Fan-driven paratextuality in the audios: Film and television podcast in the post-fansubbing era of Chinese translational fandom

Abstract

This paper explores a new frontier in Chinese translation fandom: the rise of fan podcasting. Against the backdrop of post-fansubbing, we examine how fan podcasters reconfigure media translation by mobilising audio practices that traverse linguistic, cultural, and technological boundaries. The term post-fansubbing refers to the evolving fan translation culture that emerged following the dissolution of YYeTsin February 2021, once the most prominent Chinese fansubbing collective. In this new terrain, fans strategically produce and disseminate translated content via audio and video platforms. We argue that podcasting enables Chinese audiences of global entertainment media to generate audio-based translations of audiovisual texts, thereby cultivating a distinctive mode of fan-driven paratextuality. This emergent practice not only redefines the modalities of translation but also enriches local engagements with global popular culture in the post-fansubbing era.