Titles

Cold Intimacies in China: Matchmaking, Dating Apps, and the Commodification of Love

(From Matchmakers to Algorithms: Intimacy, Commodification, and Social Pressure in Contemporary China Love as a Marketplace: Dating Apps and Matchmaking in China)

Vague Outline (Listing every possibility)

• Chinese Matchmaking Context
• Commodification: Profile, Label
• Historical Evolution
  • Matchmaking through woman matchmaker (blind date or no date)
    • fate/destiny based on birth time horoscope
  • **Shanghai Marriage Market,** People's Park blind date corner
  • TV Dating Shows
    • Ex: 非诚勿扰 (women vs one man)
    • Ex: 新相亲大会 (woman vs man’s relatives/friends)

Dating App (Interview!)

• Motivation
  • Friendship
  • Intimacy
  • Sexual Needs
  • Marriage
    • Family Pressure
      • Filial Piety
      • Carry on the family line
    • Social Pressure
      • 剩女 Sheng Nü, Leftover women
• Algorithm
  • Label
• Different Dating Apps
  • Purpose
  • UX Design
• Different Gender Perspective
  • Difficulty of matching
• Preference
  • Height
  • Appearance
  • Education Background
  • Family
  • Economy
• Cold Intimacies
  • Emotional Capitalism
    • love, intimacy, self-worth
    • structured and commodified through markets, consumption, and technology
  • Cold Intimacies
    • rationalized, standardized, and transactional
  • Technology and Market Logics
    • Quantifiable: income, education, height, photos, labels.
    • Comparable: swiping through profiles as though comparing products.
    • Replaceable: relationships can be easily abandoned or substituted.
  • Therapeutic Culture
    • a task - “working on a relationship,” “improving communication,” “self-care after a breakup.”
  • Paradox
    • warm intimacy vs. cold systems

I. Introduction: Dating in the Age of Algorithms

• Introduce the central question: How are intimacy, love, and self-worth reshaped by digital dating culture in contemporary China?
• Mention the historical shift: from arranged matchmaking (媒人) to algorithmic matching (AI).
• Theoretical framing:
  • Eva Illouz (2007): Emotional Capitalism — love as structured by market and consumer logic.
  • Lauren Berlant (2011): Cruel Optimism — how hope and attachment sustain systems that disappoint us.
  • Cold Intimacies: love as rationalized, standardized, and emotionally “managed.”