Critical Connections: Forum on Cultural Studies in Asia and Beyond
16 March 2012, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand


CONFERENCE KEYNOTE SCHOLAR AND GUEST SPEAKER

 

Mr. Saran MAHASUPAP                                       (Chulalongkorn University)                                                                                                    email: <saran.mahasupap@gmail.com>

"Love at First Touch: The Construction of Gay Identity in Chat Portals of Mobile Applications in Bangkok"
In the digital age, mobile phone becomes one of the quasi-obligatory tools to communicate with people. The rise of mobile culture plays an important in building the way of life, especially in urban space. This movement also influences the change of homosexual culture and life style. With the novel and innovative technology, smart phone provides the new space for gay people. “Grindr” or “Scuff”, an application on smart phone, creates the new way of chatting where time and space are beyond limit.

Chat portals provided in smart phone’s application like “Grindr” or “Scuff” draws Thai gay people’s attention and becomes popular among Thai gay. Apart from the ubiquitous function of chatting, these applications forge the channels for those who want to make new friends and also, implicitly, look for lascivious romance or sex. This phenomenon reflects the construction of identity, shown in the applications. Picture and short self-description obviously are major elements selected to create the identity. Besides, the conversational dialogue also represents the code built in gay culture. On one hand, these factors also shows the way of life as well as culture of middle class gay people in Bangkok, on the other hand, it also it also shows the stereotype of gay culture in Thailand. However, chat portals in mobile applications are also employed as the tool of creating counter-gay stereotype and the way to clandestinely come out the closet. The significance of these mobile applications is thus regarded as the space where stereotype and anti-stereotype of gay culture clashes as well as the space where mainstream gay encounters minority of gay people.

This paper aims to pinpoint the construction of gay identity in mobile chat portal and shows its volatile and fluidity of identity constructed by gay people in Bangkok. In addition, it also analyzes the encoding and decoding of elements used in the digital space such as conversational dialogue and the objectives as well as end-result of conversations which also mirror the way to reproduce and deconstruct the stereotype of gay in Bangkok. The paper is conduct from the real conversations of people in digital space and interview with those who use these applications as well as the experiences of the researcher. 

Saran Mahasupap is an independent researcher from Bangkok. Holding a master degree in Comparative Literature and a bachelor’s degree in German from the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, Mr. Mahasupap’s interests include gender studies, queer studies, autobiography and popular culture.