Airport mobs to online abuse: Who pays the price in China's toxic sports fandom?

CNA

4 days ago

SINGAPORE: When Xiao Yan set up an Instagram page in 2022 dedicated to Chinese table tennis stars Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, all she wanted was to show her support for her compatriots while also introducing the two athletes to more people overseas.
'I felt our overseas friends wouldn't get much of a chance to get to know Chinese athletes, especially when they're not as famous,' said the 23-year-old university graduate.
But as the pair climbed the rankings, the mood around her posts soured. Xiao began noticing rude comments directed at the duo being left beneath her updates.
'(There would be) comments making fun of Sun and Wang's table tennis results, calling them names … I was even called an idiot because I supported 'idiots',' said Xiao, adding that she would also find her posts reported for no reason.
Xiao's experience reflects a broader wave of toxic fandom that has become increasingly visible in sport as well as entertainment.
Regulators and athletes alike have moved to rein it in following a series of high-profile incidents - from jeers at the Paris Olympics to airport mobs, and even hotel-room trespass.
Measures include a fresh online clean-up against doxxing and abuse, the dissolution of official fan clubs across teams and top athletes, and a parallel push in state media condemning bad behaviour by fans.
But curbing misconduct is hard. Despite episodic clean-ups, fans and analysts say platform bans are easily dodged, while a click-driven fan economy keeps feuds alive.
WHEN FANS GO OVERBOARD
In China, toxic conduct often surfaces in organised fan communities known as 'fan quan', a phonetic play on 'fen quan' or fan circles in Mandarin. This label has increasingly acquired a negative edge as zeal spills into harassment and abuse.
There have been notable examples.
In the case of Chinese table tennis, at Paris 2024, some of Sun's fans jeered her teammate Chen Meng during their match, which Chen won, and she later faced online abuse. Crowds also swarmed paddler Fan Zhendong at airports and hotels in December last year.
In an interview with Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV, Fan relived an unpleasant encounter in 2023 when a stranger used a forged keycard to enter his hotel room.
'I never thought that as an athlete, this is a worry I have to face,' Fan said.
'Since that incident, I've become fearful of crowded spaces, such as going for competitions, entering hotels.'
More recently, Sun's coach, Qiu Yike, was abused online by her fans following her elimination at the World Table Tennis United States Smash in Las Vegas in July.
Toxic fan culture isn't confined to table tennis - other sports like volleyball, diving and swimming have felt it too.
Chinese volleyball player Wang Mengjie told China Sports Daily on Aug 1 how she previously faced abuse online. Diving star Quan Hongchan was mobbed by fans in a hotel in Macau last year, an incident which left her visibly shaken and in tears.
Swim star Pan Zhanle has said he would trade Olympic success for a quiet life, after being mobbed by fans in hotels and airports.
Analysts say toxic fan conduct stems from a mix of factors. One is the heightened emotional stakes for fans as athletes compete under the national flag.
Chen Zhen Troy, a senior lecturer from RMIT University Vietnam, said sports fandom in China often intersects with national pride.
'Toxic fandom can thus escalate when fans feel that their national heroes are under attack or misunderstood, leading to over-identification and moral policing,' he told CNA.
At the same time, social media can amplify the parasocial relationships some fans have with athletes, Chen Zhijing, an assistant professor at the School of Human Sciences at Southern Illinois University, told CNA.
Compared to legacy media such as ESPN, where sports fans used to 'passively' receive news of their favourite athletes, social media allows fans to follow the athlete closely, she added.
'With social media, you can interact with an athlete, even if it's unlikely they will respond. However, because of this (possibility), it strengthens the parasocial interaction with the athlete,' Chen Zhijing said.
FAN MISCONDUCT WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
Toxic sports fandom is not exclusive to China. Celia Lam, a professor from Wenzhou-Kean University in Zhejiang, pointed to Australia as an example, where indigenous players in Australian rules football have faced racist abuse from spectators.
But experts say the phenomenon is more visible in China, amplified by the country's vast online population and a data-driven, idol-style fan economy that elevates top athletes to celebrity status, with big-brand sponsorships and lucrative endorsements.
'(In China), a celebrity's value is judged by the volume of data associated with them,' said Lam, who is also dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Wenzhou-Kean University.
Fans are encouraged to constantly produce online content or engage in activities to achieve 'good figures' for the celebrity they support, she further noted, referring to engagement metrics that signal an athlete's popularity.
For example, in the 2023 Sports Awards on microblogging site Weibo, users voted paddlers Sun and Wang as the most popular female and male athlete respectively.
However, it also means opposing fan groups use the same space, which can result in 'fan skirmishes'.
'While fan activity is more varied and nuanced than these fan conflicts, it is the conflict that tends to be highlighted because they are often more intense and visible,' Lam said.
Similar patterns are evident in other East Asian idol industries.
Chen Zhen Troy from RMIT University Vietnam pointed to the harassment faced by celebrities in K-pop and J-pop, even to the point of suicide, highlighting how these incidents have inspired television dramas aimed at raising awareness about the invasion of celebrities' private lives.
'However, in China, the rapid marketisation of media and the deepening of promotional culture have created a complex landscape.'
Chen Zhen Troy further said that South Korea and Japan have 'relatively well-established' media regulations and legal protections for public figures, supported by 'mature PR and marketing ecosystems'.
'Athletes often work with experienced media advisers and branding professionals who help manage reputational risk, public relations, advertising partnerships, and even broader nation-branding efforts - as evident in the global success of the Korean Wave (Hallyu),' he said.
'In contrast, China's evolving media environment involves a more ambiguous relationship between state regulation, market forces, and fan (self) governance, where interventions appear more top‑down and not as proactive.'
Xiao, the ardent supporter of Sun and Wang, said overzealous behaviour by misbehaving fans means those who 'truly admire and support' the two Chinese paddlers are tarred with the same brush.
'The most serious consequence of (toxic fandom culture) is that their private lives are disturbed,' said Xiao. 'This has also affected many genuine fans who appreciate and support them.'
A 26-year-old interior furniture designer whose favourite athlete is Fan said she respects that fans of different athletes may hold differing views, but emphasised there must be a legal and moral 'bottom line'.
'You can't just bash someone for the sake of bashing,' said the fan, who only wanted to be known as Liu.
'Perhaps (Fan's) attackers should consider themselves fortunate their target is Fan Zhendong, a man of decency and integrity with no professional team to shield him.'
CLAMPING DOWN ON MISBEHAVIOUR
Chinese authorities have widened efforts to rein in toxic sports fandom as part of a broader cyber clean-up, while state media have carried a stream of commentaries and reports criticising such conduct.
'Do not let the vitriol of toxic fandoms corrupt the younger generation' was the headline of an opinion article by China Sports Daily published on Jul 31.
Citing an incident where a student was exposed for posting insulting remarks against Sun, Wang and their fans on multiple social media platforms, the article criticised how love for table tennis became 'extreme' under the influence of toxic fandom culture.
Another commentary last month by domestic news site The Paper, published in the wake of the online attacks on Sun's coach, warned that when extreme fans attack the athletes' coaches and teammates, it risks isolating the athletes and denying their efforts to grow.
'True respect comes not from 'deifying' Sun, nor to interpret all her failures as conspiracy theories,' The Paper wrote. 'Rather, understand that she has the right to accept failure, adjust her mentality and move on.'
Meanwhile, China's cyberspace administration announced a 20‑day cyberspace clean‑up campaign as the 12th edition of the World Games kicked off on Aug 7 in Chengdu.
The campaign, targeting the doxxing of sports personalities, cyberbullying and fan‑instigated abuse, is the latest in a series of episodic clean-ups under a broader online governance drive.
Chinese athletes have also taken matters into their own hands. Swimming champion Pan dissolved his official fan club in August last year, while tennis star Zheng Qinwen did the same in November.
In January this year, the national table tennis team disbanded all its athletes' official fan clubs on social media to curb toxic fandom.
While partly about regulating the online space, the authorities' focus on sports fandom also reflects the role athletes play in China's national discourse, suggested Lam from Wenzhou-Kean University.
'(Athletes) represent their team, province, or nation during competition and thus fit into the national narrative in a very literal way,' she said.
'On the global stage, these athletes compete under a national flag, representing the nation. The stakes are thus higher, as anything associated with them is a reflection of the nation they are competing for. This extends to the behaviour of their fans.'
Celebrity and influencer culture in China has 'become highly commercialised', said RMIT University Vietnam's Chen Zhen Troy, adding that regulatory frameworks will follow as the market matures.
'In the case of sports personalities, there has also been a noticeable shift from state-led narratives to more market-driven ones, further necessitating clearer boundaries around appropriate fan behaviour, privacy, and media ethics.'
UPHILL TASK TO CURB TOXIC SPORTS FANDOM
Yet despite renewed campaigns and exhortations, enforcement challenges, fragmented oversight and platform anonymity make toxic fandom stubbornly hard to stamp out, said experts and fans.
Liu, the table tennis fan, feels that the recent state media reports merely document and publicise the struggles athletes or her fellow fans face from toxic fan culture.
'Most news reports on the topic say the same thing, but do they actually deter anyone? I doubt so,' she said.
'The only thing that will truly threaten (toxic fans) is legal punishment, only then will they feel the pain when the whip hits them.'
Liu also questioned whether social media platforms can effectively police the problem.
According to the state-run Global Times, China's cyberspace authorities have urged social media platforms to close fake accounts that impersonate athletes and coaches, and dismantle fan groups and forums that promote irrational support.
Authorities have also vowed to deepen oversight, urging social media platforms to enforce stricter content moderation and penalise negligent operators.
'Social media platforms may mute or ban accounts for spreading rumours or inciting fights, but does that stop them? No, they can simply buy a new account or use a sock puppet, and the cycle repeats,' Liu said.
Sock puppets refer to fake or secondary accounts created to evade bans, amplify messages or pose as different users.
Chen Zhen Troy from RMIT University Vietnam pointed out that there are fans who 'engage antagonistically' as anti-fans or trolls, complicating attempts to uniformly regulate fandom.
According to him, China tends to police unruly fan behaviour first through social norms and public censure; it only becomes a legal matter when it clearly crosses civil or moral lines.
Adding to the complexity is how sports and entertainment fandoms are 'different beasts' but they often get conflated, said Lam from Wenzhou-Kean University. This complicates how athletes relate to their supporters.
Treating athletes like idols by waiting for them at airports, pushing them up online rankings and buying the products they endorse - these activities follow the logic of idol fandom in China, she said.
'However, athletes are not film or music stars, despite being marketed the same way and competing for visibility in the same economy … their stage is the court, where they are executing the outcome of years of training and putting into practice their athletic skills.'
Sports venues are also governed by competition rules, so entertainment-style behaviour in a sporting arena is often seen as inappropriate. That mismatch, Lam said, helps explain why authorities struggle to stamp out toxic sports fandom.
'There is a very fundamental cultural clash at play, and I also think there is less regulation of sports fans,' she said.
'It is not like a table tennis fan can get banned from attending matches as punishment for bad behaviour, because there is no league responsible for the sport.'
Amid the ongoing push and pull to rein in toxic sports fandom, ultimately more support should be given to the athletes, agreed analysts.
'Sporting associations could consider working with fan groups to raise awareness about appropriate conduct during matches, and how best to support individual athletes,' Lam said.
Media training for athletes could also help them better understand fandom and foster meaningful connections with their fans, she added.
Chen Zhen Troy from RMIT University Vietnam echoed similar sentiments, highlighting the positive potential of fandoms notwithstanding their dark edge.
'Fandoms can function as affective communities that contribute positively to the sports economy, national pride and individual fame,' he said.
Chen Zhen Troy further said that mental health support and professional communication should be normalised for high-profile athletes, especially vulnerable groups such as minors.
Genuine fans say the negative experiences they've encountered have not deterred them from supporting their favourite athletes.
For Liu, blocking and reporting is the best approach. 'I've argued with them a couple of times before, but I realised you're simply feeding the trolls when you take the bait,' she said.
Xiao agreed that some people are just trying to provoke fights.
'They want us to argue with them, or even goad us into behaving irrationally,' she said.
In the end, Xiao's takeaway is simple.
'All I need to do is be on my best behaviour, support the athletes I like, be civil when watching matches and watch my behaviour online.'