É«½äÖ±²¥

NEW DATE! March 27th

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

In this talk, I discuss Megan Thee Stallion's engagement with Japanese popular culture in her music, performances, and guest appearances alongside the reception of this engagement on social media. Megan Thee Stallion, a Black American rapper and fan of anime, has become a representative of Black fans of Japanese popular culture especially following the release of the hit singles "Mamushi" (featuring Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba) and "Otaku Hot Girl." While her visibility as a fan of anime has been celebratory and has fostered the development of transnational "Blerd" digital networks, this visibility has also been accompanied by intense scrutiny and negative criticism on social media. I argue that this negative response-especially the sexist, racist, and violent comments from some male fans of anime-constitutes a transcoding of misogynoir, gatekeeping practices in cosplay culture, and ethno-nationalist ideologies that insist on a mutual exclusivity of Blackness and Japan. I advocate for the inclusion of Black feminist frameworks in studies of Japanese popular culture, especially given the global resurgence of interest in Japanese popular culture due to streaming infrastructures and digital networks. This resurgence is an opportune moment to expand studies of Japanese society and popular culture to include Black cultural production within and beyond the digital while also examining the more insidious factors that lead to anti-Black gatekeeping.

Kimberly Hassel is an Assistant Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and an affiliate of the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute at É«½äÖ±²¥ University. She is a Dominican American sociocultural anthropologist and digital ethnographer specializing in digital culture, youth culture, and identity in the contexts of Japan and its diasporas. She also specializes in Afro-Asia, with a particular focus on Afro-Japanese encounters in Black American popular culture and the Dominican Republic. Her work has appeared in Anthropology News, Critical Asian Studies, Mechademia, The Nation Magazine, and Who Is The Asianist? The Politics of Representation in Asian Studies.