Neo-Orientalism

File:NeoOrientalism.jpg

Neo-orientalist visual composition blending East Asian and Western subcultural motifs.

Neo-Orientalism is a term coined by Charlotte Fang to describe a contemporary mode of cultural production defined by reciprocal romanticization between East Asia and the West. Fang defines it as a “double reverse romanticization, easternizing the West with a westernized East—a system of dual strange attractors orbiting each other in productive flux.” It characterizes the 21st-century cultural condition in which East and West continually aestheticize each other through mediated subcultural forms and algorithmic exchange.

Definition

According to Fang, Neo-Orientalism emerges from the mutual fetishization between East Asian and Western creative scenes, particularly the subcultural niches that developed out of each other’s projected fantasies. It refers to being “very inspired by East Asia’s art scene & pop culture, specifically the subcultural niches developed in their own reverse orientalist Western fetishism,” turning that gaze back upon itself in what he calls “an extremely fruitful dialogue.”

Rather than seeking authenticity or postcolonial correction, Neo-Orientalism values mediation and distortion. Fang writes that “it’s far more interesting to receive Chinese art & internet culture in mysterious obfuscated glimpses peeping past the Great Firewall than any ‘authentic’ ‘postcolonial’ survey,” favoring the naïve wonder of cultural incompleteness as a generative condition. Japan’s post-anime aesthetics and China’s constrained but vivid digital vernaculars become models for aesthetic renewal in the West.

Cultural Logic

Neo-Orientalism describes a feedback loop where both regions reimagine each other through fantasy. It reverses the colonial gaze: a Western romanticism of the East that meets an Eastern romanticism of the West, forming a cyclical, hybrid mythology. In Fang’s later words (2025), this exchange is a “trans-Pacific cultural ritual like America previously shared with Europe, but no longer,” marking the new direction of global culture after the exhaustion of Western modernism.

References

• Fang, Charlotte (@CharlotteFang77). “neo-orientalism, a double reverse romanticization, easternizing the west with a westernized east…” Twitter (X), 2025. [Direct link] | [Archived at: archive.today].
• Fang, Charlotte (@CharlotteFang77). “We show you Chinese Instagram bc one look proves network spirituality is real…” Twitter (X), 2023. [Direct link] | [Archived at: archive.today].
• Fictionalment (@fictionalment). “This shift hints at a deeper reconfiguration of global cultural dynamics…” Twitter (X), 2025. [Direct link] | [Archived at: archive.today].