Transcultural taste and neoliberal patriotic subject: A study of Chinese fans’ online talk of K-pop

•Chinese youths are drawn to K-pop because of its professional idols and autonomous fan experience.•Transcultural homology exists between the K-pop text and Chinese followers’ neoliberal aesthetics of idol cultures.•Cultural distinction occurs in K-pop fans’ critique of C-pop and its supporters.•Chinese K-pop fans attempt to justify their stigmatized taste through strategic patriotic performances.•The taste for K-pop symbolically articulates these educated youths’ condition as neoliberal patriotic subjects in China's transitions to authoritarian capitalism.