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This special issue examines the role of popular culture in mediating reproductive imaginaries within low-fertility societies. Drawing on convergence culture theory, affective economies, and critical media studies, we argue that contemporary pop narratives—from Japanese shōjo manga to Chinese otome games and transnational celebrity culture—constitute an affective infrastructure that actively shapes attitudes toward intimacy and reproduction. The four contributions analyze how media commodifies delay as aesthetic experience, how audiences negotiate these scripts through participatory practices, and how celebrities’ extimate performances expose cultural tensions around reproductive pressure. We document a fundamental paradox: In an era of demographic crisis, mass media sells the aesthetics of postponement—deferred sex, delayed marriage, suspended reproduction—as entertainment, participating in a feedback loop wherein cultural imaginaries progressively redefine reproductive horizons.