China’s National Radio and Television Administration held the meeting on the 16th of September to stress the importance of having positive guidance in TV productions. The meeting emphasized that future productions must eliminate ‘clickbait’ content, and discourage subjects that relate to slash fictions and irrational fandoms.
Slash fiction focuses on emphasizing romantic tension between characters of the same gender (normally male) and is very popular among the Asian female audience as a discreet way of express their oppressed romantic fantasies. Although within a grey area under China’s conservative rhetoric on sexuality, slash fiction has become a major subject for the Chinese entertainment industry in recent years. Productions such as The Untamed and Heaven Official’s Blessing were adapted from slash cyber literature. Such TV series and anime that hint at romantic tension between same-sex characters have wide appeal to female audiences across different age groups. The Untamed gained more than 6 billion streams in just one year.
Slash fiction is also one of the hottest topics on 66RPG, the largest indie visual novel community in China. Many fans would create games to tell their fantasies about their favorite celebrities. It’s not yet clear if such discouragements would affect the indie VN creators, but some self-regulations from these platforms seem to be very possible.