In the wake of globalization and the context of a socialist market economy, youth cultures in China have been undergoing a major transformation. While the youth culture in China has joined the global trend to become more commercialized as a result of emerging values, norms and values of consumption, along with (and going beyond) cultural consumption, liberalizing values have developed among young people which might impinge upon society and politics. Based on a framework of materialistic and non-material labour and an ethnographic study of fandom, this article attempts to investigate the problematic by examining the phenomenon of fandom in China with a case study of the fans of the most popular Chinese singer, Jay Chou, the interaction among which has reflected significant changes in youth culture and youth performativity in China today.
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