content on Douyin.

Language type	Number	Percentage (%)
Subtitles	420	86.80%
Spoken Chinese	342	70.70%
Chinese Sign Language	167	34.50%
Signed Chinese	120	24.80%
Al dubbing	70	14.50%
No language	49	10.10%
BGM lyrics	26	5.40%
Writing on a whiteboard	9	1.90%

Despite Deaf creators’ efforts to align the audiovisual elements of their videos with those of hearing counterparts, the inherent differences in grammatical structure between sign language – a visual language – and spoken Chinese, and challenges in capturing emotional nuances and editing rhythms due to hearing impairments, often necessitate reliance on others to help refine and perfect video scripts and edits:

My boyfriend, who has some residual hearing, helps me with editing and guides my expressions and emotions. We often debate when he feels my signing is unstable or my understanding of lyrics is off, which can lead to intense and frustrating criticism. He insists on perfection and encourages me to prioritise quality over quantity. (Interviewee Fei)

My husband can point out my linguistic errors. After I draft a script, I always have him review and revise the sentences before I release the final content. (Interviewee Ruolin)

The editing, refining or optimisation of content by Deaf creators is often managed by their partners, friends or family members – individuals who are typically either hearing or have better hearing abilities. As one Deaf creator described, ‘They know what hearing people like and want’. We term these individuals the creators’ ‘coaches’. While their role is rarely acknowledged in platform studies, it is critical for understanding the distributed agency of Deaf creators within platform ecosystems. To Deaf creators, these coaches represent trusted intermediaries for the hearing audience on Douyin, assisting with linguistic challenges in Mandarin and supporting their creative pursuits. However, this role also reflects the prevalent pathologic perspective on deafness in Chinese society (Li and Prevatt, 2010). From this standpoint, Deaf individuals are perceived as inherently inferior to hearing individuals, necessitating interventions to make them as similar to hearing people as possible (Reagan, 1995). Coaches not only correct linguistic errors and select appropriate background music but also serve as aesthetic gatekeepers, determining what content is acceptable, appropriate and appealing to hearing audiences. They mediate between the individual agency of Deaf creators and the platform’s socio-technical agencements, encouraging creators to conform to the norms and preferences of a hearing-centric digital environment.

Discussion

Callon’s (2008) concepts of social-technical agencements and distributed agency provide a helpful framework for understanding how individuals interact with societal and environmental structures in networked contexts. In the same paper, he identifies two approaches to integrating disabled groups: the prosthesis model, which focuses on adapting individuals through aids like assistive devices or trained animals to ‘restore’ abilities akin to those of non-disabled people, and the habilitation model, which emphasises modifying external environments to foster inclusivity. While the prosthesis model confines autonomy within predefined actions, the habilitation model expands agency by enabling new possibilities through environmental change. Applied to the practices of Deaf creators on Douyin, this framework reveals that their experiences predominantly align with the prosthesis model. Douyin’s slogan, ‘Record every kind of life’, ostensibly celebrates diversity and individuality. However, Deaf creators seeking visibility often feel compelled to adopt metaphorical prostheses, relying on tools like AI dubbing, subtitles and language coaches to align their content with hearing-centric preferences. This adaptation frequently involves altering natural sign language expressions to Signed Chinese or spoken language, prioritising grammatical norms and hearing audience expectations. While engaging with hearing-centric fantasies – such as ‘Is shaking hands equivalent to kissing?’ – may increase visibility, it trivialises Deaf culture, reducing sign language and identity to superficial, comedic elements. These practices reinforce infantilising stereotypes of Deaf creators as dependent or emotionally immature (Reagan, 1995).

Deaf creators often face tension between their authentic motivations – raising awareness and challenging stereotypes – and economic pressures to generate high traffic. Platforms like Douyin, driven by commercial imperatives, encourage creators to cater to wider audiences for sponsorship opportunities (Nieborg and Poell, 2018). This reliance on patronising narratives to monetise content perpetuates a paradox: Creators must conform to pathologising stereotypes that undermine their cultural authenticity in exchange for economic compensation. Such a dynamic reflects broader societal approaches in China, where deafness is framed as a ‘problem’ to be corrected through interventions like speech training (Li and Prevatt, 2010). Deaf creators who attempt to communicate through speech, even when laboured or unclear, are often praised for their perceived ‘rehabilitation’, further reinforcing a pathological view of deafness while marginalising Deaf culture’s unique values, rooted in sign language and visual communication (Padden and Humphries, 2006; Reagan, 1995). Deaf creators on Douyin exemplify ‘subaltern creators’, constrained by economic reliance on platforms and cultural conformity to hearing-centric narratives. Despite their visibility, they remain unable to fully articulate their identities on their own terms. Our findings suggest that platforms prioritise the traffic Deaf-related content generates over fostering genuine awareness of Deaf culture. While platforms like Douyin appear to democratise content creation by providing accessible tools, their socio-technical agencements prioritise profit and dominant norms, subtly co-opting creative autonomy through algorithmic curation and economic pressures. By subtly steering creators towards conformity, platforms perpetuate a form of digital ableism, commodifying or marginalising the cultural expressions of disabled creators to fit pre-existing templates of acceptability.

Conclusion

Using Callon’s (2008) framework, our findings reveal a ‘prosthesis’ model of socio-technical agencement guiding content production and shaping the creative agency of Deaf creators on Douyin. Within this model, Deaf creators strategically navigate between their initial creative motivations – often focused on Deaf advocacy and cultural awareness – and the economic and visibility pressures exerted by the platform ecosystem. Rather than expressing themselves freely, creators adapt their content to fit perceived mainstream expectations shaped by hearing-centric norms, algorithmic incentives and commercial imperatives in order to secure higher returns in a labour market that routinely discriminates against Deaf individuals and to alleviate the poverty often associated with deafness. This strategic negotiation, often facilitated by technological aids such as subtitles, AI dubbing and external ‘coaches’, allows creators to achieve greater visibility and potential financial rewards yet simultaneously involves the commodification of Deaf identity, where cultural expression is tailored to fit marketable tropes that appeal to hearing audiences and drive traffic. As such, the Deaf creators’ agency emerges as a complex, contingent negotiation within Douyin’s socio-technical and commercial environment. By aligning algorithmic visibility and monetisation opportunities with the expectations of majority audiences – often shaped by ableist assumptions and patronising curiosity – platforms actively participate in the production of cultural asymmetries. The economic rewards offered to creators depend on their willingness to repackage Deaf identity in emotionally resonant, palatable or ‘cute’ ways to hearing audiences, reinforcing symbolic hierarchies and limiting the space for alternative representations. In this way, platforms do not merely reflect societal biases but extend them through the commodification and algorithmic shaping of minority identities.

To promote disability rights in digital environments, we argue that platforms like Douyin should transition towards a habilitation model, rethinking design and governance to support and amplify marginalised voices actively. If platform architectures and algorithms persist in coupling monetisation to narrow, exclusionary mainstream tastes, true equality and meaningful representation of minority groups will remain elusive. In contrast, a habilitation model involves explicitly valuing minority identities, proactively removing barriers to diverse and non-conforming content, and embedding equity into algorithmic design and platform governance. Achieving this vision requires collective effort and coordinated action from platform owners, regulators, brand sponsors, creators and all stakeholders in digital culture.

While our study focuses specifically on Deaf creators on Douyin, we acknowledge that it may not capture the entire range of experiences on other prominent Chinese platforms, such as Kuaishou or Xiaohongshu. Additionally, varying cultural contexts and societal attitudes towards disability likely produce distinct content-creation practices among disabled creators globally. As transnational platforms increasingly mediate global interactions, future research should adopt culturally sensitive and comparative approaches to explore the lived experiences of diverse disabled creators fully. Such research will further enrich the scholarly discourse on equity, inclusion and accessibility within global platform labour studies, ultimately contributing to establishing more inclusive digital spaces worldwide.