Shirley Zhang

My research examines Dreaming Girls in China, a subculture of young women who form romantic attachments to virtual characters in anime, manga, and games. Through digital ethnography, I explore how these relationships are mediated by technologies such as AI chat apps, simulation games, and online platforms, and how they reconfigure identity, intimacy, and gender.

I am particularly interested in:

• Human–Technology Relations: how digital media, AI, and gaming platforms enable new forms of affective bonds and agency.

• Identity & Personhood: how Dreaming Girls construct multiple selves across avatars, social media, and imagined narratives, destabilizing fixed categories of gender, sexuality, and species.

• Consumption & Intimacy: the political economy of virtual romance, where emotional attachment is sustained by in-game spending, commissioned artwork, and affective economies.

• Queer & Posthuman Perspectives: how Dreaming Girls engage with queer imaginaries, cyborg/posthuman identities, and non-normative intimacies.

• Global & Comparative Dimensions: situating Dreaming Girls alongside similar subcultures in Japan (yumejoshi) and South Korea, within wider East Asian media flows.