RESPAWN, REPRESENTATION, OCH RELATIONER. En kvalitativ intervjustudie om HBTQpersoners syn på deras sociala upplevelser inom onlinespel

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how HBTQ-individuals experience and use online games as a social arena. To answer this question, three questions were formulated. The first question of the study is how HBTQ-groups perceive the reasons for their social online gaming. The second question is how marginalized groups experience the possibilities of exploring a new identity in a virtual world. The last question is how HBTQ-groups reason about spending time in an environment that isn’t always designed with them in mind. The baseline of this study is that digital games today have moved past only as a form of entertainment but now also work as a tool for communication and as a way to engage with a larger community. Previous research suggests that this is true for many players but that gaming as a culture often has been shaped by masculine and heteronormative ideals, where the imagined gamer is male, white and heterosexual. This study aims to explore the possibility of online social play for marginalized groups and whether HBTQ individuals experience positive or negative effects from it. A qualitative interview methodology was chosen for this study. Six qualitative semi-structured interviews took place, where the participants all identified as HBTQ and had experience with online gaming. The findings show that online games function as a place where social meetings can take place and where the participants could spend time with friends or family. The results showed that the participants felt like online games could work to maintain relationships across longer distances and to exhibit self-representation and identity exploration. Through means such as the creation of characters or other digital forms of expression, the participants felt that there were many ways to accrue positive social experiences. Several participants described that these opportunities were conditional. For many, it was common to experience toxicity, homophobia, transphobia or other forms of discrimination. Such behavior from other players was especially common in competitive gaming environments, where many of the participants felt that hegemonic masculine values were the norm. As a result, it was often they chose to avoid interaction with others from that environment, either by avoiding voice chat or hiding parts of their identity or by avoiding that type of game altogether. The results of this study show that marginalized groups experience online social play differently from the heteronormative group. HBTQ individuals cannot express their identity as freely without the risk of facing discrimination and harassment. For many, it has become the norm to avoid interacting with most other people online and limit their play to friends, family, or other people they feel comfortable with, such as those who are also identifying as HBTQ. To summarize, it is possible that online games can work as a social space for HBTQ individuals. It can work as a safe place for identity exploration and to find similar people to interact with and create relationships with. In many cases, the issue lies in the heteronormative players who reproduce exclusionary norms from offline society. It would require a large change in both the gaming culture but also in the industry as a whole, to truly be able to make it a safe place for social interaction to all the different groups that can be found in the online gaming sphere