Male Bodies in Metrics: Bodily Performance and Digital Platform Traffic for Gay Influencers on Douyin

This study investigates how Chinese gay influencers navigate the complex digital environment of Douyin, a leading short-video platform. We examine the tension between gendered bodily performance, the pursuit of algorithmic visibility, and the pressures of commercialization. Through a computational multimodal analysis of 23,817 videos from 76 popular gay influencers, we first map the landscape of their visual self-presentation, identifying distinct strategies such as face-focused versus body-focused performances. We then build negative binomial regression models to test how these visual strategies predict user engagement. Our findings reveal that while certain professionalized visual cues like larger face and body area are positively associated with engagement, overt displays of body exposure are penalized. Critically, we find that monetization acts as a significant moderator in this dynamic. For monetizing influencers, the negative effects of risky displays (like body exposure) are buffered, while the positive effects of brand-safe strategies (like face focus) are enhanced. This suggests that the platform economy “tames” gay-coded bodily performance, rewarding a more sanitized and professionalized style of presentation that aligns with commercial logic. This study contributes to theories of algorithmic culture and queer digital studies by providing large-scale empirical evidence of how platform logics discipline and reconfigure marginalized identity expression.