Please do not use the #Gamegate hashtag in relation to this paper. Please be thoughtful about what you say and where you share it. What you say on social media may impact the authors with negative repercussions. Thank you for being considerate.

In this paper we will examine the figure of Vivian James, which has for many supporters of Gamergate become something of a mascot. We do this first because Vivian James can tell us a

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lot about what Gamergate supporters think about the place of women in games and gaming culture without having to reference the ‘extreme’ behaviour of ‘individual’ acts against specific women. Through Vivian James we believe we can get a more nuanced picture of the inherent sexisms and unexamined assumptions that shape casual (even ambient) affiliation with Gamergate who might argue they stand for ‘ethics in journalism’ rather than any particular anti-woman sentiment, and definitely do not support for targeted harassment, but rather vociferous engagement and rigorous argumentation. The second reason that we are interested in unpacking the figure of Vivian James is to mark a connection between how digital games are structured and experienced, and practices of online harassment. Vivian James (a play on “vidya games”) began as a crowdfunded character in a videogame designed to represent Gamergate,1 and so we will proceed to analyse her as an avatar of Gamergate which has been configured in peculiar ways. This peculiarity stems from Vivian James’s role in illustrating that the Gamergate movement also speaks for ‘some’ women, while also appealing to particularly toxic notions of women’s place in gaming and gaming cultures. Through Vivian James Gamergaters expose many of the everyday sexisms that the character was designed to divert attention from or even conceal.

The Fine Young Capitalists Indiegogo (2014) “Women making Video Games for Charity.” Available at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-fine-youngcapitalists--2 1

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This may be pushing game studies folks outside the long established conventions of what constitutes an avatar. Generally speaking an avatar is the graphical representation of the user, but this may also extend to describing the user's alter ego or character, in the sense of how they self-represent online maybe different from their actual selves. Graphic or visual avatars may take either a three-dimensional form, as in digital games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities – the picture selected by the tweeter that appears beside a tweet, is one such example. Other examples include Mary Fuller and Henry Jenkins’ 1995 discussion of the avatar as a ‘cursor’ that marks the location of the player in virtual space,2 or James Newman’s 2002 article in Game Studies that described the avatar as a vehicle for moving through virtual space.3 Certainly the avatar concept is used in many different types of digital games from Pokémon GO (Niantic 2016) to Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios 2015), and includes both avatars that

Fuller, M. and Jenkins, H. (1995) “Nintendo and New World Travel Writing: A Dialogue.” Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, ed. S. Jones. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 3 Newman, J. (2002) “The Myth of the Ergodic Videogame: Some thoughts on player-character relationships in videogames.” Game Studies. Available at http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/newman/ 2

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are customizable, such as Dragon Age: Inquisition (BioWare 2014) and those that are noncustomizable, like Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment 2015). Scholars that conceptualize the avatar outside of digital games include leading Digital Anthropologist Daniel Miller, who uses the concept in his ethnography of Facebook to understand the difference between the individual and the public performance of their persona through Facebook.4 For him the avatar is a performance of the self to a public audience which creates a sense of ‘co-presence’ but that is separate from the private self.

Gamergate bubbled out of the rising tensions between feminism and videogame culture. Gamergate is a decentralised harassment campaign to keep women out of gaming while operating under the guise of being a crusade against unethical games journalism. The harassment is ongoing and has created a climate of hostility and fear in the gaming community which is especially felt by marginalised groups, in particular women.5 This research observes Gamergate’s avatar Vivian James as another guise in which Gamergaters attempt to rally behind. The precipitating incident is reflective of the wider problem of systemic sexism

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Miller, D. (2011) Tales from Facebook. Cambridge: Polity. Golding, D. and Van Deventer, L. (2016) Game Changers. Melbourne: Affirm Press.

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pervasive in gaming, which act as anti-feminist guideposts. To recap the origins of Gamergate: in 2014, a scorned ex-boyfriend posted a 9,425-word blog post about his ex-girlfriend, the indie game developer Zoe Quinn. This post was shared to websites which had been vocal about their negativity towards her free-to-play game Depression Quest. These people in these websites did not understand the need for diversity in gaming. To quote Leigh Alexander “Male gamers felt threatened by perceived intrusion of progressive politics into their private, escapist power fantasies.”6 Consequently, the only possible explanation to the recent progressive shifts in gaming – was a ‘mass conspiracy’. Gamergate operates under the guise that it is a crusade against ‘unethical games journalism’ with the belief that feminism is an oppressive tool of gaming, and that women are intruders and manipulators of the gaming status quo.

Vivian James was developed in order to sponsor The Fine Young Capitalist’s crowdfunding Indiegogo campaign for “Women making Video Games for Charity.”7 Vivian James’ supposed “average female gamer” appearance was constructed to troll “Social Justice Warriors” and

Leigh A. (2016) “Milo Yiannopoulos: Twitter banning one man won’t undo his poisonous legacy.” The Guardian. 7 The Fine Young Capitalists Indiegogo (2014). “Women making Video Games for Charity.” 6

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reform an anti-feminist image with a ‘not-sexist’ one, since ‘How can Gamergate be sexist if their avatar is a woman?’ As stated, “Some aspects presented in Vivian James’ visual design represents her creators 4chan’s /v/ board, such as her striped sweater being green and purple, a reference to the infamous daily dose images, and the four-leaf clover on her headband.” ‘Daily dose’ or also known as ‘Piccolo Dick’, is a rape joke.8 This much guffawed-over fact illustrates both how transparent and how extreme the sexism involved in Vivian James’s construction.

While, “Ethics in Games Journalism” partly argues that there is no room for sociopolitical conversations within the discourse of videogames, Vivian James – herself – is a sociopolitical projection of Gamergate’s ideals. Our reading of Vivian James, reveals that this particular figure is a politically charged tool, that attempts to position Gamergate as an ‘inclusive’ and sociopolitically aware group, and accuse its critics of speaking for women, while ignoring their thoughts and opinions. The smoke and mirrors of Vivian James avoids and obfuscates problems of harassment, these tactics derail conversations and halt progress in order to pivot discourse away from issues of sexism and towards ‘Ethics in Games Journalism’.

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Know Your Meme Wiki. Available at: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/daily-dosepiccolo-dick Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/oQBEyv1.png

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“Shut up and play” seems to be the repeated slogan of Vivian James (I will show you some through the presentation). She is described as ‘a girl who just wants to play video games’ – “[s]he doesn't care about rights, agenda, or how you feel [...] she will only speak with you if you grab the controller and play.”9 Her constructed personality consists of, as outlined by her submission to The Fine Young Capitalists, “Tough-loves video games; Loathes dishonesty and hypocrisy; Low-affect, grumpy, perpetually fed up and tired.”10 There is a consistent insinuation that women in gaming should ‘be like Vivian’.

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Escapist Magazine Forum (2014). Available at: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.860805.21409096 Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/xqGH5wA.png 10 /v/ Vivian James Archive (2014). Available at: http://i.imgur.com/9HPJZh8.jpg

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Similar to Penny Arcade’s ‘Dickwolves’ incident, rape jokes such as the purple and green colouring of Vivian James’ jumper, coincide with gamer slang (used in victory) and encourages a casual attitude towards sexual violence which may form a milieu which perceives victim blaming as an appropriate response to sexual harassment.11 Her slogan of ‘Shut up and play’ troublingly expresses the desire for women to stop ‘complaining’ and drawing attention to the harassment they experience. This dismissal of women is a reminder that it is their presence – not their voice – which is desirable within the gaming community. The only way that women can be admitted into the community of gamers is by not drawing attention to unfair treatment. Gamergaters consider the act of calling out individuals as an attack towards all gamers and see women who talk about harassment as ruining the fun of gaming for everyone.

Salter, A., and Blodgett, B. “Hypermasculinity & Dickwolves: The contentious role of women in the new gaming public.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52, 2012, pp. 401-416. 11

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While Vivian James is assumed by Gamergaters to be the ‘everywoman of gaming’, this critical reading observes the gender performativity of Vivian James, as essentially masculine.12 Her persona is no different than that of the stereotypical ‘gamer boy’, with the addition of long hair and breasts. Her femininity is only extorted in order to be sexualised. She was created to be ‘frumpy’ or supposedly ‘slightly overweight’ and ‘average’ looking, although Vivian James in fact is still a very conventionally attractive character design. In context to the anti-woman actions made by Gamergate, Vivian James’ masculine gender performativity expresses that only attractive, obedient women, who ‘shut up and just play games’ are welcome in gaming. Claiming that Vivian James is the ‘everywoman’ or ‘just an average gamer girl’ in fact polices women, feminine and non-binary gamer identities to act in a very specific and silenced manner. Thus, with this understanding, her gender performativity contemporaneously unravels the underlying sexist assumptions held by Gamergate and desire to censor women voices – even though she is a ‘female’ avatar who is supposed to represent ‘freedom of speech’.

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Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.

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Vivian James operates to police gamer identities in a way that reinforces a hypermasculine status quo which sees femininity as undesirable and incompatible with gaming. This alienates women from gaming, creates a homogeneous and static games industry, and perpetuates the toxic gatekeeping practices of arbitrary hierarchies and intensive regulation of gamer identities. Vivian James as seen as an ‘average gamer’ in the eyes of Gamergaters is only allowed to play the certain types of games which are considered by her creators to be acceptable of a gamer status. ‘Hardcore’ games, in turn, set a standard which regulates who are and are not allowed to consider themselves as a gamer simply by the preference for what sort of games they enjoy playing.

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Interrogating Vivian James as an avatar may also be useful for understanding the gendered connection between gaming cultures and online harassment. Note that while big budget games give players more and more opportunities to tailor their avatar and thus how they present themselves online, and the big gaming platforms require more and more verification of ‘real life’ details, much of the harassment associated with Gamergate has emerged from sites where anonymity is protected and there is no public connection between online public persona and a particular individual.

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Gamergate operates a decentralised and anonymous collective, that marks ‘ambient affiliations’ through various hashtags and icons, most notably the Gamergate hashtag, but also by curating, sharing and commenting on images of Vivian James. Shira Chess and Adrienne Shaw, note that Gamergate’s lack of ‘structure or coherent leadership’, makes it difficult to characterize.13 Chess and Shaw argue that it is important to remember that there is a collective of individuals behind this movement, that has incited a mass following of anonymous twitter users to flock and coordinate their harassment campaigns against women and feminism in gaming. While anonymity is key to the success of the movement, Vivian James also has a crucial role as a figure that marks an affiliation while also offering a shield for accountability. Symbols like Vivian James allow otherwise anonymous individuals to mark an ambient affiliation and share a sense of co-presence as allies in a cause. Yet simultaneously it allows people to ‘game’ the difference between their status as private individual and public person by disputing the sexist and indeed misogynist connotations of Vivian James should they be held publicly accountable for their affiliation with Gamergate.

Chess, S. and Shaw, A. (2016) “We Are All Fishes Now: DiGRA, Feminism, and GamerGate.” ToDiGRA. Available at http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/39 13

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Vivian James serves as a policing device for the role of women in game culture, that marks the absolute necessity of their inclusion by those who would potentially prefer them to not be present. If they are to be present at all it is as male proxies in all but their sexuality. Vivian James acts as an avatar-like device through which the co-presence of like-minded ‘fellows’ can be enjoyed in an environment that for most Gamergate supporters, requires a careful separation of private self and public persona. Vivian James gives them a public object through which to enact their affiliation, without publicly formalizing those bonds. It also offers them a strategy of avoidance and denial in relations to issues of gendered harassment. This general lack of accountability is compounded by the extensive use of fake accounts by Gamergate followers. Here we see a potential research trajectory that maps how the overarching logic of the avatar may inform Gamergate, particularly the sockpuppet twitter accounts commonly used in ‘dogpiling’ and other ‘legitimizing’ sub-campaigns of gamergate like the #notyourshield hashtag.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was funded by the ARC DP ‘Avatars & Identities’ grant.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge. Chess, S. and Shaw, A. (2016) “We Are All Fishes Now: DiGRA, Feminism, and GamerGate.” ToDiGRA. Available at http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/39 Escapist Magazine Forum (2014). Available at: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.860805.21409096 Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/xqGH5wA.png (Accessed Jan. 2016). Fuller, M. and Jenkins, H. (1995) “Nintendo and New World Travel Writing: A Dialogue.” Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, ed. S. Jones. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Also available at http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Cyberspace/FullerJenkins_Nintendo.html Golding, D. and Van Deventer, L. (2016) Game Changers. Melbourne: Affirm Press. Know Your Meme Wiki. Available at: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/daily-dosepiccolodick Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/oQBEyv1.png (Accessed May 2016). Leigh A. (2016) “Milo Yiannopoulos: Twitter banning one man won’t undo his poisonous legacy.” The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/20/milo-yiannopoulos-twitter-ban-lesliejones-bad-idea Miller, D. (2011) Tales from Facebook. Cambridge: Polity. Newman, J. (2002) “The Myth of the Ergodic Videogame: Some thoughts on playercharacter relationships in videogames.” Game Studies. Available at http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/newman/ Salter, A. and Blodgett, B. (2012) “Hypermasculinity & Dickwolves: The contentious role of women in the new gaming public.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52, pp. 401416. The Fine Young Capitalists Indiegogo (2014). “Women making Video Games for Charity”. Available at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-fine-youngcapitalists--2 (Accessed Jan. 2016). /v/ Vivian James Archive (2014). Available at: http://i.imgur.com/9HPJZh8.jpg (Accessed Jan. 2016).

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