Parallel Hong Kong: atmospheric politics of wanghong tourism between city and platform

This article examines how digital platforms reshape urban atmospheres through the rise of wanghong tourism. Focusing on Kennedy Town, Hong Kong, it shows how the neighborhood’s emergence as a wanghong hotspot was driven by Xiaohongshu’s platform-mediated visibility, which re-scripted an already changing waterfront neighborhood as a destination through aestheticized images, route templates, and check-in practices. This transformation demonstrates how wanghongization, the process through which everyday spaces acquire viral online visibility, operates as a platform-intensified form of touristification. The article argues that these transformations are atmospheric and affective, as algorithms, images, and embodied performances co-produce a distinctive wanghong atmosphere that reorganizes how places are sensed, inhabited, and contested. While visitors are drawn to curated experiences of relaxation and authenticity, residents experience disruption, estrangement, and the erosion of everyday rhythms. The article contributes to urban and tourism geographies by conceptualizing atmosphere as a key infrastructure of platform-mediated tourism and by showing how social media platforms actively reorganize tourist spatialities and the affective and sensory politics of contemporary urban life.