Organized by Brandon C. Harris (University of Alabama) and Maxwell Foxman (University of Oregon)
Thursday, 12 June | 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
On-site: Hyatt Regency Denver, Capitol Ballroom 1
See our call for papers here: https://icagames.org/2025preconference/
Registration
Please register at the following link. Registration is $75.
https://www.icahdq.org/event/Swamp
Program
All times are in Mountain Time
8:00 AM – 8:50 AM – Welcome/Registration/Coffee
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Keynote Panel: Understanding the Threat of Toxic Masculinity
- Keynote Speakers: Amanda Cote, Brooke Duffy, Adrienne Massanari
- Moderator: Brandon Harris
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Panel 1: Toxicity and Play
- Christopher Finlay – To Collect and Protect: Toxic Nostalgia, Collective Memory and Masculinity
- Nash Meade – The Invisible Playground: Toxic Masculinity in Online Spaces as a Symptom of Self aggrandizing Behavior in Single-player Games
- Wanyue Hao – Bridging Virtuality and Reality: The Agency of Affective Labor in Otome GameCosplay Commission
- M. Fahad Humayun – Toxic Masculinity in EAFC25: A Systematic Content Analysis of Official Guidelines and Subreddit Discussions
- Caroline Gilmore – Gendering War Games: The Potential of Play to Dismantle Militarized Masculinity Norms
- Moderator: Maxwell Foxman
11:00 AM – 11:15 AM: Break
11:15 AM – 12:15 PM: Panel 2: Toxic Identities
- Marley Schrauth – Cross-Disciplinary Crossroads and Contentions within Research on the Involuntarily Celibate
- Emily Hurley – I’m Mr. Lonely: Involuntary Celibates and the Cult of Misery
- Jess Mills – From Beta to Alpha: Masculinity Ideologies and Changeability
- Andrew Wilson & Dr. Samantha Lorenzo- It Only Gets Worse: Visualizing the Toxic Connections Between Video Game Streamers and Online Radicalization
- Moderator: David Beyea
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM: Lunch and Demonstrations
1:15 PM – 2:15 PM: Panel 3: Toxicity in Chinese and Vietnamese Gaming Communities
- Yidong Steven Wang – Transcultural Imagination of Queer(phobic) Asia: Anti-Political Correctness Discourse in the Chinese Gamer Community
- Fanxi Feng – Black Myth: Wukong and the Politics of Toxic Masculinity, Incel Culture, and Nationalism in Gaming
- Nguyen Do Doan Hanh – Labor and Masculinity: Examining The Performances of Vietnamese Game Livestreamers in Platformised Cultural Work
- Caitlin Walrath – Gamer Cultural Tariffs: Game Science, Black Myth: Wukong, and Gamer Cultural Borders
- Moderator: Maxwell Foxman
2:15 PM – 2:30 PM Break
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM: Panel 4: Resisting Toxicity
- Ailea Merriam-Pigg (she/they) – “It’s Just Some Gamer Words:” Intersectional Toxicity in Male-Dominated Gaming Spaces
- Destrey S, Runyon Jr – Feeling Catfishy
- Jinghan Zhang – The Social Support Practices of a “Female-Only” Online Community A Participatory Observation of Douban Group “Female Gamers Union”
- Joan Ioanna Getsios – Resisting Toxic Masculinity: Exploring r/NotHowGirlsWork as a Counter-Space Against Instagram Gendered Hate Speech
- Moderator: Brandon Harris
3:30 PM – 3:45 PM: Break
3:45 – 4:30: Panel 5: Provocations and Histories of Toxicity
- Rae Moors – Discourses of Competition and Antagonism in the United States Gaming Industry, 1990-1994
- Emma Goldhaber & Trystram Spiro-Costello – A Server of One’s Own: Artifactual Politics and Toxicity
- Moderator: Maxwell Foxman
4:30 – 4:45: Closing Remarks and Conversation
Keynote Panelists
Our keynote speakers will be Amanda C. Cote (MSU), Brooke Duffy (Cornell), and Adrienne Massanari (American U)
Amanda Cote is an Associate Professor and Director of the Serious Games Certificate in the Department of Media & Information at Michigan State University. She also co-leads the Esports and Games Research Lab, a multi-institutional consortium that studies the growth and institutionalization of collegiate competitive gaming. Cote’s work focuses on the industry and culture of digital and analog games, with an emphasis on areas such as gender, identity, and representation; game development and labor; and collegiate esports. She is the author of Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games (New York University Press, 2020) and coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Esports (Routledge, 2024). She has also published in locations including Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Games and Culture, Feminist Media Studies, and edited book collections.
Duffy’s research explores the role of social media in work, employment, and society. She is the author or co-author of three books, including (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender and Aspirational Labor in the Social Media Economy (Yale University Press, 2017/2022), which Wired named as one of the “Top Tech Books of 2017.” Her most recent book, Platforms and Cultural Production (Polity, 2021) with Thomas Poell and David Nieborg, has been translated into Italian and Chinese. Duffy’s current book project, “The Visibility Bind: Creators and the Perils of Platform Labor” (under contract, University of Chicago Press) draws upon interviews with social media influencers, creators, and streamers to explore the promises, perils, and paradoxes of work in the creator economy. You can learn about what Duffy calls “the visibility bind” here.
I am an Associate Professor in the Communication Studies division at SOC. My research interests include digital culture, online communities, platform politics, game studies, pop culture, and gender and race online. I am currently accepting undergraduate, MA, and PhD advisees.
My new book for MIT Press (October 2024), Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right, discusses how Silicon Valley’s culture and politics contributed to the rise of the far-right. My 2015 book, Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit (Peter Lang), explored the unique culture of Reddit.com. My work has appeared in New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, Social Media + Society, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and First Monday. I also serve on the editorial boards for the Journal of Sociotechnical Critique (open-access) and New Review of Hypermedia & Multimedia.
Sponsors
We would like to thank the following sponsors for making this event possible
University of Alabama, Department of Journalism and Creative Media
Nanyang Technological University
University of Oregon, School of Journalism and Communication
The Esports and Games Research (EGR) Lab
Michigan State University, Department of Media and Information
University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
The Ohio State University, School of Communication
The Higher Education Video Game Alliance
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania: Extended Reality Lab
