Misogyny and video games (STUDENT TAKEOVER) - podcast episode cover

Misogyny and video games (STUDENT TAKEOVER)

Jul 24, 202348 min
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Episode description

In this episode, three students takeover the pod to discuss the issue of sexism and misogyny in the gaming world. Harper Winslet, Jessica Thornton and Leila Miller-Jones from BHASVIC college in Brighton and Hove were inspired by the research of Anita Sarkeesian and wanted to see if their own primary research gained similar results. The research considers early games when objectification was first noticable up to more comptemporary issues such as whether the rise of Andrew Tate has had a signigicant impact on the gaming world.

Transcript

Hi, You're listening to a student focused episode of the Sociology Show podcast. If you're studying the subject at gcs A level, foundation degree or any other discipline, then this podcast could be of help to you. If you have a question for the show, then you can email the Sociology Show podcasts the Gmail dot com and one of the teachers, lecturers, examiners, or experts will answer your question for you. You can sponsor the show on the go

fund me page and subscribe on all the usual podcast platforms. If you're going to class, going to the gym, or just chilling, put your headphones in and let's be Sociology gets together. Ah, Hello and welcome to the Sociology Show podcast. This is a student takeover episode, and the takeover is actually from my own students from Basfic College in Brighton Hove down on the south coast of England. And three of my students were very interested in sexism in

video games and misogyny in video games. They're inspired by some research by Anita Sarkeesian and they wanted to carry out their own research to see if they found similar findings in terms of how much misogyny is out there. How sexist the video games are and the types of language and interactions people use when they're playing online video games in particular. So the three students conducted this research are Harper Winsleor, Jessica Thornton, and Layla Miller Jones. I asked them to put

together a podcast. I was really impressed with the depth and knowledge here, and also they had a little bit of humor in there as well, and it's a really fantastic piece of research. So without further ado, let's go over to listen to sexum in Video Games with Harper, Jessica and Layla Enjoy Hello, Oh my god, Hey Hi. So I'm Halper, I'm Jeff I am Layla, and our sociology presentation in the form of the podcast. Yeah, we contemplated in a video, but I came freshman. You won't

find yourself. Don't mind yourself, Harper looking gorgeous, gorgeous. Stop. Yeah. So basically we are doing so using the secondary data from Sarkeesia. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. We are doing we are looking at the culture of online gaming and the portrayal of femininity and masculinity in the video game world. And I basically use this to form our research question, which

is how our regressive misogynistic values presented in the gaming world. Yeah, yeah, I guess the hypothesis were kind of the mesogynistic attitudes were still very present in the gaming world as they have always been, and we're kind of I guess not yeah, not even trying to prove it, but just exactly what

that is. Look at you go, halfer um. So me and Jess both looks at some articles and like videos that Sarcasian did and mine was about tropes versus women in video games, and she pointed out which I thought was actually like it sort of shows like it traces back to where the first like signs of objectification of women. What was when the first video game appeared in a pinball arcade and it's called computer Space was released in nineteen seventy one.

I believe I think that's what you said last. Yeah, the objective of the game was very simple. It was a rocket that was shooting down pixelated sources. We obviously nothing to do with women at this stage of video games. However, they the company advertised their game with women stood next to like the arcade machines wearing revealing clothes which obviously is it seems to be the first

way that women were especially things. It was the first online game, it was already using women's sexually like being women being sexualized to advertise it, and it was sort of unnecessary because it's got enough game. It just seemed to obviously the aim was to capture the male gaze, particularly probably young teenage boys.

So I wonder if that kind of maybe influenced the idea that like online gaming is more of a male space, and yeah, idea maybe, Yeah, yeah, definitely that's and obviously this game being released what like over fifty years going now, it's from right the scarbas the traditional values have just been kept and carried through to Ja. Yeah, no exactly, So I guess that's what like why we became interested was because you can obviously clearly tell that

this hasn't although it might have changed based on video games evolving, the like

principles are still the same that behind it. So yeah, and as well, because this topic was influenced by our topic three of globalization of globalization, Yeah, it's interesting to see what other aspects of globalization can also be seen, like the misogynistic attitudes kind of in the dial Yeah, definitely, it's quite like I mean, I wouldn't say it's subtle, but like until you like sort of scrape underneath the stuff, you don't really notice how by its

I feel like it's quite overlooked sometimes. Yeah, um, soul get onto what we did for you guys. Overviewed the research by Sarkeesian. Yeah, okay, so I looked at basically more recent examples. Sarkeesian basically found that the damsel in distress trope has sort of seen a resurgence in recent years. So the tribe basically provides like an easy default motivation for male heroes, um

because it allows them to prove their masculinity, um and like. As a result, the game developers have like exploited images of victimized women and use their trauma sort of as like a catalyst for the game's plotline, with even like domestic violence sometimes being presented as like an altruistic app and it can be seen

in like modern games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Oh yeah, that was one of the ones that we did, so I think that was I think it was even released in twenty thirteen or Maine in twenty thirteen, but Basically, Sarkitian said that the objective of this game was to buy a prostitute, use it, and then kill them to claim your money, which I think is obviously highly Yeah, I mean I don't I don't particularly understand it, but I mean whatever, that's like, that's what I do

on my Friday evening is half oh my bad, sorry on my lifestyle. Yeah, sorry, it's yeah, it's the lifestyle. Definitely, so my I didn't because the two girls half just obviously did their initial research on Sarkatian, it was a secondary data. I did the unstructured interview, which was primary, our main primary. Yeah, definitely research that we did semi structured.

We had like questions, yeah, semist action, which we enjoyed because I barking, I mean, yeah, undecided, but it kind of it allowed us to elaborate with the participants and get them to explain what we asked. And also because a lot not a lot of us, I didn't have the biggest understanding that, so it kind of left me went in. Yeah, we went. I think the bit we were interested in was the gender identity and that kind of misogynistic attitude. Yeah, the idea of the whole

gaming world. Really, I let the gamers and the people that we interviewed dictate or like open my eyes to that. I guess. So our sample was ten people. They were a volunteer sample because we needed people who were actually interested in online gaming who could give us useful information. I guess that

makes it quite high. And they wanted to exactly, and it meant that what they were saying was pretty truthful and it wasn't just like a bunch of people who didn't know what they were talking about, but also ethical as well. Yeah, yeah, yes, a ten questions, ten people and even numbers. Yeah, exactly, I'll summarize a couple of points. Yes, I guess I've put together or I've basically just kind of selected the two most

different interviews or the two most interesting interviews. So the first person we asked the question, do you think that animality makes people feel more comfortable? And to say team defensive? We can't say it was so ethical. Can we say if it's a girl or a boy? Or yeah, I think yeah it was a guy, Okay, And he said that playing on FIFA specifically, there was a lot of toxic masculinity within the community, which you could

argue would scare away women. Although there has been like a new adaptation in the FIFA world which is very nice where women and now added and you can create a team of both women and men. I've actually got something. Oh my god, do you remember me telling you I do remember this way I finish this? Ye? I mean just this point. Yeah. Yeah. So he said there was lots of masculinity expressed within FIFA, partly because of how competitive it was, partly because it had like a nature of toxic masculinity.

But I feel like, if that's such a good example of there are games which literally have toxic masculinity embedded into the culture. But I've I've never met a girl who's like, oh yeah, I've an avid FIFA player. Ye met guys, because it doesn't seem very like you know. So I thought that was quite eye opening. But oh my god, just died.

Oh. What I was going to say was, so I was talking to I'm quite a shamed to say that he's my friend down, but I was talking to my good friend like good friends as well, I know, And I was like, I'm doing I'm conducted. Well, I'm not really conducting, but I was just wondering if I could ask some questions to do with gaming, because he games a lot, like and he said that the presence of like women in FIFA is pointless, and he said some other stuff as

well. I wish it was on Snapchat, so I should have saved the messages. Actually that would have been by the smart money lies. But I'd like to summarize what he said. And I'm not obviously quoting him, but he said along the lines of, like, there's no print in having women in video games because they're doing it on purpose to seem more inclusive, whereas in actual fact they don't actually care. Sort of thing that directly links onto what I was about to say. Well, perfect, Oh my god.

Yeah. So the fifth question I asked in this interview was why didn't there's an absence of female players in the gaming world. And this guy, the first, like the first of the two people that I selected out of the ten, basically said the big gaming companies don't mark it towards female players because there's already like a market in an audience within young male players. There's no reason they would need to, and because like so much of advertising is kind

of towards the male games. Anyways, you think they feel under pressure to I just I feel I don't feel any pressure to know that I feel. He just basically saying they don't mark it towards too the players, because they've got a large amount they don't need to pretty much. He also said that along the lines of I asked a question which was do you think the video

against influenced perceptions of women in real life? And he basically said his friend didn't really seem to have a separation of online online and in real life, and so he would set leg women a lot because on so many of the games there are hyper sexual as women avatars. So do you think that makes to like the idea of anorminities? That thought? So, I guess because some people will say stuff online and not saying person. Clearly, this person,

his friend can tell the difference. You know. It's like that exactly, And it's kind of yet all linking back to like the sexual avatars and everything like from the first Yeah, so Sarkisian, sorry because somebody died. I just had it my head. There was that and now I can't break out. But you're gonna have to the other like what was the other stuff? So the second guy who I selected I always like stuff Stock. I love him. I don't know actually quite who he is, but I just

think he's awesome. He has part of an online group who go to like gaming tournaments and play amongst each other like a following, like formal sort of thing. I think, so that's a professional like win money and stuff. Can't you. I think you win something or maybe you just win and that

boosts your popularity. Don't quite know, but it's fine. But basically, he was really interesting to talk to you because his perspective was from his small community, so it kind of showed that they were like zones within the gaming world. So he basically said that on his team it was just people who he played against who were just decent at the game. And regarding animnity,

he said, you can say whatever you want in theory. Yeah, being a white, straight dude, it's not the biggest deal to me personally. It's like what they're going to threaten me with quoting him directly here. But you know, with other demographics I've seen it, it could be tough. People would just relentlessly gang up on people for the smallest things because then anything they can get away with it. And I think that links onto for my

research exactly. It's the real risk of animality is that you don't really get many consequences for what you say, unless it's quite bad that you can't like sort of well, I mean you could track it down, but if you were tracking every sort I mean cyber bully or nine, that there would be

no one left. Also with that quite true with the anonymous space, it makes people then more comfortable to say things in real life as well because they've had that experience I've already like saying and starting to move into that territory or it's kind of like, what's it like an echo chamber where if you find like minded people you think, oh, that might be trying. Like that can translate to real life and narrows that well, not exactly, that's very

true because yeah, it's not good. That's the best time I could come up say like monotonal as well, when I saw it's not good. It's just not good. But yeah, what did the other personally expected? It? Was it a girl that was Yeah, so I've selected three. Yeah, there was a first guy who had the toxic masculinity friend. Second guy was part of a team. Yeah, he also for my seventh question,

which was do you see positive aspects of gender identity? He said that the fact that people weren't focalizing on gender was the positive aspect of gender identity. There was a lot, like in his world, there was. It was a lot of it was guild based, so it kind of took the whole emphasis of gender off of it, which he thought was a really positive and

progressive thing, wasn't it. It was even Haaraway or Robertson that did that in the in the globalization unit, they talked about Harraway, which I guess is a positive you could take away. But then it's not like that a load is going to you know, it doesn't change the fact that people are still going to be like a sorry, a pip just came out of my mouth. Sorry, later, what were you saying? It's like, oh, you know what, I'm not for My trainer thought, like, you

know what, So let me just go right back to the beginning. Let's cut to the chase head. So what I am trying to conclude is that although a woman can hide behind or was he the screen and have like a gender neutral name or like a name that doesn't suggest anything about her gender, she still she might still hear stuff, so it shows that you know, you could not partake in it and like not have to show that you're a woman. But if if there's men on like playing and they're being you know,

misogynistic, then it's still happening. Basically the fact that they have to hide it as well, it just goes exactly so that someone who have not included their interview in My three Chosen one. She spoke about the fact that on the online gaming world, if you do show agenda as a girl, you're either like a tomboy girl doesn't really associate herself with femininity or an e girl who's hyper feminine, and there's not really much in between going on.

You're one of the guys or you're a plane female gays Like how you benefit men versus how it's like benefits. Yeah, okay, so like you know, you've now got these two categories that you know you can't like transcend. You're either one or the other. Yea, you can game, but if you're a tomboy and one of the guys or a egirls, and either way you're still going to face abuse for both of them exactly. Anyway, Yeah,

for my third for my third participant or I guess interviewee. They said that, So I asked the question, do you think there's an answerence to female players in the gaming world, And their answer to this was, I think some games are more predominantly female, but for predominantly male games, they don't want female players in them, so they try to rate them so the

plays so that they therefore create female zones and males. Was a really interesting way of putting it, like people in each zone are not going to recognize the opposite side, or maybe in the male zone, you're just going to think, oh, no female plays this game because they are actively avoiding or the really basic hosogronistic games. Also, they're in like a tights or circle if if you're thinking about like regressive values and going back to traditional ways,

sort of the separate spheres for men and women. It's kind of like reminis sint of like nineteen fifties, like oh my god, domestic sperience kind of desire. Ye, look at you guys, Oh my gosh, right, do you have what else? Like? Yeah? Point for the eighth question, I asked, I think gee, I asked us to everyone and most people said, So I said, what do you think the roles of men and women are or should be in the online gaming world. Most people just

said equity. Everyone should just be equal. There shouldn't be a kind of dislike there shouldn't just be this disportion exactly. That's what I'm looking for.

But my interview said everyone should get a chance play the game they want, and the female players should get to enjoy a male space, whereas right now she does not feel there was that kind of equality, which I thought was really interesting, especially from a female's perspective, because the other people were kind of like, yeah, equity and didn't really see like they didn't point out as much misogynistic attitudes although they were occupying male spaces, whereas I feel if

you're not, it's more visible yea. And relating to the what was it recessive or aggressive? So for my last question that I asked everyone, I was how do you I asked, how do you think that the rise of Andrew Tato has influenced attitudes? This is in the game, and so the first person I asked said, because Tate is influencing younger people, and younger people still play video games, it therefore makes the online world even more toxic

and could discourage women. The second person I asked actually said, Andrew Tat is just ananimate, is just an anomaly, and he has an impact, but any younger people who he didn't play with. So my second person he was part of the online gaming team, Oh yeah, so he I don't think UM spoke to or kind of came to contact with a lot of younger players. So it proves that what side the online gaming world occupy us.

And my asked participant who was a girl I thought I put out? She said that she felt that Tate had had had a big impact in real life than the gaming world, and said, yeah, there have always been sogynistic attitude, but she argued that like Tate's kind of being on the side of social media of pointing out like that his actions were wrong. She basically said that, ever, since because he's so extreme, people began calling out my sogynist behavior, which she said, like, that's a real big positives.

You said, shall I go through my m what's called grovern? Now? Yeah? I said that my generalizability was lower because we only interviewed a small age range. However, the people that we interviewed had kind of played amongst people of many different age ranges. So although we only had access to people within the sixteen to eighteen age range, because they'd interacted with people from all ages, you can kind of argue that their answers could be higher. In

generalizability, I'd argue our representativeness was low because our sample was volunteer. Yeah, a volunteer sample. We wanted that they wanted to do it there before we're going to be enthusiastic. Yes, exactly. We had a range of gender identities, which I think, Yeah, it was higher. Reliability was higher because we recorded that. I recorded all of the interviews so he could

replicate it, and I wrote down all of my questions. Objectivity I was reflected throughout and transferred directly from the audio document onto my piece of paper. I guess I'm referring back exactly what they said and didn't cherry pick. Validity was high Bill Report, and I feel that what they told us was truthful. Yeah, I think it was very insightful, especially since we didn't going

into this week. I think that also makes it quite high a objectivity because we didn't know, like what what was actually going on, what was actually happening, like our values couldn't really we didn't have like second exactly, yeah, because we didn't have any we liked at during which I think, which was so good. Yeah, I loved it. And our ethics were high. No deception because I advertised who would like to be Interviet sociologies. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't cause it a harm far as I'm aware.

No one has emailed me like saying that I'm suing you. So that's great, and they we didn't. It wasn't an invasion of privacy because they signed up for it. Yeah, so I reckon. I think that in terms of ethics was probably what was very high. I think, so it was validited. What would you which one would you want to improve after go over terms? Do you know? I think if we would do it again, the generalized ability and representativeness, it would be so interesting to interview a wider

range of people. Yeah, I think even for us our study in the future, but also just for us, just for us, just for us again for us. Okay, So after Lena did her like main primary research, which is sort of like the body of our works, like what we wanted to find out, and like I guess I did, like really go in depth about the progressive misogynistic values. I decided to do some content analysis on TikTok and jess, what did you do well, I sort of did.

I was originally going to do participant observation, but that plan kind of fell through, so I did sort of an unstructured interview conversation conversational type thing. Yeah, with my step brother, he's like very into the gaming world, and he's twelve, and he's very like immersing the world when my gaming, and he's experienced a lot of the like misogyny that we've been talking about. And yeah, I think it's a really imprabling angle to take it from

because obviously he's twelve years old. He's twelve. A lot of like even if you go on to like the interweb and the social media of like clips of people gaming, even a lot of them like older people. So I think from like a younger person's perspective, who's kind of views being shaped shaped not to talk about like that, but do you think that like perhaps online

gaming will sort of shape perspectives that he has a woman? I think it's really dangerous and really scary actually that we decided I decided to do content analysis on TikTok because TikTok was the platform that amplified Andrew Tat's sort of presence in society, which obviously for a couple of was it moms maybe a couple of weeks months, gained a lot of attention, like of media attention. Obviously he's you know, and then that means that his arrest and staff was very

you know, publified. Yeah. But what I decided to do was look in to female gamers on TikTok by literally just typing that into the such box

to see what came up. And the first three relevant videos were the ones where it was like female gamers were sat with their like head sets one and whatever, and they were all like, I think two of the videos were the women started talking obviously for the first time in this game, and there had been a group of men, and it was both and then both videos it showed the responses of the men, which were obviously not very nice. And then the other one was just a girl sat down gaming like just like

just talking behind like what she was doing. And I decided to use for each of the videos. I scrolled through the first twenty comments and from there I picked out which ones were seemed like negative, misogynistically like driven effectively, and then I put it into the statistic that one out of six of the comments that I read were misogynistically motivated, which obviously is you know, even in the majority seemed not. And it's out of the top twenty as well,

So those are the most liked and the most were definitely. So I think even though you know, a majority at one six is not obviously a big sort of I don't know if it he detect scrolling and then more would come up. I said, it's like, who has interacted with that? Yeah, up to the top, Yeah, people that have liked it, like replied to those comments. I didn't go through all the replies and stuff because that would take a whole lot longer, but you would not be here.

I would not be here to tell the tale. But yeah, so even though it's like, even though most of the comments were supportive, it's almost like, you know, the fact that there were comments carrying these attitudes quite a lot once it feels a lot to be fair, but obviously it's way under half. But I think that the fact that there were sexist statues just present anyway should not be like deemed like sort of an anomaly. I

think it should be. You know, these this minority group of people who were being misogynistic, they need to be addressed and obviously educated about it. But I'm going to quickly read out a few of the stuff that a couple of the comments that I noted down, which was for context. Obviously, this was on the video of a female gamer who posted the video of the

boys behaving sexistly towards her. So first comment that I saw was quite proud of that community, even though I'm not part of it, which I thought was a bit of a mixed message. But it just seems a bit partoynists, but very yeah, you know, good for them, like yeah, yeah, exactly, the boys trying to make it out that he's I don't know, not a misogynist, but I think that's you know. Then the next one said just said, my boys, we've got w homie, which

just means like they're supporting what this quote unquote home you said. Then we've got W players, Then we've got classic, we've got real stigma. That's why we love CS which I think was the name of the game or like the platform whatever than they were on w community. And this one I thought was particularly interesting because it was quite invalidating, but it said it's like,

it's like this for everybody, not just for you. So I thought that was, you know, either that's from like a female player, which is which also shows that misogynistic attitudes are still very right within the gaming community, or it's from someone who also has experience abuse, which would be there's other demographics you are also experiencing abuse. Either way, it's got different connotations,

both of which, but either way it's not good. And then the last one was pick me, so effectively that's feeding back into what you said about a girl being like one of the girls boys sort of thing. So yeah, you can't play without being deemed you know, not a girl basically or hypersexualist exactly. And I just thought, you know, it's very apparently it's

happening. And I think also the fact that people are, you know, commenting the stuff, that means that they're like happy to publicly share their opinions, so even like and then also I'd say that it's like it means that for the people that choose not to comment, how many of these people are

carrying the same views and just don't comment. So for the small group of people that do comment it and do share opinions, you know, there's like a whole majority of other people who have the same opinions, but haven't you know, kind of shows how the lines between like the online world and reality start to become blurred because they're now saying that publicly and it's no longer anonymous. Yeah. Yeah, because also the user names were like people's full names

as well. I mean I didn't find it doubt on the names, but because I would not share it, I got to stick to the ethics exactly. But I mean, but you can find out about people just why they're using names. And also I think as well, like although to remain ethical we didn't name names, I think that um it technically shouldn't. Like it's not really in uninformed consent or whatever, like, yeah, it's not necessary

because then they're happy for people to see it and share it anyway. Surely, Yeah, Like clearly they like I mean, maybe they only have sub colleciously thought about it. But like you know, when you go to comment something, you read out there for everybody to see, and there's like digital footprint all of that stuff, which you know, so I'd argue we didn't cross in the ethical bound I don't think we crossed everyical boundaries. I mean,

it wasn't an invasion of privacy whatsoever, informed consent. I mean, we're sharing their comments that they've shared to a whole platform of like people are potentially millions of people. Yeah. Yeah, And then wasn't deceptive and no harm to the participants because we haven't named them. And then about the other

graver terms, I said that it was it was low in reliability. Don't worry, I've got here, don't you worry, because the nature of TikTok is that there's constant updates and like changes in the algorithm system, which means that if another sociologist was to carry out on their own device and search the exact same vid eye search into the search, but they probably wouldn't be able to find the exact same videos with the exact same comments at the top exactly.

I also said that in terms of objectivity, my opinions didn't influence, like, you know, the results, because I qualied I literally copied and paste of what was said. You know, there was no I mean, obviously I just picked out the comments that seemed to show it was all was from the top twenty from the top, tive, and then validity. I said that it's not exactly high and validity because if everyone commented their opinions,

then it would be truthful. But because this is only you know, a small group of people that are commenting their opinions, it's quite difficult to understand everybody's like reflective of that and stuff. And in terms of like generalizedability and representativeness, wasn't overly but I think in comparison to using qualitative data, obviously I did get like a bigger Yeah, I got you know, sixty people, predumably sixty different people as well. I'm pretty sure i'd like to see

any repeated names. So sixty different people's opinions seems you know, it shows patterns, patterns and trans patterns, and we love patterns and trail. It's kind of like you can do all your research and to these are the statistics for this, this and that, but you've got people in real life actively being misogynistic and going out of their way to do so, and then have pulled up like an average of that. Yeah, which is so I think, Yeah, it's yeah, the statistics, I guess show statistics don't lie,

they do not lie. But what linking back to the whole thing about how this could be influenced by Andrew Tables these videos were. When I looked at the dates, they were all within the last I want to say, six months, it was like five or six months. It was since the beginning of the shiar definitely. Yeah, So I mean, I don't know if that's reflective of Andrew Tates being in the picture, having his values like

posted online or whatever, but I mean it could be. It's so hard to like tell if it wasn't wasn't like it's like because it was all on social media. All of social media is intertwined anyways. Yeah, Like, I guess you can think of different communities kind of accessing the same kind of information not infiltrating it. It's nice to think that something on social media would not infiltrate the online world, But you just don't know exactly, So that's

it's hard to tell. But I mean, we could potentially put it out there that Andrew Tate had influence maybe one of these comments at least exactly. But yeah, and then you spoke quite a lot about Andrew Table. Okay, yeah, so that kind of links to the sort of like unstructured interview

slash conversation I had with my brother. So he's only twelve of us mentioned before, and he was like very involved in the online gaming world, specifically when Andrew Tape was popular, and he noticed like a significant like almost like a direct correlation between Andrew Tait's popularity and how much misogyny was present sort of online I mean on chats kind of with strangers, but also perhaps amongst his friends group as well. It was very comical and obviously particularly in the online

gaming world. So basically what he was saying was that there was some like quite a lot of casual like traditional mistogeny present, so just comments like you know, make me a satmwage or like go back to the kitchen, like not even casual, actually blatantly sexist comments. I guess I'm non original used in a casual setting, but not yet casual. But then it also got

more extreme. U not amongst his friends, but amongst strangers. He even heard some like threats of sexual harassment, which obviously for a twelve year old boy, that is very influential. I mean, it's quite interesting. If you think about it links back to the first guy that I interviewed. He was talking about he got into gaming when he was like seven or eight. Yeah, and so it's so interesting, like like it was I think brought up a lot on social media when at like the downside of Andrew Tape was

that a lot of his following was young men. Yeah, and they're so influential that it's kind of it's so interesting that your brother. Yeah, it's good that he was able to recognize that's that's wrong. At first they didn't, so it's very It did definitely have an impression on him. He essentially on his algorithm on his TikTok few page was obviously very different to what people

like us would have been. And the clips he was seeing of Andrew Tape were more kind of like started off as like motivational content, trying to like inspire young boys. Obviously that was masked to be like masking something very bad. Yeah, but he saw it as kind of motivational, and he saw

stuff about Andrew Tape donating to charities. Yeah, it's so easy to like manipulate certain facts because you could say that anyone has done any like bad person has done a good thing, and they can just like over amplify this good deed and completely like block out all the bad stuff. Because you were saying about how like, you know, obviously the motivational stuff is like he's telling them not to smoke, not to yeah, stuff like this, which seems

on surface from a good perspective, it seems quite innocent as well. That's the kind of stuff that you would get taught in schools. Yeah, exactly, so it seems quite authentic as well. Yeah, kind of almost a bit of tenalistic. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's like almost like a

father figure for a lot of young boys, which kind of Yeah. And then as the misogyny starts to slip in, he might get like the occasional video with a casual fro away comment, but he wasn't getting the serious, like harmful misogynistic videos that I would have been seeing half for a Laila, So it kind of, yeah, began to influence his mindset. Um,

I mean probably to the point where he was saying misogynistic things. I mean, obviously it's hard for me to know, and it doesn't make him necessarily the bad person because this is what he's you know, been and that's that kind of shows how much of an impression the media can have, and like obviously with the globalization topic, like how much media is having an impact on identity and relationships now, Yeah, especially when they're growing up on this generation

in this space. And it kind of goes back to what I was saying that you can create your own echo chamber. You are inherently on your four you pages and your algorithm. Yeah, curating an echo chamber for yourself,

Andrew Hay is essentially like gaining the trust of young boys. And then I mean my brother said that ultimately he had to like part of the reason he started gaming less and moving to other games, not Fortnite, because this was mostly prevalent on games such as Fortnite, which obviously a much younger audience that which is probably why you were saying from a lot of your interviewees that they

weren't really experiencing it as much because that was on a different platform. So there was like FIFA and called duty and stuff one that a lot of people are reference and they're obviously a lot less impressionable than like a group of twelve

year olds. Yeah, so yeah, he kind of like distanced himself from that, but it really shows how I think it can have a massive impact definitely, And like also like the whole thing about him, like creating I don't really know the ins and outs, but like that Hustlers University thing that he like made. Have you heard about that? I remember hearing. I mean I know someone who I mean, I don't know them well enough, but I know someone who dropped out of the college they went to and joined

the Hustlers University. I don't know where they are now, had contact with them, joined Andrew Takes University, And it just shows how like impression of all this passion is because he's gained their trust, basically got them under his wing and sort of can manipulate his ideologies into their everyday valleys. I mean, it's not you know, some people can distinguish the difference between you know well, like like you were saying, it just depends what your algorithms feeding

you. Yeah, definitely, And in relating it to like also video games as well, Like it just shows how kind of blood the online world is. And like I don't really know, it's quite getting out of it going on the right lines because it's so easy to slip in, like casual sexism.

If you see someone getting getting this massive like following from it and like people not even well people obviously definitely batting an eye, but like they're following, they're following still ridiculously like or I think it's like the idea of even online you can penetrate like stereotypes and stuff. I remember one of the interviewees

was talking about. She was talking about and if you're revealed to be a girl on like a male only or like a predominantly male game, you're presumes to be bad at the game, or like they just don't want you cominent stuff. It's like, oh, you're playing a woman. Yeah. It's kind of like those ideals stem either from people's real life onto the online world, or those views on the online world penetrate to your life. I feel like that quote about like playing like a woman, it's like goes way way

back, like decades ago from where you know. It can be like if a woman's playing the sport, you're playing like a girl, throwing like a girl, stuff like that. So it just shows how like interconnected past the way women were treated in the past in like other activities and then into this

like globalized like modernized present world of where video games are heavily used. So it just shows that it is regressive and it also maybe provides like for young boys, obviously the online gaming community can provide a sense of safety and security, and maybe those regressive and traditional values provide that security in a sense. Yeah, like that's true. They feel connected to like it's just something. I mean, I am like, it's like that's I don't remember what so

I just said it, but it's I'm going off on a tangent. But about religion, people connect to traditional values because it makes them Bruce thinking, Yeah, that's what I'm trying to Yeah, that's a really good point. Actually, I think that's Yeah. I feel like we need to wrap this up. So I think we're going to be listening to fair. I could talk about us for ages, but I don't know, I go through like

the Grover terms. Yeah, yeah, obviously I was very unstructured. So but I'd say that the main term that this focused on is raising validity because obviously built a close rapport, like yeah, he seemed to trust it as well. He was very trusting and he was very open, open and honest, and it was kind of like self reflection. Yeah, that probably was quite like not just for like you, but probably quite insightful for him to

hear him. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Obviously generalizability is probably quite low. I guess you could say it's generalizable in the sense that it focuses on a younger audience, whereas a lot of yours older audience. You can kind of expand it to different age groups. Um, but yeah, I guess it wasn't particularly objective. It was kind of just more of an open discussion.

Yeah, so not particually reliable, but definitely like valid insight. I think the validity line is really important, I guess because I guess, like I mean with mit and I've just got a statistic, But because I don't know the people in the context thing, I can't question them about it. Further, I can't ask what made them say that, what led them to this, like all of that, Whereas I feel like you've got a very insightful like piece of information from him. Yeah, I think I think it's

very interesting to me. I think it's a really nice comparison to what all of my interview he said. It's kind of the behavior that Harper witnessed online. I think it really nicely rounds it up to kind of got different age ranges, and it seems to be the same kind of values carrying through the

values for behavior being carried through no matter what age you are. Yeah, it's interesting to see how like in the future this will like progress or like what will or reagress it even like you mean hopefully regression, like want The last interview I interviewed in them, including in this study, said that she felt that takes Rise meant that people calling out misogyny. Yeah, because it's kind of like all I mean with his new conviction, you can see how

how it turns out for people out how deep rooted misogyny can be. Yeah, so it kind of influences people to call out sexcessitudes and sexist behavior, which is really good. It's definitely good. But you can't agree, you

just haven't. It could also encourage it, yeah, exactly, And like if you want to be able to change, like to be able to change so many people's opinions, and everyone has to voice their opinion because if if you get one comment, like on TikTok saying one like the first comments say on a video being sexist, you didn't get a stream of comments after that, and that just like fuels that people's believes and stuff. But yeah, I'd say I've said all I me to say, yeah, so should we?

So what was our inial question? Our initial question was how aggressive misogynistic values presented in the gaming world. And I think that they are presented like I would say that over time, although the way that people may have come

about saying these things has changed. Obviously in the nineteen fifties or seventeen, commenting on you weren't commenting on TikTok's but maybe you were, like when you found out that this space game that was released in ninety seventy one was released, you might I don't know, from in the casual she's got nice boobs or something. I don't know, the locker room trap exactly exactly. I like you gave us like an example. Yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if I'm allowed to, I don't know. Well, I'm

proud, I'm a swarm for forty minutes. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Sorry, that makes me sound like I've got like a terrible like I've got a bad range of like vocabuy, I just like I don't know. I just okay, No I even know myself much anyway. No, I feel like the way that I turn around the way that aggressive misogynistic values are presented, I feel like it really from what I found out, it depends of what speed you're in world, which has got some hope that

you may just not encounter it at all. But that could mean you just get really lucky and get into a really nice world or that you've chosen. I'm not going to go there because that's really misogionistic. I'm going to limit myself to this space. Yeah, so I do not have to endure sexism on the daily or everything in time of play. So I feel like you

can actively remove yourself from the situations. But I would also argue that it's still very prominent, easier to become involved and easy to gradually kind of slip into that world. Exactly. I've seen with many young gamers. I think the perception that you know, there's a misogyny or it's not really that, but an online gaming is it's incorrect, it's incorrect, it's a flawed point

of view. Yeah, definitely, I think it's it's differ a limited perception exactly, and I guess you could literal like, there's a part it's fine, it's okay, it's giving us a little morale boots, it's like last leg the podcast. But yeah, I mean, I guess you could say that we're being like we could be seen as objective because we're all woman teenage girls. But I mean, from our point of view, if we're seeing sexism in society, then it's obviously an issue. Even if it's like a

minority of people showing sex statues, it's still very much presents. It's still an issue, no matter it's more Jessica, what do you think? I

mean, Yeah, I agree with everything that's been said. I think the idea of kind of maybe some of your interviewees maybe avoiding the misogyny, but then also by just saying that, oh, I think these values should be equal, it's kind of taking an attitude of avoidance to the issue of feminism and not really actually taking a reflective view of what's actually going on exactly. They're playing riddle kicks. I have no idea. Oh, okay to pause this, Okay, I know what I think we could say we should leave

at that. I remember when I like when me and just walking out for I was like, yeah, we like ten minutes when we're into it, like roughly ten minutes for fifty minutes later. I mean, because we also like took a break and also ye didn't He's going to be like listening to this sort of like the sped up version, two times version. We're very interesting people. I hope, yeah, hopefully listens. Hopefully you enjoyed. Yeah, if you, if you've got this bar, then thank you so

much. And I hope you enjoyed our research and found it interesting and sightful. Oh great minds think alike. Anyway, see you later. Thank you for listening. If you are a regular listener to The Sociology Show, then you could help with the cost of promoting and hosting the podcast. If you can spare even a small amount, then you can donate on the gofund me dot com website by search for the Sociology Show. There is no obligation, of course, and all future downloads will continue to be free. A huge

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