Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of San Francisco State University in Partial Fulfillment of a B the Requirements for the Degree
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#EVERYONEGAMES: EXPLORING QUEER GAMER IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University in partial fulfillment of A b the requirements for the Degree ; w HMSX Master of Arts • R 'B 4- in Sexuality Studies by Spencer Taylor Berdiago Ruelos San Francisco, California May 2017 Copyright by Spencer Taylor Berdiago Ruelos 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read #EveryoneGames: Exploring Queer Gamer Identity and Community by Spencer Taylor Berdiago Ruelos, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Sexuality Studies Martha Kenney, PKD. Assistant Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies #EVERYONEGAMES: EXPLORING QUEER GAMER IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY Spencer Taylor Berdiago Ruelos San Francisco, California 2017 The cultural perceptions of the mainstream gaming community reinscribe dominant ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality. This has historically left women gamers, gamers of color, and queer gamers at the margins of gaming culture. I center sexuality as an analytic framework, first, to account for the stories and experiences of LGBT gamers and, second, to understand queer gamer identity and community. Through ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviewing, I argue that queer gamers employ multiple worldmaking practices through their connections with games and with one another. These queer gamer worldmaking practices make possible narratives that acknowledge queer gamers’ existence and actively create spaces that foreground diversity in video games and in game communities. I sentation of the content of this thesis. Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis and the research behind it would not be possible without the mentorship and unrelenting support from my thesis committee, Professors Darius Bost and Martha Kenney. Darius and Martha have pushed my thinking in new and unexpected ways and exposed me to new frameworks for understanding the world; I am forever indebted to them for their time, energy, critique, and encouragement. I am also thankful for the guidance from Professor Jessica Fields. Jessica’s commitment to graduate student success and academic rigor has helped me flourish as a sexuality studies scholar. I am also ever thankful for the support, community, and love from my peers in 2017 Sexuality Studies graduating cohort. We did it, y’all! We have come so far, shared so much pleasure and pain, and become so close over the last two years. Each one of you has captured a bit of my heart, and I am so lucky to have had you as colleagues and as part of my scholarly community. Lastly, I also am especially grateful for the queer gamers who made this research possible. GLaDOS’s words have never rung truer: “This is a triumph!” To all the folks who attend and make GaymerX possible, I am indebted to your spirit, your love, and your passion. I have found a community in our queer geekiness. Thank you all so much! v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures.........................................................................................................................vii Introduction: Playful Queer Beginnings............................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Gamers and Their Games: Digital Connections through Stories, Characters, and Worlds.....................................................................................30 Chapter 2: Putting the Gay in “Gaymer”: Queer Gamer, Identity, and Coalition ....68 Chapter 3: Playing with Queer Gamer Desire: The Space of GaymerX and the Uses of the Erotic........................................................................................91 Conclusion: Memoirs of a Gaymer...................................................................................139 References............................................................................................................................. 157 VI LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page 1. Photograph of Top Gamers in the World....................................................4 2. Tron (1982) Movie Poster.................................................................................5 3. Tropes Versus Women Screenshot......................................................................7 4. Original GaymerX Flier................................................................................. 21 5. Table of Interviewee Demographics.............................................................23 6. journey Opening Sequence Screenshot.........................................................51 7. r/gaymers Subreddit Screenshot..................................................................73 8. Screenshot from Original GaymerX Kickstarter Page...............................76 9. Google Trends Screenshot..............................................................................78 10. Gamers at GX Playing Dance Dance devolution.............................................102 11. Group Photo from GX4 Cosplay Pageant..................................................113 12. Confliction Resolution Page from GX4 Program..................................... 124 13. 8-Bit Candle Still.............................................................................................. 140 14. Charizard Pokemon Card.................................................................................. 142 15. Classic Pac-Man Still.........................................................................................143 16. GaymerConnect Screenshot.......................................................................... 147 17. Screenshot from Author’s TEDxHumboldtBay Talk...............................148 18. Photograph of Author and Friends’ Pokemon Cosplay..............................153 19. Photograph of Author’s Pokemon Tattoo.....................................................156 vii 1 Introduction: Playful Queer Beginnings August 4, 2013.1 sit in a large, yet crowded panel room in the Kabuki Hotel in San ¥ randsco with hundreds of other queer and allied gamers. It is the closing ceremonies of the first GaymerX convention, and Ellen McClain, the voice actor of the villain from the first Portal game, GLaDOS, begins to sing: ‘This was a triumph!” Immediately, almost all of the audience members, myself included, begin to sing along. ‘Vm making a note here: huge success! It's hard to overstate my satisfaction We do what we must because we can for the good of us, except the ones who are dead!” I look around to see the room filled with smiles and laughter. I am filled withjoy to have been in this space over the weekend. I notice, however, two gamers in my periphery are crying and embracing each other. Seeing what I imagine are their tears of joy of being in the space, but also tears of sadness because the event is ending, I struggle to hold back my own tears. The event was coming to a close, and this was our last collective act as participants in this queer gaming convention. Ifelt a sense of belonging and community, and I had made so many new friends that week. I personally was sad to see GaymerX end, but I was also overjoyed to have been a participant. Resiliently, our singing continued and closed out the convention. Collectively singing “Still Alive,” the end credits song to Portal, was our last hurrah in this queer gamer space of GaymerX (or GX for short). My fieldnotes from this first convention paint an emotional and heartfelt picture of the queer gaming community—one characterized by a shared sense of identity, belonging, and geek 2 knowledge. Reflecting on this moment inspired some of the central questions of my research on the queer gamer community. What does it mean to be a queer gamer? How do these gamers understand sexuality in relation to their gamer identities? How do queer gamers participate in mrldmaking and worlding experiences? What follows is my attempt to grapple and play with answers to these questions. As I will argue in this thesis, centering sexuality as an organizing category of analysis—as it relates to identity, community, and desire—expands our understandings of what it means to be a gamer. I begin this introduction by situating my arguments within the literature on game studies that addresses issues of identity and representation in video games. I then describe my methodological approaches to studying queer gamers, primarily through ethnographic fieldwork and through qualitative interviewing. I conclude this introductory chapter by laying out the theoretical engagements of #Epe?yoneGames and providing a roadmap for the arguments I make in this thesis. Gamer Identity and the Politics of Identification Within the literature in game studies, the construction of the category of “gamer” is an important domain of inquiry, guided by questions of who, how, and why do people identify as gamers. In Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade, cultural historian Carly Kocurek (2016) traces the emergence of video gamer as a category of identity “through public discourses and public practices that accompanied the rise of video gaming’s early commercial success in the coin-op 3 industry [the arcade]” (xvi). As Kocurek illustrates, several American moral panics occurred in the history of the video game arcade from the 1970s to the 1990s; the general American public feared that young