Proof of love in the age of AI: affective labor rupture and ethical negotiation in Chinese fan communities

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has intensified tensions between algorithmic efficiency and human creative labor in affect-driven fan communities. Focusing on Chinese Danmei fandom on Weibo, this study examines how fans move from collective resistance to ongoing negotiation over AI-generated content. Drawing on interviews with 15 fans and content analysis of 302 Weibo posts, it shows that creative labor is understood as a practice of “love,” with time and effort as affective currency. Instant algorithmic production severs the link between labor and affect, so fans judge AI works as lacking affect, aesthetic vitality, and an answerable author. However, fans do not reject AI outright. Tolerance is reserved for low-influence personal accounts and noncommercial use, where little community attention is converted into cultural or commercial capital. The study shows how fans revalorize embodied affective labor to sustain a moral economy of creative value and redraw the ethical boundaries of AI use in artistic production.