- The paper demonstrates that 84.8% of posts using #BSF are repurposed to exclude male audiences, highlighting a deliberate re-appropriation tactic.
- It employs a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis and topic modeling to uncover themes like fashion and relationships in non-childcare posts.
- User interviews reveal dissatisfaction with current blocking tools, urging platforms to develop enhanced mechanisms for safer digital engagement.
This paper explores the nuanced strategies employed by women users on the social media platform Xiaohongshu to manage audience reach through the deliberate re-appropriation of hashtags. The central focus lies on how women have utilized the hashtag #BSF (Baby Supplemental Food) in posts unrelated to childcare as a mechanism to prevent male users from engaging with their content. Through a mixed-methods approach, the authors examine both the quantitative shift in hashtag usage and the qualitative experiences behind these shifts, shedding light on broader implications for social media governance and feminist practices.
Analytically, the paper distinguishes between posts whose content is genuinely related to baby food and those that are not, revealing that 84.8% of posts with the #BSF hashtag were unrelated to its conventional use. This significant disparity highlights the extent of hashtag re-appropriation as a tool for audience management, repurposing a hashtag initially intended for parenting content to a mechanism for avoiding unwanted male attention.
The topic modeling of these irrelevant posts identifies a diverse range of themes, including fashion, makeup, social life, and relationships, indicating widespread adaptation of the hashtag among users discussing topics traditionally associated with female audiences. This strategic use reflects an effort to create safer digital spaces within the algorithmically governed environment of Xiaohongshu, where recommendation algorithms often conflate diverse audience groups.
Interviews with 24 Xiaohongshu users elaborate on this strategic behavior, illustrating that the desire to avoid male audiences stems from experiences of gender-based harassment and a lack of effective platform-mediated audience control tools. Users expressed dissatisfaction with current blocking and reporting mechanisms, which are often insufficiently responsive to harassment claims. In light of these limitations, the re-appropriation of hashtags emerges as a grassroots solution, allowing for nuanced control over who engages with users' content.
The emergence of derived hashtags, such as #HG (185 Handsome Guy), #MS (Male Sterilization), and #BSF in Traditional Chinese, illustrates the evolution of this audience management technique as the original #BSF became overly popular and less effective in achieving its intended exclusionary function. These changes signify a user-driven adaptation process, emphasizing the dynamic nature of hashtag evolution in response to changing user needs and platform environments.
From a theoretical perspective, the paper contributes to understanding digital feminist strategies as forms of everyday resistance within social media platforms. By re-purposing hashtag functions, women users on Xiaohongshu actively negotiate their visibility and engagement within a predominantly male-oriented digital landscape, suggesting an ongoing tension between user autonomy and algorithmic control.
Practically, this research underlines the necessity for enhanced platform features that provide users with more control over audience interactions, potentially through dynamic audience control mechanisms that adapt to users' semantic tagging of content. Furthermore, the findings advocate for reconsidering current platform governance models to empower users in managing their digital interactions more effectively.
In summary, the paper offers a comprehensive overview of hashtag re-appropriation as a user-generated strategy for audience control on social media, revealing its implications for user agency and platform governance. The paper invites reflection on future directions for social media design, particularly in enhancing user safety and autonomy in an era of algorithmic mediation.