![]() In its place, the term ‘Gamer Girlfriends’ gestures towards the complexity of affective relationships at the nexus of gaming, romantic relationships and the experiences of women. This thesis is an investigation of ‘Gamer Girlfriends’ and deconstructs the stereotypes surrounding this particular phenomenon by presenting the accounts of the lived experiences of those who may be labelled as a ‘Gamer Girlfriend’. In this way, nerd/geek masculinity turns the very traits nerds and geeks are often mocked for into evidence of manhood – as the cost of excluding women and queer people from nerd and geek culture. Examining three case studies, the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, the neoreactionary political ideology, and the #GamerGate controversy, the dissertation suggests that nerd/geek masculinity responds to a perceived emasculation of men who identify as nerds or geeks by constructing the interests, skills, and behaviors of nerd/geek culture as inherently male traits. This dissertation proposes the concept of nerd/geek masculinity to understand discourses of hegemonic masculinity in nerd/geek culture. As a subculture, nerd/geek culture tends to be described in terms of the experiences of men and boys who are unpopular because of their niche interests or lack of social skills. Nerd and geek culture have become subjects of increasing public concern in recent years, with growing visibility and power for technical professions and increasing relevance of video games, science fiction, and fantasy in popular culture. Finally, I discuss how (if at all) the pedagogical tools mentioned above can be applied to conversations happening in online spaces, and outline some anticipated barriers that complicate this application. The fifth section discusses pedagogical tools developed in Privilege Studies and related fields which could be useful for addressing this resistance and discomfort in a way that allows productive dialogue to proceed. Specifically, I apply theoretical frameworks from the field of Privilege Studies to help understand the resistance and discomfort demonstrated by male gamers when confronted with the concept of their privilege. Fourth, I explore how the language of privilege has been taken up in the public online conversation about Gamergate. In the third section of the essay, I briefly review the concept of privilege, and then explain how privilege (male privilege, in this case) manifests in online gaming communities. next, I situate the Gamergate controversy in the context of video games and online gaming communities as historically and socially gendered spaces. To begin, I briefly outline the history of Gamergate and explain some of the terms I will be using to discuss it. This paper is organized into six sections. What tools might we gather from these branches of study to use in teaching more privileged folks to confront and acknowledge their privilege in a way that promotes the development of anti-oppressive online gaming spaces, and increases the capacity of more privileged folks to engage in coalitional anti-oppressive work with marginalized community members? I am particularly interested in how to do this work with folks who have little prior knowledge of theories of power and oppression or prior engagement with social justice movements, as is the case with many of the members of the gaming communities I investigate in this paper. This paper draws on insights from the many branches of research and activism that make up the emerging field of Privilege Studies.
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