Fandom as Tribes: An Ill-Acknowledged Aspect Driving Culture Clashes

Online gaming culture, as I noted in session tonight, is what's sometimes called a "dudebro" culture, better known as a macho culture. As gaming is a fandom-driven subculture, it creates cohesive communities built around an emotional investment--a passion--into the thing one is a fan of. As I noted last week, many people construct their identity around a fandom; gamers are no different.

The issue, in part, stems from the way that gaming--and this includes hobbyist tabletop games, those beyond what we known as "traditional family boardgames" like Scrabble or Monopoly--arose out of what was solely (and remains primarily) a set of male pursuits: warfare, espionage and mercantile endeavors. (This definitely applies to sports, which are outgrowths of military and similar male-dominated pursuits.) The games arose out of training techniques meant to develop skills and knowledge needed to succeed in war, trade and at court; though some degrees removed, one can (e.g.) still see the value in playing Chess to develop a far-thinking strategic mind.

For most that got involved in such hobbyist pursuits, they were the normative actor of our culture: the hetero-normative white male. They also were often the also-rans amongst such people--dorks, geeks and nerds--and thus their fandom communities were also resistance communities, with clearly defined and starkly defended territories. Women, non-whites and queer folk were not and are not still welcomed with open arms universally; several long-running Internet memes revolve around this fact. (This is changing, but we're talking at the usual rate of generational turnover.)

In the last couple of generations, a general breakdown of a formerly clear--permeable, but clear; exceptions to norms still existed--border between Male and Female work spheres happened. For many boys and men, this is taken as encroachment--trespassing, violation--of was once their clearly marked and defined territory. (I suspect that this is, in part, due to a lack of reciprocity with regard to accepted gender roles in our culture.) We can see proof of this in advertising, marketing, and the themes expressed with approval in artifacts of popular culture--literature, journalism, music, film, television, toys, etc.--over the last 100-150 years as this sense of territorial definition weakened.

Yes, "territory". Space is not merely a physical thing, as in the size of one's yard or the acreage of one's farm; it also has to do with conceptual areas, such as the social space for one's pursuits. If someone unwanted encroaches into territory claimed by, staked out by, and patrolled by another then reactions are inevitable as soon as that violator gets detected. This, I think, is an ill-acknowledged aspect driving the phenomena surrounding all non-normative identity issues online- not just LGBT folk, and not just the gaming/geek subculture.

There is a common pattern to the narratives told by those that run afoul of the online dudebros (and the women that go with them): insults- often vulgar as well as degrading and shameful, then harassment, escalating into stalking online to continue the online harassment; this can escalate into action in real-space, with the last step being physical violence with intent to kill but rarely gets that far, either because the target relents or because others intervene and shut down the aggressors. (When it doesn't, that's news, which is why we hear about it in online and offline media outlets; otherwise, it takes targeting a media darling or someone with clout to bring attention to the matter.)

(e.g. Rebecca Wilson of the Skepchicks and her head-on encounter with the dudebros in the Atheist crowd.)

This is, quite frankly, a tribalist behavior pattern and therefore it is based on an irrational foundation. That is why engaging through rational argument doesn't work reliably; the dudebro sees the girl gamer, the gay gamer, etc. as an Other that is Not One Of Us and therefore Does Not Belong On Our Turf--on irrational terms that are immune to logical, rational thought--and therefore must be engaged emotionally to unlock that belief and render it open to change. (This is where those stories of an outsider winning over a gang, tribe, or clan comes from.)

A successful strategy for ending the dudebro/macho subculture, wherever it exists, is one based on a two-fold method executed simultaneously. The first is a short-term one of containment and quarantine; the dudebros that are loudest and most charismatic, yet not violent, are to be deliberately targeted and hit with attacks that paint them as the insecure and untrustworthy characters that they are.

The audience is not the targets, but the quiet supporters that enable them. Cut those people out and you cut the targets out of the scene entirely- it's a lot like dealing with a psychopath (and like waging guerrilla warfare, because that is what you're doing), but with the possibility for reintegration once rehabilitation is confirmed.

To make these moves stick takes either the assimilation of the existing social structure, or outright conquest of it; the second part is doing just that, which is more long-range because you need turnover to make reforms stick long enough to become the "new normal". We're talking no less than five years, and probably 15-20, during which time you need to hold your ground against retaliation- and hope that they do not have a violent psychopath amongst them. (Be glad that such individuals are very rare, and usually either in prison or out of the country working for Uncle Sam.)

(Yes, I am witnessing this happening locally in the SF/F fandom community; the local fan conventions drive the local culture, and the leadership committed to this course of action years ago- and is now showing some significant desirable effects.)

As for the game companies themselves, it's far more difficult.

We will not see significant change towards LGBT acceptance in gaming until both the players and the makers get the dudebro/macho paradigm purged from them. The issue here is that gay-friendly games are not seen as sufficiently better than not being so to make it worthwhile on the quarterly report- which, I remind you, is all that matters to a corporation. (You must maximize profits above all else.)

Do not expect the gay-friendly games out of BioWare or other past creators or publishers to endure as such if shareholders can show that not being so friendly is more profitable to BioWare's shareholders; it's not fair, but that's how corporations work. Every publisher wants a sure-money franchise such as Halo, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Madden, etc. so they have even more reason to favor the dudebros over the LBGT community. The culture-jamming that works against the fan tribes is not enough here; you've got to overcome basic structural elements designed to shut down resistance to anything other than mindless consumerism, so unless you're willing to turn yourself into a zombie (as it were) you're going to get shut out by those that wield real power in our world. The LGBT community is best off doing for itself, going independent, and making games by and for gay gamers.

(Note: The last I heard of a conflict like this ending violently in real-space precedes social media, when South Korean player-clans of Lineage would sometimes resort to raiding each others' preferred Internet cafes when online combat was not effective; this got the euphemism "offline PK", where "PK" means "Player-Killer" and originally referred to the act of attacking another player online in a game that allowed for player-vs.-player violence.)