The working of affect and emotion around the retranslation and (pre-)reception of Barbie on social media: A cross-platform analysis

3.1Affect, feminism, and social media

As noted in Section 1, a cross-disciplinary niche is apparent: Cultural/Media/Feminist Studies often exclude translation from their affect-focused analyses, while FTS has so far tended to overlook the affective dimensions of translation. This section draws primarily on the context of feminism and social media to shed light on how affect within the digital landscape has been conceptualized. Studies examining the nexus of affect, social media, and feminism (e.g., Nau et al. 2022Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.; Zhang 2023Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. ) tend to favor certain theoretical frameworks, notably Sara Ahmed’s (2010Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. , 2014Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. ) feminist theorization of affect and a Deleuze-Guattarian perspective on affect (cf. Hipfl 2018Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. ; Lünenborg and Maier 2018 for theoretical reviews).

Rooted in Deleuze-Guattarian thought, the notion of affect has been developed extensively by many, most notably Brian Massumi. Massumi (2015)Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press. argues that affect is apersonal (i.e., not merely a personal feeling), is “something that is felt without registering consciously” (53), and “is in many ways synonymous with force or forces of encounter” (Gregg and Seigworth 2010Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. , 2; emphases in original). It exists as a “power (or potential) to affect or be affected” (Massumi 2015Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press., 4); for example, affect has the potential or capacity to connect women survivors of #Metoo on X, formerly Twitter (Nau et al. 2022Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.), to forge affective solidarity through teens’ act of calling out rape culture together online (Ringrose and Mendes 2018Ringrose, Jessica, and Kaitlynn Mendes 2018 “Mediated Affect and Feminist Solidarity: Teens Using Twitter to Challenge ‘Rape Culture’ in and around School.” In Affect and Social Media: Emotion, Mediation, Anxiety and Contagion, edited by Tony D. Sampson, Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis, 109–121. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Ringrose, Jessica, and Kaitlynn Mendes 2018 “Mediated Affect and Feminist Solidarity: Teens Using Twitter to Challenge ‘Rape Culture’ in and around School.” In Affect and Social Media: Emotion, Mediation, Anxiety and Contagion, edited by Tony D. Sampson, Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis, 109–121. London: Rowman & Littlefield. ), or to serve as a driving force that fosters connections among women who exercise via shared pride and support while excluding those who do not fit idealized body norms (Toffoletti and Thorpe 2020Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. ). From the perspective of this framework, affect is fundamentally relational (in contrast to emotion, which is purely an individual internal state), arising in the ‘in-betweenness’ of bodily encounters and circulating among them with varying intensity (Gregg and Siegworth 2010Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. , 2; Massumi 2015Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press., ix; Hipfl 2018Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. ; Koskinen 2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 13). In this process, the capacity to connect or act is geared towards diminishing or augmenting the intensity of affective encounters (Massumi 2015Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press., 49), or maintaining “a state of engaged passivity” (Papacharissi 2015Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. , 12).

To Ahmed (2010Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. , 29), affect is “what sticks, or what sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values, and objects.” This perspective similarly embraces a relational interpretation of affect, positioning it as a crucial intermediary, or a hinge between the self and its surroundings, to appropriate the metaphor from Hokkanen and Koskinen (2016)Hokkanen, Sari, and Kaisa Koskinen 2016 “Affect as a Hinge: The Translator’s Experiencing Self as a Sociocognitive Interface.” Translation Spaces 5 (1): 78–96.Hokkanen, Sari, and Kaisa Koskinen 2016 “Affect as a Hinge: The Translator’s Experiencing Self as a Sociocognitive Interface.” Translation Spaces 5 (1): 78–96.. Toffoletti and Thorpe (2020)Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. leverage this property of affect (that is, ‘stickiness’) to illuminate how “intensities of feeling are evoked through women’s bodies in various stages of becoming fit, and reverberate throughout” an online fitness community (829).

Indeed, affect sticks and reverberates, as Kuntsman’s (2012)Kuntsman, Adi 2012 “Introduction: Affective Fabrics of Digital Cultures.” In Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion, edited by Athina Karatzogianni and Adi Kuntsman, 1–17. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuntsman, Adi 2012 “Introduction: Affective Fabrics of Digital Cultures.” In Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion, edited by Athina Karatzogianni and Adi Kuntsman, 1–17. London: Palgrave Macmillan. concept of ‘affective reverberation’ suggests. This affective resonance, in turn, may facilitate the emergence of what Papacharissi (2015)Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. terms ‘affective publics’ in digital spaces — groups that coalesce around shared digital artifacts such as hashtags, emojis, comments, and reposts/retweets. Within this context, the affordances of social media play a crucial role in mobilizing these networked publics (4), catalyzing affectively charged “cascading expressions” (12) from the publics sustained by an underlying sticky “feelings of belonging and solidarity” (5). These phenomena are exemplified by the digitally narrated disclosure practices targeting sexual abusers in the case of a global #Metoo (Nau et al. 2022Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.Nau, Charlotte, Anabel Quan-Haase, and Lori McCay-Peet 2022 “Defining Social Media and Asking Social Media Research Questions: How Well Does the Swiss Army Knife Metaphor Apply?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods, edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Solan, 11–26. London: Sage.), and by the digital archive of women’s feelings in feminist responses to the Covid-19 pandemic’s gendered impact on women (Zhang 2023Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. ). These forms of “networked relationalities enabled via social media encounters” (Toffoletti and Thorpe 2020Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. Toffoletti, Kim, and Holly Thorpe 2020 “Bodies, Gender, and Digital Affect in Fitspiration Media.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (5): 822–839. , 826) also give rise to the concept of ‘networked affect’ as proposed by Paasonen, Hillis, and Petit (2015)Paasonen, Susanna, Ken Hillis, and Michael Petit 2015 “Introduction: Networks of Transmission: Intensity, Sensation, Value.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 1–24. London: MIT Press. Paasonen, Susanna, Ken Hillis, and Michael Petit 2015 “Introduction: Networks of Transmission: Intensity, Sensation, Value.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 1–24. London: MIT Press. . Affect, understood as networked, “allows for an examination of how intensities shape our ubiquitous networked exchanges, how they circulate, oscillate and become registered as sensation by bodies that pass from one state to another” (Paasonen 2018Paasonen, Susanna 2018 “Networked Affect.” In Posthuman Glossary, edited by Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova, 283–285. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Paasonen, Susanna 2018 “Networked Affect.” In Posthuman Glossary, edited by Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova, 283–285. London: Bloomsbury Academic., 283–284).

3.2Affect and (re-)translation

Huddleson (2023Huddleson, Richard 2023 “Translating Transgender Lives: Bringing La Pell Escrita to Belfast.” Perspectives 31 (2): 250–264. Huddleson, Richard 2023 “Translating Transgender Lives: Bringing La Pell Escrita to Belfast.” Perspectives 31 (2): 250–264. , 252) argues that examining affect involves exploring “how subconscious and uncontrollable intensities lead us to feel and act in certain ways.” Drawing on personal experience translating the Catalan queer play La Pell Escrita [The written skin] (Bonany 2017Bonany, Manel La Pell Escrita [The written skin] Directed by Manel Dueso Performed at Sala Atrium Barcelona November 4, 2017 Bonany, Manel La Pell Escrita [The written skin] Directed by Manel Dueso Performed at Sala Atrium Barcelona November 4, 2017 ) for a Belfast audience, Huddleson (2023)Huddleson, Richard 2023 “Translating Transgender Lives: Bringing La Pell Escrita to Belfast.” Perspectives 31 (2): 250–264. Huddleson, Richard 2023 “Translating Transgender Lives: Bringing La Pell Escrita to Belfast.” Perspectives 31 (2): 250–264. proposes a workshop-based methodology that foregrounds affect in theatrical translation. This experimental approach demonstrates how affect shapes translation beyond mere linguistic transfer, highlighting its capacity to “move an audience” (261; emphasis in original).

Similarly focusing on the queer context, Baldo (2019Baldo, Michela 2019 “Translating Affect, Redeeming Life: The Case of the Italian Queer Transfeminist Group ideadestroyingmuros.” The Translator 25 (1): 13–26. Baldo, Michela 2019 “Translating Affect, Redeeming Life: The Case of the Italian Queer Transfeminist Group ideadestroyingmuros.” The Translator 25 (1): 13–26. , 2023Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. ), following Gregg and Seigworth’s (2010)Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth eds. 2010 The Affect Theory Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. framework, identifies affect as emerging in the “in-betweenness” (2) of encounters between human and non-human bodies. Examining the corporeal and political dimensions of queer translation in Italy, Baldo (2023)Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. conceptualizes translation as both affective and performative.88.Baldo’s approach to performativity is grounded in the work of Sandra Bermann, among others, positing that the performative entails the creation of something new. For further elaboration, see Baldo and Inghilleri (2018)Baldo, Michela, and Moira Inghilleri 2018 “Cultural Resistance, Female Voices: Translating Subversive and Contested Sexualities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi C. Cortés, 296–313. London: Routledge. Baldo, Michela, and Moira Inghilleri 2018 “Cultural Resistance, Female Voices: Translating Subversive and Contested Sexualities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi C. Cortés, 296–313. London: Routledge. and Baldo (2023)Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. Baldo, Michela 2023 “The Formation of Translation Collectivities in Italian Queer Feminist Activist Scenarios.” Translation in Society 2 (1): 53–70. . This dual nature fosters affective networks, which in turn generate further translations and translational by-products, including workshops, performances, and collectives (ibid.). By linking the notion of performativity to that of affect, translation is posited to put “bodies into contact and [direct] the ways in which new translations are produced and performed in an endless and messy performative circle of affections” (Baldo and Inghilleri 2018Baldo, Michela, and Moira Inghilleri 2018 “Cultural Resistance, Female Voices: Translating Subversive and Contested Sexualities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi C. Cortés, 296–313. London: Routledge. Baldo, Michela, and Moira Inghilleri 2018 “Cultural Resistance, Female Voices: Translating Subversive and Contested Sexualities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi C. Cortés, 296–313. London: Routledge. , 302). Baldo’s theorization suggests that affect can persist and reverberate, potentially catalyzing new translations, translational collectives, and/or assembling what Pérez-González (2016Pérez-González, Luis 2016 “The Politics of Affect in Activist Amateur Subtitling: A Biopolitical Perspective.” In Citizen Media and Public Spaces, edited by Mona Baker and Bolette Blaagaard, 118–135. London: Routledge. Pérez-González, Luis 2016 “The Politics of Affect in Activist Amateur Subtitling: A Biopolitical Perspective.” In Citizen Media and Public Spaces, edited by Mona Baker and Bolette Blaagaard, 118–135. London: Routledge. , 118) terms “an audience of affective receptivity” in his study of activist amateur subtitling. Baldo’s theorization resonates with two key perspectives: first, the application of affect’s ‘stickiness’ to TS (Koskinen 2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), originating from feminist scholar Ahmed’s work (2010Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. , 2014Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. ); and second, Baker’s (2013)Baker, Mona 2013 “Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action.” Social Movement Studies 12 (1): 23–47. Baker, Mona 2013 “Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action.” Social Movement Studies 12 (1): 23–47. assertion that translation not only mediates but also actively participates in producing cultural encounters. Baker (2013Baker, Mona 2013 “Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action.” Social Movement Studies 12 (1): 23–47. Baker, Mona 2013 “Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action.” Social Movement Studies 12 (1): 23–47. , 23–24) argues that translation intervenes in the “processes of narration and renarration that constitute all encounters” and “[configures] the shape of any encounter.”

The affective dimension of fan and amateur subtitling has also attracted scholarly attention. Investigating the South Korean fandom of the Doctor Who series (BBC 2005–2017BBC 2005–2017 Doctor Who. Created by Russell T. Davies.BBC 2005–2017 Doctor Who. Created by Russell T. Davies.) and the Chinese fandom of the British actor Tom Hiddleston respectively, Lee (2019)Lee, Seryun 2019 “Translation within Affective Online Communities: Doctor Who’s TARDIS Crew as a Case Study.” In Translating and Interpreting in Korean Contexts: Engaging with Asian and Western Others, edited by Ji-Hae Kang and Judy Wakabayashi, 166–181. Lee, Seryun 2019 “Translation within Affective Online Communities: Doctor Who’s TARDIS Crew as a Case Study.” In Translating and Interpreting in Korean Contexts: Engaging with Asian and Western Others, edited by Ji-Hae Kang and Judy Wakabayashi, 166–181. and Mo and Jin (2023)Mo, Junru, and Haina Jin 2023 “Fan Translation and Affective Mediation: A Study of Hiddles’ Translation Army of China.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 18 (2): 261–279. Mo, Junru, and Haina Jin 2023 “Fan Translation and Affective Mediation: A Study of Hiddles’ Translation Army of China.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 18 (2): 261–279. frame translation as a form of ‘affective mediation’ (see Mo and Jin 2023Mo, Junru, and Haina Jin 2023 “Fan Translation and Affective Mediation: A Study of Hiddles’ Translation Army of China.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 18 (2): 261–279. Mo, Junru, and Haina Jin 2023 “Fan Translation and Affective Mediation: A Study of Hiddles’ Translation Army of China.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 18 (2): 261–279. ). Their perspective illuminates how fan-driven translation, characterized by both as a kind of affective labor, cultivates affinity-based communities between fan-translators and their audience. Originating from Hardt’s (1999)Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100.Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100. work, the concept of ‘affective labor’ — denoting a form of immaterial labor that generates and modulates affect — has gained attention in TS, as exemplified by Koskinen’s monograph (2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Central to her book is the argument that all “translating and interpreting are (among other things) forms of affective labour” (29).

While retranslation can be motivated by various factors (Tahir Gürçağlar 2020Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz 2020 “Retranslation.” In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 484–489. London: Routledge.Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz 2020 “Retranslation.” In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 484–489. London: Routledge.), the impetus behind TPG’s endeavor aligns closely with Venuti’s (2013)Venuti, Lawrence 2013 “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” In Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice, 96–108. London: Routledge.Venuti, Lawrence 2013 “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” In Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice, 96–108. London: Routledge. assertion linking retranslations with difference. He notes that retranslations often emerge from a perceived inadequacy in previous translations (96–97). Consequently, retranslations “typically highlight the translator’s intentionality because they are designed to make an appreciable difference” (100), which, in TPG’s case, manifests as a subtle response to the alleged misogyny of the official subtitles. The efforts to create such difference may be driven by the pursuit of “affective affinity to the intended readership” (Koskinen 2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 65–66) in the retranslation process.

3.3Affect and emotion operationalized for this study

This study is grounded in the Deleuze-Guattarian tradition’s theory of affect, as articulated by Massumi and other scholars. Using this framework, and acknowledging the situatedness of TPG’s retranslation of Barbie as delineated in Section 2, I conceptualize affect for the present study and distinguish it from emotion as follows.

Within this paradigm, affect emerges as a relational phenomenon, manifesting as latent potentialities and catalytic forces of encounter that might drive the retranslation and subsequent reception of TPG’s rendition of Barbie, constituting affective labor within the social media sphere. This digital milieu serves as a dynamic arena where the activities of both TPG and their audience — translational or otherwise — reflect their affective engagement of varying intensities.

The distinction between affect and emotion often elicits scholarly debate, with some researchers deeming the differentiation elusive and unnecessary (Gorton 2007Gorton, Kristyn 2007 “Theorizing Emotion and Affect: Feminist Engagements.” Feminist Theory 8 (3): 333–348. Gorton, Kristyn 2007 “Theorizing Emotion and Affect: Feminist Engagements.” Feminist Theory 8 (3): 333–348. , 334; Lünenborg and Maier 2018, 2). Nevertheless, this study aligns with Massumi and some of his contemporaries’ perspective, maintaining that affect and emotion should not be conflated — at least for ensuring terminological clarity at the operational level. In this framework, emotion, “register[ing] personally at a given moment,” is construed as “a very partial expression of affect” (Massumi 2015Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press., 4–5) or a realized form of affect. Affect, characterized as a “pre-emotive intensity” (Papacharissi 2015Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. , 5), is preconscious, prepersonal, and not fully narrativizable, in ways that make it less likely to be wholly captured in language (Zhang 2023Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. , 1330) compared to emotion — the “expression of affect in gesture and language, its conventional or coded expression” (Massumi 2015Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press.Massumi, Brian 2015 Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press., 32). Following Massumi, Shouse (2005)Shouse, Eric 2005 “Feeling, Emotion, Affect.” M/C Journal 8 (6). Shouse, Eric 2005 “Feeling, Emotion, Affect.” M/C Journal 8 (6). also argues that affect “is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential.” To operationalize this distinction, emotion can be seen as cognitively identifiable, contextually apparent, and typically named (e.g., joy, anger, anticipation), whereas affect is associated with more abstract, less discursive manifestations of engagement on social media platforms. For example, these affective engagements can be assessed through metrics such as the number of likes and comments. Given that affect, being abstract, may transcend the expression of emotion, the employment of emojis/emoticons and rhetorical expressions (as nonverbal cues) that reveal the intensity of users’ involvement without emotional articulation should be considered (Papacharissi 2015Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. ; Zhang 2023Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. Zhang, Jinman 2023 “Feminist Responses to COVID-19 in China through the Lens of Affect.” Feminist Media Studies 23 (4): 1327–1343. ). This study maintains the conceptual distinction between emotion and affect as outlined by Massumi. However, in the context of social media, affective intensities often become entangled with and amplified through emotional discourse. Therefore, those named emotions function not merely as personal reports but also as circulating signs that eventually contribute to the overall affective atmosphere.

5.1The retranslation embedded in affective labor: Affect and emotion as sticky, propulsive, and productive forces

The analysis in this section is based on a dataset of five posts (three from Red, two from WeChat), and the comments on these posts. The first mention of TPG’s intent to retranslate Barbie (which premiered on 21 July 2023) appeared on Red in a post titled “Barbie translated by us! Translation needed!”1010.All English translations of Chinese material are those of the author, unless otherwise stated. The English translations retain the grammatical irregularities of the original Chinese to reflect the colloquial tone of these social media posts or comments. (R0, 18/08/2023). In this post, TPG declared their commitment to subtitling Barbie, emphasizing their focus on female-oriented works. Additionally, they invited potential collaborators/translators to join their retranslation endeavor. The most liked user comment beneath R0 expressed a dual sentiment: gratitude for TPG’s decision to retranslate, juxtaposed with criticism of and discontent with the perceived sexist undertones in the official subtitles. The commenter specifically cited the translation of “Madam President” (which was translated as “the president’s wife”) as an example, punctuating their disapproval with the disappointment emoji at the end of this comment.

The subsequent four posts were published on both platforms: R1 and W1 shared identical content, as did R2 and W2. In R1-W1 (05/09/2023–04/09/2023), TPG posted a Barbie movie poster, strategically watermarked with “TPG Subtitle Group.” This move appeared to be a deliberate signal to their audience that TPG’s version of Barbie was in the making. Comments on both platforms under R1-W1 were flooded with anticipation for and trust in TPG’s retranslation efforts. These sentiments were expressed through various patterns, of which the following two are particularly striking:

1. Verbalized emotions (e.g., “Ahhhhh, has it been released yet? Has it been released yet? I’m so looking forward to it.”).

2. Expressions delivered on the level of affect via multiple emojis, emoticons, rhetorical devices (such as repetition and exclamation marks), and combinations thereof (e.g., “TPG!!🥰🥰🥳,” “(σ ° ∀°)σ wow,” and “蹲蹲蹲” dūn dūn dūn).1111.This is Chinese internet slang that means eagerly waiting for the updates of something, often used in online forums or social media.

Previous research indicates that the primary function of face emojis and emoticons is to express affect (Riordan 2017Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. ). Specifically, Stark and Crawford (2015Stark, Luke, and Kate Crawford 2015 “The Conservatism of Emoji: Work, Affect, and Communication.” Social Media + Society 1 (2): 1–11. Stark, Luke, and Kate Crawford 2015 “The Conservatism of Emoji: Work, Affect, and Communication.” Social Media + Society 1 (2): 1–11. , 6) posit that emojis and emoticons play a vital role in the “affective mix of relationship maintenance, sustenance, and continuation.” While the verbalized information (see the above Pattern 1) determines the affect of a message itself (Riordan 2017Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. , 552), Riordan argues that the non-verbal cues of affective valence (e.g., exclamation points, capitalization, and emojis/emoticons; see the above Pattern 2) can modulate the “intensity of that affect” in a message (ibid.; emphasis in original). In fact, these cues might or might not represent actual emotional feelings; rather, their intentional use constitutes a form of ‘emotion work’ that serves specific social functions and aids in the creation and maintenance of social relationships (553–555; for more on ‘emotion work’, see Hochschild 1979Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. ).1212.While ‘affective labor’ generally concerns the production and management of social networks and affects in the public sphere, often directed toward external entities like audiences or communities (Hardt 1999Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100.Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100.), ‘emotion work’ refers to the internally driven, unpaid management of personal feelings in the private sphere (Hochschild 1979Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. ).

In this sense, although dissatisfaction with the official subtitles initially drove TPG’s retranslation, it is the palpable excitement, support, and trust among Barbie’s audience — doing their emotion work — that sustain the ongoing and future encounters key to pushing forward Barbie’s retranslation. This dynamic also appears to guarantee the “good or feminist” translation promised by TPG, as evidenced by their interactions with the audience in the comments of post R1-W1 across both platforms. As both platforms support threaded replies, TPG responded respectively to the two most-liked comments under post R1 and W1. Their conversations (A and B) are presented as follows:

A. Under R1:

The commenter: I hope [it] won’t be translated as ‘the wife of president’. [It] should be ‘Madam President’ (127 likes)

TPG: Of course (10 likes)

B. Under W1:

The commenter: Rooting for TPG! When I went to the cinema to watch Barbie, the translations really got me laugh (17 likes)

TPG: Then [you] must leave it to us (1 like)

Koskinen (2020)Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. observes that trust is perhaps the most prevalent social emotion in relation to translation processes, potentially serving as a “super-affect” (141) and a key “touchstone of successful translation” (123). Trust is relational; it “dialogically connect[s] the one doing the trusting and the other being trusted” (141). In the case of the present study, the former comprises the likely recipients eagerly awaiting the new version of Barbie, while the latter encompasses TPG and their retranslation project. That is, trust is interpersonal, operating bidirectionally in the background of (re-)translation (Chesterman 2016Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 178).1313.See also Pym (2025)Pym, Anthony 2025 “Deconstructing Translational Trust.” Translation Studies 18 (2): 190–205. Pym, Anthony 2025 “Deconstructing Translational Trust.” Translation Studies 18 (2): 190–205. for a discussion of the essentialism in Chesterman’s and Koskinen’s accounts of translational trust. The audience’s emotion work, verbalized or not, performed to fulfill their social roles (Hochschild 1979Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. ; Riordan 2017Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. ) as loyal followers and advocates of TPG or advice-givers (as seen in Conversation A above), was reciprocated with TPG’s confidence and assurance of providing a non-sexist translation with “an appreciable difference” (Venuti 2013Venuti, Lawrence 2013 “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” In Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice, 96–108. London: Routledge.Venuti, Lawrence 2013 “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” In Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice, 96–108. London: Routledge., 100) from the official rendition. More examples revealing such trust-building will be presented later in this section.

In the comment section of post R1-W1, TPG once again informed their expectant audience that their retranslation work was in progress and would be released on 20 October, citing a delay in the distribution of the Key Delivery Message (KDM) for Barbie as the reason for the postponement.1414.A Key Delivery Message (KDM) is an encrypted file containing keys necessary to unlock and play a specific digital cinema package. It allows theaters to decrypt and screen a movie file for a designated period. On the eve of the anticipated release, TPG concurrently published the post R2-W2 (19/10/2023) on Red and WeChat. Post R2-W2 focused on their translation approach to one of the film’s most discussed scenes: the monologue of Gloria (portrayed by America Ferrera), a central character in the film narrative. Her monologue is about the complexities and struggles of womanhood. In this post, the first element that stands out is an image accompanying R2-W2 that TPG shared to curate their ongoing subtitling work: the image featuring an excerpt of TPG’s Chinese translation of Gloria’s monologue (approximately 1.5 minutes in the original). The image (see Figure 1) solely displayed the translated Chinese text, without the original English dialogue.1515.The original English lines can be accessed at https://​www​.elle​.com​/culture​/movies​-tv​/a44640422​/america​-ferrera​-full​-barbie​-monologue/.

From Figure 1 it is evident that TPG’s presentation of their subtitled work is imbued with affective elements. This picture features text highlighted using visual effects, including pink and bold font, with some sections further accentuated by increasing the font size in addition to being bold and pink. These typographical strategies can be interpreted as non-verbal cues as substitutes for emphasis and shouting when communicating affect, as summarized by Riordan (2017Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. , 550). TPG explicitly acknowledged their intentional affective design in post R2-W2:

TPG: … After several iterations, we finally chose this current version to vent the emotions fully through the use of visual effects.

In the textual part of R2-W2, TPG shared insights on their subtitling process for specific lines from Gloria’s monologue. These accounts belong to what Koskinen and Paloposki (2015Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. , 26) describe as “translators’ own descriptions of the translation process” within the context of retranslation. Moreover, they exemplify what Hokkanen and Koskinen (2016Hokkanen, Sari, and Kaisa Koskinen 2016 “Affect as a Hinge: The Translator’s Experiencing Self as a Sociocognitive Interface.” Translation Spaces 5 (1): 78–96.Hokkanen, Sari, and Kaisa Koskinen 2016 “Affect as a Hinge: The Translator’s Experiencing Self as a Sociocognitive Interface.” Translation Spaces 5 (1): 78–96., 91, 93) term translators’ “narratives describing personal affective experiences” that evolve into a form of social action when consciously articulated. This is demonstrated by TPG’s self-explanation of their subtitling strategy, in which they offered three specific examples in R2-W2. One of the examples is given below:

TPG: ‘But somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.’

Although ‘wrong’ was used in the original, in the Chinese context, I chose to use the word ‘不对’.1616. 不对 búduì means ‘not right.’

We are not ‘wrong’, but rather ‘不对’ — we ‘do everything not right’ and ‘everything is done not right’. I believe women can totally resonate with the nuanced distinctions between ‘wrong’ and ‘不对’.

TPG’s narrative concerning their word choice, as exemplified in the example above (along with two other examples not included here), can be regarded as an affective practice. This narrative also functions as a paratext surrounding their in-progress retranslated Barbie. Notably, post R2-W2 refrains from explicitly mentioning or criticizing the official subtitled version previously accused of misogyny. Instead, TPG cultivates an image of an empathetic subtitling collective through two primary means:

1. The affective and cathartic presentation of their translation snippets (as illustrated in Figure 1).

2. The elucidation of their translation strategy that employs carefully selected lexical choices, demonstrating their feminist approach to translation that is attuned to women’s lived experiences (as evidenced in the example above).

TPG’s approach resonates with the claim that “in a retranslation process the retranslator similarly needs to assume some stance towards the first translator” due to the “anxiety of influence” (Koskinen and Paloposki 2015Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. , 28; emphasis in original). While the claim of Koskinen and Paloposki (2015)Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2015 “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Retranslator in Retranslation.” Target 27 (1): 25–39. primarily stems from studies on how the presence of Pentti Saarikoski, a renowned Finnish translator, has enduringly influenced his successors in retranslating certain literary works, the claim can be reasonably extended to TPG’s case. This is because TPG’s digital presence as a feminist subtitling collective can be situated within the broader landscape of feminist digital cultural production. According to Pruchniewska (2018Pruchniewska, Urszula M. 2018 “Branding the Self as an ‘Authentic Feminist’: Negotiating Feminist Values in Post-Feminist Digital Cultural Production.” Feminist Media Studies 18 (5): 810–824. Pruchniewska, Urszula M. 2018 “Branding the Self as an ‘Authentic Feminist’: Negotiating Feminist Values in Post-Feminist Digital Cultural Production.” Feminist Media Studies 18 (5): 810–824. , 810), feminist content creation in digital spaces “requires the negotiation of individual self-branding and promotional activities alongside the advancement of collective feminist politics” within the wider creator economy. More specifically, for example, within the domain of digital feminist content production facilitated through translation, such promotion is played out through a proliferation of paratextual elements surrounding edited and subtitled video clips (Cheng 2024Cheng, Xiaoyi 2024 “Feminist Paratextual (Re)framing of Online Social Translation: A Case Study of @subtitle girl (@zimu shaonü).” Babel 71 (3): 307–329. Cheng, Xiaoyi 2024 “Feminist Paratextual (Re)framing of Online Social Translation: A Case Study of @subtitle girl (@zimu shaonü).” Babel 71 (3): 307–329. ). It follows that in the social media ecosystem intertwined with the forces of the attention and knowledge economy, the imperative to establish a distinctive stance for one’s audience might become increasingly pronounced.

The comments on post R21717.The comments under W2 largely pertain to feminist discussions and are therefore not addressed in this analysis. were replete with emotive expressions of empathy, support, gratitude, appreciation, praise, and excitement for the upcoming release of the TPG-subtitled Barbie. This enthusiasm among the audience was further fueled by TPG’s statement at the end of R2-W2, which struck an excited, playful, and thankful tone:

TPG: The complete version of the subtitles will be released on October 21 at 00:00. All the Barbies, please wait eagerly.

TPG’s use of the phrase “All the Barbies” to address their audience exemplifies how forms of address function as affective tools in digital feminist spaces by cultivating an affective atmosphere. This playful collective form of address generates belonging by creating an inclusive affective community around shared cultural knowledge about this film and performs proximity by collapsing the distance between producers and consumers. Among the comments under R2, two stand out not only for receiving the highest and second-highest number of likes, but also for their direct relevance to translation issues:

Comment A:

I remember a professor specializing in translation once said, ‘translation is a cross-cultural rewriting’. TPG’s translation truly embodies cross-cultural empathy and understanding, and the rewriting allows more people to resonate (277 likes)

Comment B:

[You are] not just translators, but rewriters of discourse (112 likes)

Both comments express positive sentiments towards TPG’s retranslation excerpt and conclude with emojis of face or object (i.e., fireworks). As Riordan (2017)Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. Riordan, Monica A. 2017 “Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (5): 549–567. notes, the use of object emojis can intensify affect in the same way that face emojis do. These emojis contribute to communicate affect and amplify the verbalized emotions — namely, the audience’s appreciation and admiration. Moreover, trust — a theme highlighted by TPG in relation to their translation practice and an emotion expressed by the audience — is again self-evident. The audience recognition of TPG’s qualification as Barbie’s retranslator (i.e., perceived as an intercultural ‘rewriter’ successful in eliciting emotional responses from translation recipients) is reflected not only in these two comments, but also in the widespread agreement, as evidenced by the numerous likes they received. Furthermore, the status of (re-)translation as transcending mere linguistic transfer and evolving into a kind of affective labor that facilitates transformation is indirectly acknowledged by the audience. Such favorable audience feedback reaffirms the necessity of TPG’s ongoing feminist translation project (Pruchniewska 2018Pruchniewska, Urszula M. 2018 “Branding the Self as an ‘Authentic Feminist’: Negotiating Feminist Values in Post-Feminist Digital Cultural Production.” Feminist Media Studies 18 (5): 810–824. Pruchniewska, Urszula M. 2018 “Branding the Self as an ‘Authentic Feminist’: Negotiating Feminist Values in Post-Feminist Digital Cultural Production.” Feminist Media Studies 18 (5): 810–824. , 818), stimulating future engagements. As highlighted by Hochschild (1979Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1979 “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 85 (3): 551–575. , 556), each interaction within emotion work “exacts from us certain ‘taxes’ in the form of appearances which we ‘pay’ for the sake of sustaining the encounter.” That is, the emotion work undertaken by the audience fulfills their social roles and sidesteps the consequences of not doing so. Much as is the case for the previous post R1-W1, the audience performs emotion work in parallel with TPG’s affective labor embedded in translating, disseminating, and promoting their work on social media in a manner designed to resonate with their audience and also to take a stance. As such, post R2-W2 operates as a promotional trailer for TPG’s full translation, affectively showcasing selected subtitle excerpts and crowning TPG as a reliable and demonstrably well-suited retranslator for the feminist blockbuster Barbie.

To conclude, as can be seen in Figure 2, affect is something that sticks (Ahmed 2010Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. Ahmed, Sara 2010 “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 29–51. Durham: Duke University Press. , 29) — to objects (Barbie’s retranslation), to people (TPG and their audience), to places/spaces (WeChat and Red), and to virtual communities or at least to what Dean (2015Dean, Jodi 2015 “Affect and Drive.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 89–100. London: MIT Press. Dean, Jodi 2015 “Affect and Drive.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 89–100. London: MIT Press. , 91) calls “feelings of community” (emphasis in original), “however evanescent those feelings may be” (Papacharissi 2015Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. , 4). Figure 2 serves as a visual and quantitative illustration of the phenomenon of affective stickiness across two platforms. This chart delineates the escalation of social media encounters over time, reaching a significant peak coinciding with the release of TPG’s retranslation of Barbie (denoted as posts R3 and W3, which will be discussed in Section 5.2). The graphical representation evinces a notable trajectory of intensifying affective investments and epitomizes a trend of towardness that our affective attachments to certain objects may trigger (Ahmed 2014Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Ahmed, Sara 2014 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. , 8). It also should be noted that the sustained ‘stickiness’ of these interactions across platforms is facilitated by algorithmic feeds that continuously curate and recommend related content to interested users, thereby reinforcing the affective community. This pattern also suggests that the preceding affective labor is contagious, generative, productive, and might be conducive to further wider conversations on (for example) Barbie, its reception, and (feminist) translation.

5.2The (pre-)reception of TPG’s re-subtitled Barbie: Effective affective labor and the modulation of affect

This section examines the (pre-)reception of Barbie subtitled by TPG on Red and WeChat by analyzing three posts: one from WeChat (W3) and two from Red (R3, R4). Posts R3 and W3 (20/10/2023) represent the first affective peak, as depicted in Figure 2. Although their content is identical, R3 and W3 employ distinct affective titles:

Our own translation of Barbie is finally ready to be published (R3)

The party for the film Barbie begins🎉 (W3)

These posts announced TPG’s official release of the Chinese version of Barbie, with file access instructions provided in TPG’s comment (see Comment 3 in Table 1). Post R3-W3 began by praising the film for crafting a feminist meta-narrative within the commercial feminist genre, portraying a female utopia, and exploring women’s emancipation from societal and biological constraints. The latter part of post R3-W3 incorporated the “Barbie Credits” to acknowledge the subtitling group’s collective endeavor by listing the pseudonyms of various contributors, including subtitlers, proofreaders, and technical personnel.

TPG’s jubilant tone in R3-W3 deeply resonated with their audience, as illustrated in Table 1, which maps the networked ‘affective rhythm’ (Papacharissi 2015Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. Papacharissi, Zizi 2015 “Affective Publics and Structures of Storytelling: Sentiment, Events and Mediality.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 307–324. ) of aggregated audience responses. This rhythm emerged through a stream of emotive, instantaneous audience reactions varying in contagion intensity (11). The top-ten most-liked comments consistently featured affective expressions (i.e., emojis and rhetorical devices, including exclamation marks and “ahhhh”). The repetition of some of these affective markers (e.g., “!!!”) amplified the audience online voices into a “collaborative chant” (12). This chant radiated positivity, excitement, gratitude, and joy, reflecting appreciation for a creative, female-oriented, feminist subtitling collective, as discernible in Table 1. In addition, critiques of prior translations implied satisfaction with the perceived improvements in TPG’s retranslation (Comments 1, 4, and 9 in Table 1). It is noteworthy that a thorough review revealed no negative sentiment towards TPG’s work in any of the remaining comments on this post. However, it is crucial to underscore that not all comments were necessarily made after viewing the TPG-subtitled Barbie (Comments 7 and 8 in Table 1, for instance, seem to refer to the subtitle screenshots shared by TPG alongside post R3-W3). This hints that TPG is acclaimed as a feminism-conscious subtitling collective even before full access to and evaluation of their retranslations, reinforcing the findings presented in Section 5.1.

Such unwavering support corresponds to Koskinen’s (2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 65) observation that “[p]ositive affects towards retranslation are indeed quite sticky,” a durability that also extends to the translational trust described by Chesterman (2016Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 178–180). Moreover, this indicates that, at this point, audience recognition of TPG’s (re-)translation may partly derive from an appreciation of the translation itself but is primarily driven by the group’s affective labor, which generates emotional resonance among viewers and fosters a sense of community engagement during the (pre-)reception stage. In other words, during this phase, TPG’s affective labor — embedded in their consistent efforts to bolster their Internet presence and sustain affective ties with the ad hoc affective publics — proves highly effective. This effectiveness is already visually represented in Figure 2, which visualizes the gradual intensification of encounters across two platforms.

The last post analyzed, R4 (24/10/2023), represents the climax in terms of audience engagement/interaction (10 388 likes, 1834 saves, 804 comments). This post is exemplary of TPG’s capacity as retranslator or resubtitler to regulate and manage the emotional and affective responses of participants and recipients during the reception phase of Barbie. This undertaking is central to translatorial affective labor (Koskinen 2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 69, 170), a facet of immaterial labor that produces intangible goods such as “a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, passion — even a sense of connectedness or community” (Hardt 1999Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100.Hardt, Michael 1999 “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 89–100., 96).

R4, titled “Barbie’s translation comparison. This is too shocking…,” began with the following content, followed by a curated selection of nine translation examples contrasting TPG’s version with the official rendition:1818.Since the translation comparisons focus solely on the semiotics of Barbie’s retranslation, the nine translation examples in R4 will not be discussed here, as they fall outside the scope of this article.

TPG: It’s just too shocking... A sister reached out to me on Red a while ago. She said she wanted to get our Barbie’s subtitle file along with the official one for comparative analysis in her thesis. I almost forgot about this until today... She sent us over twenty preliminary examples for comparison... You can take a look yourself. This is really shocking... ([below is] an excerpt due to limited space)

This prologue to the translation comparison attests to the production of affects (Koskinen 2020Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Koskinen, Kaisa 2020 Translation and Affect: Essays on Sticky Affects and Translational Affective Labour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 50). Written in a colloquial yet authentic tone, it adopts a translatorial stance that is ostensibly neutral and modest, yet self-assured. Through strategic use of ellipses and the repeated adjective “shocking,” TPG implicitly signals potential issues in the official subtitles while avoiding direct criticism. This approach, serving as a form of affective modulation, steers viewers toward favoring their retranslation and bolsters acceptance of their reportedly superior work. From the perspective of translatorial trust, this strategy for maintaining translator visibility can also be interpreted as a crucial preemptive measure to avert “a change in this situation of trust” (Chesterman 2016Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chesterman, Andrew 2016 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 179). However, the comment section of R4 reveals divergent audience reactions, contrasting sharply with the uniformly positive responses observed in prior analyses. The comments on R4 suggest that while approximately 65% of respondents endorse TPG’s version as more effective in conveying the original’s feminist message, a significant minority (approximately 25%) contend that the official translation is acceptable or even better in handling satirical elements. The remaining 10% maintain an ambivalent or noncommittal stance. In response to these discordant views, TPG actively engaged with the audience (both supporters and critics), participating in approximately thirty dialogues in the comment sub-threads. Two salient examples of these dialogues, which can be regarded as TPG’s intervention and modulation of affective dissonance among the audience, are presented below. The first example (A) demonstrates agreement with supporters — which is far more common, while the second (B) showcases a rebuttal to dissenting views — a rather rare occurrence:

A. Under R4:

The commenter: … game translations are also riddled with translators’ personal biases. And get this — some of those localizers’ language skills are even worse than mine, and I’m just a rookie who hasn’t even touched a big project yet. I mean, seriously, what kind of people are hogging this industry? (439 likes)

TPG: So we need more women [translators] (225 likes)

B. Under R4:

The commenter: I think the second translation [the official one] is better. For real. Especially how they translated ‘bride wife’ as ‘娇妻’ 1919.The literal meaning of 娇妻 jiāoqī is ‘young and beautiful wife’. However, in light of the recent proliferation and popularization of feminist discourses on Chinese social media, this neologism often carries ironic connotations. It is frequently employed to describe women who adhere to traditional concepts of marriage and childbearing (comparable to the neologism ‘tradwife’ in English). — that’s spot on. [The translation of ‘bride wife’] as ‘新娘’ 2020. 新娘 xīnniáng means ‘bride.’ is not as good as the translation ‘娇妻’ in this context, haha (281 likes)

TPG: Isn’t there a good chance that ‘娇妻’ isn’t the right choice here? Don’t you think that the term comes with its own emotional baggage? (446 likes)

While space limitations preclude presenting more than these two examples here, R4 comprehensively documents TPG’s efforts to navigate the diverse responses of recipients, shape the reception of their retranslation of Barbie, and ultimately position themselves as a female-friendly subtitling group responsive to the needs of online affective publics. In these exchanges, TPG not only implicitly highlights gender biases in official translations (as seen in A above) and justifies their own translatorial decisions (as in B), but also explicitly critiques the official version on multiple occasions. For instance, in responding to an audience comment, they identify 甲骨易 Jiǎ Gǔ Yì as the translation company responsible for the official subtitles.

Interestingly, in a sub-thread of R4, some users astutely noted that the post’s structure resembled a promotional tactic, thus potentially predisposing the audience to judge their retranslation based on the sensationalized post title (i.e., “Barbie’s translation comparison. This is too shocking…”). This observation might offer a lens through which to examine the pervasive commoditization, marketing, and circulation of affect across various media platforms able to touch us, move us, and ‘make us feel’ (Colebrook 2011Colebrook, Claire 2011 “Earth Felt the Wound: The Affective Divide.” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture 8 (1): 45–58.Colebrook, Claire 2011 “Earth Felt the Wound: The Affective Divide.” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture 8 (1): 45–58.; Hipfl 2018Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. Hipfl, Brigitte 2018 “Affect in Media and Communication Studies: Potentials and Assemblages.” Media and Communication 6 (3): 5–14. , 9; see also Dean 2015Dean, Jodi 2015 “Affect and Drive.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 89–100. London: MIT Press. Dean, Jodi 2015 “Affect and Drive.” In Networked Affect, edited by Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit, 89–100. London: MIT Press. on communicative capitalism and affect dynamics). Such working of affect may be particularly salient on Red, a female-dominated platform heavily reliant on UGC that can be monetized and capitalized upon within the wider gendered social sharing communities (Duffy 2015Duffy, Brooke 2015 “Amateur, Autonomous, and Collaborative: Myths of Aspiring Female Cultural Producers in Web 2.0.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 32 (1): 48–64. Duffy, Brooke 2015 “Amateur, Autonomous, and Collaborative: Myths of Aspiring Female Cultural Producers in Web 2.0.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 32 (1): 48–64. ). Indeed, TPG stated in their initial post R0 (18/08/2023) that “we are undertaking [this retranslation] out of love, without remuneration,” which seems to cozily fit their affective labor into a kind of ‘cybersubtitling’ that is non-commercial, self-commissioned, unsolicited, and arguably altruistic in nature (see Baños and Díaz-Cintas 2024Baños, Rocío, and Jorge Díaz-Cintas 2024 “Exploring New Forms of Audiovisual Translation in the Age of Digital Media: Cybersubtitling and Cyberdubbing.” The Translator 30 (1): 129–144. Baños, Rocío, and Jorge Díaz-Cintas 2024 “Exploring New Forms of Audiovisual Translation in the Age of Digital Media: Cybersubtitling and Cyberdubbing.” The Translator 30 (1): 129–144. on the coinage of ‘cybersubtitling’, which emphasizes the cyber-enabled, user-driven nature of online subtitling). Yet, as hinted at in Section 5.1, TPG’s online translation-mediated activities can be framed against the backdrop of digital feminist cultural production. Within this environment, their content creation — resubtitling Barbie — along with its promotion and distribution might serve a dual purpose, “as both an end itself and a means to an end, namely audience recognition” (Duffy 2015Duffy, Brooke 2015 “Amateur, Autonomous, and Collaborative: Myths of Aspiring Female Cultural Producers in Web 2.0.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 32 (1): 48–64. Duffy, Brooke 2015 “Amateur, Autonomous, and Collaborative: Myths of Aspiring Female Cultural Producers in Web 2.0.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 32 (1): 48–64. , 56) that possibly leads to financial compensation and/or social capital in the future. Taken together, then, future fine-tuned analysis could be undertaken to tease out the nuanced interplay between, for example, TPG’s translatorial labor, identity building, and their strategic positioning within the (gendered) web 2.0 creative economy.