Welcome to esports, you suck: understanding new consumer socialisation within a toxic consumption collective

ABSTRACT

Consumption collectives manage conflict in various ways and socialise new consumers to ensure they participate in an appropriate manner. However, less is known about the new consumer experience within a conflict-ridden collective – particularly conflict arising from chronic and intensified anti-social practices. This study adopts a practice theory approach that combines interviews and netnography within the context of esports. Findings show a network of four practices that shape new consumer socialisation within a toxic consumption collective: learning, smurfing, scaffolding, and indoctrinating. While the practices of learning and scaffolding align new consumers into the required competencies of the collective, new consumers become embedded into a culture of negativity through the practices of smurfing and indoctrinating, through which toxicity becomes routinised. Overall, this network of practices shapes new consumer socialisation within online consumption collectives in both constructive and destructive ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Esports
• gaming
• consumption collectives
• consumer culture theory
• qualitative

Introduction

Wow, this guy sounds like a c*ck. “Whaaa, I didn’t play well and my team of anonymous strangers sh*t on me, whaaaa”. Claims he got yelled at by someone “more than half my age” (what does that even mean?). So let’s assume he’s like 35, and… can’t handle an argument? Online no less, lol. Can’t even mute? Like, welcome to the internet, have you seen Twitter yet? [I don’t know] what kind of fantasy world this guy lives in, where everyone is welcoming him all the time. reddit user. (Dota 2)

Toxicity – an emic term describing anti-social practices that result in a breakdown of communication between players, generating frustration and anger (Neto et al., 2017) – is rampant within the consumption collective of esports. Industry research suggests that 72% of multiplayer gamers have witnessed toxicity, 68% of gamers have experienced toxicity themselves, and 67% are likely to stop playing a game if they encounter toxicity from another player (Unity, 2021). Considering that there were 474 million global esports consumers in 2021 (Gough, 2022) and that 69% of US households have at least one gamer who on average spends thirteen hours per week gaming (Entertainment Software Association, 2022), the proliferation of toxicity in esports and gaming collectives is affecting consumers en masse. The harm to consumer well-being is significant: toxicity is linked to distressing psychological and emotional effects, can drive away new players from games, and increase isolation (Barasch et al., 2017; Dobscha & Foxman, 2012; Ewing et al., 2013; Grandprey-Shores et al., 2014; Gray, 2012; Harrison et al., 2016; Kuznekoff & Rose, 2013). Toxicity further affects key business outcomes such as brand reputation, credibility, and consumer purchase intentions (Dineva et al., 2017).

Recognising this growing issue, an emerging stream of the consumption collectives literature is beginning to explore the darker side of collectives. Studies in this stream have illuminated anti-social practices similar to toxicity, including trolling (Cruz et al., 2018; Demsar et al., 2021; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017) and consumer-to-consumer hostility (Dineva et al., 2017). These practices give rise to conflict, defined as goal incompatibility between members of a consumption collective (Chandrasapth et al., 2021). In particular, prior research has predominantly focused on conflict arising from authenticity and status contests (Schau et al., 2009; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995; Seregina & Weijo, 2017) and how these forms of conflict can be managed by socialising new consumers into the appropriate ways of behaving (Goulding et al., 2013; Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011; Schau et al., 2009).

However, less is known about new consumer socialisation within conflict-ridden collectives. While prior research shows that consumption collectives can offer new consumers a transformative learning experience through socialisation processes (Goulding et al., 2013; Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011; Schau et al., 2009; Ulusoy & Schembri, 2018), researchers have yet to consider what happens with the inverse, where toxicity may corrode and disrupt new consumer socialisation. Thus, we ask the question: what are the practices that shape new consumer socialisation in conflict-ridden consumption collectives?

We adopt a practice theory perspective (Shove et al., 2012) to explore new consumer socialisation within the conflict-ridden consumption collective of esports. Based on insider experience, interviews with esports consumers, and netnographic data focusing on the League of Legends and Dota 2 subreddits (subforums dedicated to a shared topic of interest), we found four practices that shape new consumer socialisation: learning, smurfing, scaffolding, and indoctrinating. Learning allows new players to gain competency with gameplay and social interactions within the collection. Smurfing is a practice where experienced players create new accounts to intentionally play against opponents with less skill. Scaffolding is where experienced players help socialise new players through the creation of resources and safe spaces. Finally, indoctrinating is where experienced players encourage the taken-for-granted acceptance of toxicity as a part of the collective. While the practices of learning and scaffolding align new consumers to the competencies required to participate, the practices of smurfing and indoctrinating illuminate how toxicity is reproduced within a collective.

This study contributes to the consumption collectives literature in three ways. First, our study extends the emerging stream of literature on the darker side of consumer interactions that shape new consumer socialisation (Moufahim et al., 2018) where anti-social practices permeate a collective and create conflict between members. Second, we expand existing understandings of anti-social practices beyond trolling (Cruz et al., 2018; Demsar et al., 2021; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017) and consumer-to-consumer hostility (Dineva et al., 2017) to include smurfing and indoctrinating as practices that disrupt new consumer socialisation. Finally, we explain why anti-social behaviour remains difficult to eradicate through a practice theory lens (Shove et al., 2012), illustrating how supportive and corrosive practices of new consumer socialisation remain interlinked through similar practice elements.

Literature review

Consumption collective conflict

Consumption collectives are ‘networks of social relations that arise around consumer goods, brands, other kinds of commercial symbols, and digital platforms’ (Arnould et al., 2021, p. 415). A variety of terms are used to describe the types of consumption collectives and social relations that characterise these collectives, such as subcultures (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995), brand communities (Muniz & O’guinn, 2001), consumer tribes (Goulding et al., 2013), and brand publics (Arvidsson & Caliandro, 2016). These conceptualisations capture a broadening of the concept from tight-knit, often geographically bound collectives, to collectives that emerge through online, ephemeral, and fragmented social interactions. Rather than social relationships between consumers being characterised as romantic and enduring, more recent terms such as brand publics (Arvidsson & Caliandro, 2016) illustrate loose and ephemeral relationships between consumers. Zwick and Bradshaw (2016) see these loose and ephemeral relationships as an indication that the conceptualisation of community functions ideologically for marketers to ‘extract value from the production of consumer communication, lifestyles, and subjectivities’ (p. 93). Despite the fragmentation of traditional notions of community in the online sphere and in an era of algorithmic consumer culture (Airoldi & Rokka, 2022; Kozinets, 2022), routinised ways of configuring social action can still be discerned in online consumer collectives.

Importantly, consumption collectives can be problematic and even self-destructive (Moufahim et al., 2018), with an emerging stream of literature revealing the darker side of consumption collectives. Consumption collectives are rife with conflict, where individuals or groups with incompatible goals interact with one another (Chandrasapth et al., 2021). Prior research illuminates two distinct yet inter-related perspectives on how conflict arises, and the practices developed by consumers to manage these conflicts.

Conflict arising from status contests

In relation to the first perspective, one dominant conceptual motif points towards competition for status within consumption collectives as a frequent and endemic source of conflict. Schau et al. (2009) discuss how members compete with one another through their engagement with practices that create and preserve social hierarchies. Consumers within the same collective advance differing understandings that govern what is considered authentic consumption; often, collective members with higher status reinforce boundaries between authentic and inauthentic consumption that enhance their distinction vis-à-vis lower status collective members (Arsel & Thompson, 2011; Beverland et al., 2010; Muniz & O’guinn, 2001; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995; Wiertz et al., 2010). In the case of the cosplay collective, for example, consumers who partake in cosplay for the ‘wrong reasons’ (e.g. to become famous) are scrutinised by the collective because such practices contradict the collective’s shared understanding of what is considered to be authentic participation (Seregina & Weijo, 2017). Taken together, these studies illustrate how consumers’ heterogeneous positions in complex collective hierarchies, alongside different understandings of how these hierarchies should be constituted, can create conflict between members of a consumption collective.

Conflict arising from anti-social practices

In addition to conflict arising from status, an emerging stream of research has also identified anti-social practices as a further source of conflict within consumption collectives. For example, trolling – intentional, deceptive and mischievous behaviours intended to provoke a reaction from other users for the benefit of the troll and their followers (Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017) – is an anti-social practice that may have negative impacts on a consumption collective. Cruz et al. (2018) illustrate how trolling is dependent on the context within which it takes place, requiring the troll to be a learned member of the collective for the practice to be successful. Other examples of anti-social practices, such as flaming (intentionally hurtful comments directed towards another person) and harassment, are particularly common in online consumption collectives. Seregina and Weijo (2017) note that competition within the online space of the cosplay collective fuels toxicity between members, where members with high status are more likely to encounter negative experiences such as cyberbullying or jealousy from other cosplayers through hostile social media comments. These verbal attacks between collective members can impact key business outcomes such as a brand’s reputation, credibility, and consumer purchase intentions (Dineva et al., 2017), as well as consumer-level outcomes such as emotional distress to consumers participating in or observing the conflict (Ewing et al., 2013).

Prior research also illuminates a wide range of practices that help manage consumption collective conflict. Sibai et al. (2015) conceptualise conflict management styles that enable collectives to maintain social order, mapping these styles according to a collective’s governance structure and moderation purposes. For example, a collective with a hierarchical governance structure would manage itself by defining roles, and rewarding acceptable behaviour while discouraging unacceptable behaviour (Sibai et al., 2015). Heterogeneous consumption collectives manage conflict through sharing resources, with Thomas et al. (2013) finding that destabilising forces can be overcome to preserve the collective’s continuity. Consumption collectives may also create a conflict culture that manages how members contend with conflict in a constructive way (Husemann et al., 2015). In essence, consumption collectives develop shared practices to manage conflict; these practices are shaped by the context and site within which they take place (Nicolini, 2013).

New consumer socialisation

While important insights have been advanced by consumer researchers about how conflict arises and is managed at the level of the collective, less is known about how conflict within consumption collectives shapes new consumer socialisation, defined as ‘the processes through which individuals become competent members of [a] consumption culture’ (Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011, p. 333). These processes become particularly salient during the initial stages of a consumer’s journey into a consumption collective. Studies such as Goulding et al. (2013), Littlefield and Ozanne (2011), and Schau et al. (2009) illustrate how consumers are socialised into collectives, though these studies have predominantly examined the positive outcomes of such practices. Welcoming practices, for example, provide new consumers with knowledge of how to navigate collective dynamics and behave appropriately within the collective (Schau et al., 2009). Several studies illustrate how mentors guide new consumers through their initial experiences. For example, Goulding et al. (2013) outline the rituals which new consumers undergo to become initiated within the rave culture consumer tribe. They become socialised as part of the collective, with experienced members acting as ritual masters to show new consumers the safe and appropriate ways of behaving. Similarly, Littlefield and Ozanne (2011) illustrate how consumers in the hunting subculture become socialised, with milestones demonstrating their increased prowess within the field. These socialisation practices are reproduced from consumer to consumer, with recently joined collective members participating in these practices with even newer consumers (Schau et al., 2009).

Yet against a backdrop in which anti-social practices are prevalent in online consumption collectives (Cruz et al., 2018; Dineva et al., 2017), it is surprising that less is known about the impact of this form of conflict on the socialisation of new consumers. As the consumer’s initial impressions can influence their overall consumption experience (Bhargave & Montgomery, 2013), understanding how conflict shapes new consumer socialisation can provide valuable insights into collective management. Thus, we ask the question: What are the practices that shape new consumer socialisation in toxic consumption collectives?

Practice theory

This study adopts Shove et al. (2012) framework of practice theory to understand how configurations of materials, meanings, and competencies result in different yet related practices that shape new consumer socialisation in toxic consumption collectives. According to Reckwitz (2002, p. 250), practices are ‘a routinised way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described, and the world is understood’. Practice theory allows us to describe the routinised behaviours through which our social world is understood (Warde, 2014). In adopting practice theory, this study aligns with a broader stream of consumer research that explores consumer socialisation within consumption collectives (Goulding et al., 2013; Schau et al., 2009; Seregina & Weijo, 2017). As collectives continue to emerge online and develop new ways of orienting their members to appropriate ways of behaving and interacting in a digital environment, a practice theory approach allows us to explore these routinised configurations.

Shove et al. (2012) provide a framework for understanding practices which consist of materials, competencies, and meanings. Materials comprise of things, technologies, and objects that are used in practices. Competencies are the skills, know-how, and techniques required to enact practices. Meanings are the teleoaffective formations – the combination of goals, ends, emotions, and motivations that orient practices to common understandings (Welch, 2020) – that provide general understandings of the normative and affective aspects of practices and the symbols, ideas, and aspirations that organise the performance of practices (Shove et al., 2012). It is the patterned interlinkages between these elements, as enacted in routinised moments of performance by practitioners, that constitute a practice. Thus, it is the elements and their configurations that are the focus of analysis, rather than the motivations of individuals. Furthermore, Shove et al. (2012) framework allows us to consider materials as an important element of practices, particularly in a context such as esports where technology shapes how consumption is experienced (Seo & Jung, 2016). Prior work recognises how consumers interact with digital items as consumption objects (Denegri‐knott & Molesworth, 2010; Mardon & Belk, 2018; Watkins, 2015), suggesting that practice materials in online contexts involve digital ‘objects, tools, infrastructure, [and] spaces’ (Seregina & Weijo, 2017, p. 143).

While practices require a practitioner to make links between materials, meanings, and competencies to be performed (Shove et al., 2012), they are social in nature as they reflect collective understandings of a culture (Reckwitz, 2002). Here, consumers are enrolled into particular modes of thinking, feeling, and behaving as they are structured by the configurations of competences, materials, and meanings in a particular context. This is not to say that consumer behaviour is fully determined; individual practitioners of practice still have scope to resist and reconfigure elements of existing practices into new forms (Shove et al., 2012). The practice itself becomes the unit of analysis rather than the individuals that perform them, providing a link between individual practitioners and the social spaces within which practices occur (Hargreaves, 2011). These social spaces provide the context within which practices intersect and where the configuration of materials, meanings, and competencies necessary for practicing emerge – with different spaces requiring different configurations (Nicolini, 2011). However, as Shove et al. (2012) discuss, spaces may also be the outcome of a practice, where the combination of elements remake a space. Practices may also compete for space, where geographical space – or perhaps in the case of esports, digital space – may host multiple practices (Shove et al., 2012). This suggests that practices must be understood within the spaces they create or are practiced within for us to describe the routinised behaviours of our social world. In the context of this study, practice theory allows us to understand how toxicity is passed on to new practitioners, thus becoming a routinised practice within the esports consumption collective.

Research context: esports

The esports collective presents a suitable context to explore the practices that shape new consumer socialisation within toxic consumption collectives. Esports are video games played in a competitive and organised manner (Witkowski, 2012), typically through tournaments with both a live and digital audience. Recognised as an experiential consumption field (Seo, 2013), esports sits between reality and the digital, where the online and offline worlds merge in a hybrid space (Šimůnková, 2019). The esports collective was more often than not the driving force behind much of the early professionalisation of competitive gaming, bringing both passion for the games they play and sometimes monetary investment required to host tournaments (T. L. Taylor, 2012). Prosumption was, and still is, common within the esports collective, with Seo and Jung’s (2016) research on the social practices of esports describing three distinct practices players engage in to actualise and sustain the industry: playing, spectating, and governing. Despite its growth in popularity and its professionalisation, the esports collective retains its insider culture (Seo, 2013; T. L. Taylor, 2012), where participation requires an understanding of norms, behaviours, and language. Esports consumption is varied, ranging from highly to casually involved, with a variety of activities focused on individual skill improvement or more social aspects such as group spectating (Huston et al., 2021).

However, esports, and online gaming more broadly, is plagued with anti-social practices which can be highly disruptive to gameplay (Türkay et al., 2020) and creates a challenging environment for consumers. This has created a toxic consumption collective, which we define as collectives with chronic and intensified levels of anti-social practices. The emic term ‘toxic’ is used in this study to describe a variety of anti-social practices that occur within the esports field. Despite being recognised as a common type of practice, it is difficult to define toxicity as a concept due to the variety of practices it may refer to and different etiquettes across game titles (Gandolfi & Ferdig, 2021; Kwak et al., 2015). Broadly, toxicity is an umbrella term that refers to a range of behaviours including racism, sexism, aggression, spamming, and trolling (Gandolfi & Ferdig, 2021; Kordyaka et al., 2020). These behaviours result in a breakdown of communication between players (Neto et al., 2017) and can cause emotional and psychological harm to individuals (Cruz et al., 2018; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017; Grandprey-Shores et al., 2014), providing a context where the darker side of consumption collectives is salient.

Methodology

An ethics application was submitted to and approved by the university’s human research ethics committee. Three data collection techniques were used for this study: insider immersion, interviews, and netnographic observation. Pseudonyms chosen by interview participants were used throughout this paper to ensure participant anonymity. Netnographic data used was publicly available on reddit, though any quotes selected to represent themes were slightly altered to preserve user anonymity.

First, insider immersion provided understanding of the nuances esports and enabled proficiency in the unique language used by esports consumers. The first author had engaged with the online gaming collective over eight years, including casual and competitive gameplay, esports spectatorship, memberships with online gaming discussion forums, and the consumption of online gaming media such as YouTube and news articles. Insider immersion allowed the first author to quickly build rapport with participants during interviews, particularly those recruited through the researcher’s own network (Blythe et al., 2013; Gowricharn, 2019), and helped the researchers understand and interpret the data set.

Second, interviews provided emic accounts of consumer experiences within the esports field (Daymon & Holloway, 2010) and offered insights into esports consumption more broadly. A total of twenty-six interviews lasting for 45 minutes on average were conducted, with esports consumers recruited through a combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling. Table 1 outlines the list of interview participants. These interviews discussed the consumer journey within esports and provided initial insights into new consumer socialisation. Participants self-identified as having watched or participated in esports. Participants were typically players of the game titles they consumed as opposed to simply spectators. Most participants had started gaming from a young age and were introduced to esports through games they played. While not new to gaming more broadly, participants experienced being a new player when trying out game titles for the first time. As such, participants were able to reflect on their own experiences and discuss challenges they faced when learning about esports. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded line by line before gradually combining data from multiple interviews into categories. Multiple readings of the data allowed categories to be incorporated into broader themes, which formed the basis for subsequent netnographic data collection.

Table 1. Interview participant list.

Pseudonym	Age	Gender	Occupation	Practices engaged in	Esports titles discussed
Ankie	27	Male	Student	Spectating, playing	League of Legends, World of Warcraft
Bite	42	Female	Unemployed	Playing	World of Warcraft
Blackhawkfound	24	Male	Public servant	Spectating, playing	Dota 2, Overwatch, speedrunning
Blue	23	Male	Game developer	Spectating, playing	World of Warcraft, Halo, speedrunning
Celestraa	21	Female	Student/content creator	Spectating, playing, analyzing	League of Legends, Overwatch, various fighting games
Dazz	36	Male	Sports coach manager	Spectating, playing	World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Dota
Grzltn	56	Male	Entrepreneur/business manager	Spectating	CS:GO, PUBG
Jett	28	Female	Stream manager	Casting, spectating, playing, organizing	Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm
Jobichi	29	Female	Preschool teacher	Organizing, spectating, playing	Pokémon
L	29	Male	Videographer/script writer	Spectating, playing	Dota 2
Leetah	31	Male	Project coordinator	Spectating, playing	League of Legends, CS:GO
N	24	Male	Student	Organizing, spectating, playing	Pokémon, speedrunning
Ollanian	25	Male	Teaching associate	Spectating, playing	Dota 2, Hearthstone
P	24	Male	Software developer	Spectating, playing	Dota 2
Paulverizer	32	Male	Senior server engineer	Spectating, playing	Counterstrike, Starcraft, Halo
Pav	27	Male	Highschool teacher	Spectating, playing	League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Overwatch
Raga	26	Male	Technical assistant/consultant	Organizing, spectating, playing	League of Legends, World of Warcraft
Sphealbug	25	Female	Freelance designer	Spectating, playing	SMITE
Suber	31	Male	Finance analyst	Spectating, playing, organizing	Dota 2
Wolfram	22	Male	Public relations	Spectating, playing	Super Smash Bros, Pokémon

Third, netnographic data was collected through the online discussion forum reddit to develop a deeper understanding of new consumer socialisation within esports. As netnography allows for the study of digital cultural phenomena in a natural setting (Kozinets et al., 2014), this technique provided data on the new player experience as it occurs. The League of Legends and Dota 2 subreddits formed the netnographic data collection sites. These game titles’ subreddits were chosen for three reasons. First, reddit was noted by interview participants as a source of information and discussion of esports, with both subreddits being highly active. Second, while interviewees discussed various esports, League of Legends and Dota 2 were commonly mentioned games, with interviews providing preliminary insights into consumption experiences. Finally, the primary researcher’s insiderhood with these titles provides emic knowledge and understandings that assist with the data analysis process.

A total of 42 threads and 13,513 comments spanning over 800 single spaced pages resulted from netnographic data collection. The primary researcher organically collected threads throughout March 2020 and June 2021 through daily browsing of the subreddits, and identified those relevant to new player socialisation. These threads discussed first-hand accounts of the new player experience or experienced players’ perspectives of new players. A second round of data collected through specific search terms such as ‘new player’ ensured a broad coverage of the data site. Threads with fewer than 100 comments were examined but due to the insufficient depth of discussion between users, these threads were excluded from the final data set.

Data were analysed through a practice theory lens, allowing the researchers to understand routinised behaviours and the contexts within which they are situated (Nicolini, 2013). While insider immersion is often beneficial to qualitative research, it does present challenges regarding objectivity and accuracy of analysis (Blythe et al., 2013). To ensure the quality of analysis, regular discussions were held between the researcher team, with the second and third authors bringing outsiders’ perspectives to the data set. This allowed for the identification and discussion of alternative perspectives. Interviews were transcribed and analysed as they were taken, with subsequent interviews building on the analysis of early interviews. Data were coded using open, axial, and selective codes (Daymon & Holloway, 2010). This coding strategy was also used for the netnographic data, with interview and netnographic data combined into axial codes based on similarities. Finally, selective codes provided the broader themes discussed in the findings section.

Findings

The findings section is discussed through a network of four practices found to shape new consumer socialisation within a conflict-ridden consumption collective: learning, smurfing, scaffolding, and indoctrinating. While these practices carry both constructive and corrosive implications for new consumer socialisation, our analysis shows that these practices are interrelated and utilise different configurations of materials, meanings, and competencies. The first two practices, learning and smurfing, while relying on similar materials, have different teleoaffective structures. While the constructive practice of learning is aimed at aligning the new player with the expected skills and competences of the collective, the toxic practice of smurfing is intentionally aimed at misaligning competencies for the smurf’s malicious entertainment. The next two practices, scaffolding and indoctrinating, shape new consumer socialisation in different ways. While the toxic practice of scaffolding helps accelerate the alignment of new players within safe and supportive spaces, the practice of indoctrinating aligns new players towards normalising toxicity within the collective. Table 2 summarises each practice and their implications for new consumer socialisation and toxicity.

Table 2. Summary of practices.

Nature and focus of practice	Practice	Practice components	Implications for new consumer socialisation	Implications for toxicity	Practical implications
Non-toxic: Aligns new players to required skills and competences	Learning: the practice of the new player gaining competency with gameplay and social interactions within the collective	Materials: developer and collective created learning resources, matchmaking system, new account. Competencies: little understanding of game, gradually building competency through learning. Meanings: expected to be masters of the game.	Aligns the new player with the expected skill levels of the collective: Navigating the material resources such as the matchmaking system and the complexities of the game. Acquiring the shared understanding of the new player’s expected performance within the collective. Developing competencies with the game and player-to-player interactions.	New consumers learn the skills necessary to play the game and understand toxicity as a key collective norm. As toxicity is a key collective norm, new consumers come to see it as necessary for survival within the collective. The collective understandings of new players are often unreasonable and demand a high degree of competency from new players despite their lack of experience. The discrepancy between expected competency level and actual performance of new players often erupts in toxicity.	Developer/publisher provides a suite of materials for new consumers (e.g. video tutorials, community created guides) to build competencies. Ensure materials that support learning practices are embedded within the game itself rather than on third-party websites.
Toxic: Misaligns skill levels in new player spaces	Smurfing: the practice where experienced players create a new account to intentionally play against opponents with less skill	Materials: matchmaking system, new account. Competencies: higher degree of competencies than opponents, understanding of how to hijack the matchmaking system. Meanings: malicious form of entertainment, considered as normal due to regularity within the collective.	Intentional misalignment of skill levels for malicious entertainment: Hinders the practice of learning by hijacking safe spaces intended to be used by new players. New consumers are disproportionately exposed to toxic players at the start of their journey.	Signals toxicity as normal due to new players seeing frequent toxicity in their early games. Failure of gatekeeping systems (such as matchmaking) designed to group players of similar competencies together enables toxicity to erode safe spaces intended for learning.	Design material components that create additional barriers to smurfing, e.g. by requiring new accounts to undergo learning/tutorial games before they are able to play against other players (including for unranked games).
Non-toxic: Accelerates alignment of new players within safe and supportive spaces	Scaffolding: the practice where experienced players create resources and spaces to socialise new players and accelerate learning practices	Materials: collective learning resources, communication platforms (e.g. Discord), private game mode. Competencies: sufficient skill and understanding of the game, competence with mentoring. Meanings: shared understanding of creating a safe space for learning, taking responsibility to provide new players with guidance.	Accelerates the practice of learning: Provides new players with resources on how to gain competency with the game. Creates a safe space for the practice of learning to occur. Develops parasocial relationships with experience players who act as supportive guides/mentors.	Insulates new consumers from toxicity by providing a safe space for learning. Paradoxically, new players need to develop a degree of competency to know how and where to find these safe spaces.	Developer/publisher should provide official support of these scaffolding practices to reduce the barriers of entry into safe spaces for learning (e.g. listing third-party learning communities in the game/on official website, in addition to embedding them in the game itself).
Toxic: Aligns new players to destructive collective norms	Indoctrinating: where experienced players encourage the taken-for-granted acceptance of toxicity as a part of the collective Alignment, toxic	Materials: text-based communication platforms both in-game and outside the game (e.g. reddit). Competencies: degree of understanding of the game and its collective, fluency in expletives. Meanings: shared understanding of toxicity as a trial to be overcome, reinforces as a regular occurrence, frames less skilled players as deserving targets of toxicity.	Aligns new players to the toxic environment: Desensitises new players to toxicity. Promotes the understanding of toxicity as a trial to be overcome. Less skilled consumers are blamed for their misalignment of competencies and framed as deserving targets of toxicity.	Reinforces and excuses toxicity as a regular occurrence, rather than as an issue that needs to be addressed – this understanding is reinforced from the beginning of the new consumer’s journey. Unlike the temporary nature of initiation rites, the toxicity reinforced through indoctrinating practices endures through the consumer’s journey. Dampens organised resistance to toxicity at the collective level by promoting individual-level coping.	Community leaders and developers/publishers need to become positive role models and call out instances of toxicity. Promote an understanding of alternate ways to address toxicity at the collective level. Collaborate with collective to develop a clear understanding of what constitutes toxicity to re-sensitise players when it occurs.

Learning

The practice of learning is where the new player gains competency with the game and interactions with the collective. Within esports, new players draw on a configuration of materials, competencies, and meanings that enable them to begin playing the game. The material components of learning create a steep learning curve for new players due to their complexity and liquidity. Games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends are highly complex, with over a hundred unique characters each with four (sometimes more) different abilities available to play. As the game is highly complex, competency is of vital importance to consumers. However, the games themselves often lack important materials that assist players with gaining competency – for example, the tutorial for Dota 2 is generally acknowledged as insufficient in teaching new players how to play. The lack of information in-game is particularly prevalent in League of Legends, where skill, ability, and item descriptions are missing from the games. New players need to assemble competencies through various materials such as third-party websites to obtain information on how mechanics work in the game, rather than being able to read descriptions as they are introduced.

This is not only bad for new players, but for experienced players too. Sometimes you want to check something. How long was Darius ultimate cooldown at level 6? Well, you’ll need to check an external site to know it! Either that, or play a Darius game and write it down on a post-it and put it on your monitor. Some champs even have a “Press shift to show more info” tooltip, but when you press shift there is literally no additional info. Sometimes, it will hide a small text on the bottom that says things like “This skill deals 33% damage to monsters” and it’s like dude! We don’t need a shift button to hide 6 words! reddit user. (League of Legends)

Compounded with the highly liquid nature (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2017) of many esports, the complexity of the game can make it overwhelming for a new consumer to learn. Major content patches frequently change the game’s mechanics and new playable characters are introduced regularly to retain the interest of veteran players. In addition to fundamental game changes, the meta – the set of tactics and strategies perceived by the collective as being the most effective way of playing a game – evolves to cater to new information and interactions within the game. Even without changes to the game itself through updates, the meta constantly changes as players experiment with new ways of play, which in turn adds an additional layer of complexity and liquidity to esports consumption.

Game is hard. That’s about it, really. A lot of things go on in the screen and you’re like what the hell is going on? Why is this player doing that, why is this good, why is this bad? Why do they pick the way they pick? Why do they do things at the time they do things? There’s a lot going on that sometimes even the people watching miss or the people [commentating] miss. P (male, 24, interview)

In addition to the complexity of the game itself, learning the game requires new players to navigate the matchmaking system, wherein the system connects players with opponents for games. A key assumption when entering a game via the matchmaking system is that matched players are at a similar skill level. However, these systems are often flawed, as new accounts are calibrated to a skill level based on minimal gameplay. Consequently, the matchmaking system algorithm means that new players are frequently forced to play against very experienced players when they start their journey, creating tensions between new and experienced players. This links to Airoldi and Rokka’s (2022) discussion of algorithmic consumer culture, a dialectical negotiation process in a highly technocultural world, where algorithms shape and are shaped by consumption. Kozinets (2022) proposes the similar concept of algorithmic branding, which seeks to explain how the logic of data alters the practice of branding. Algorithms such as the matchmaking system influence the consumer experience by heightening the differences in competencies between new and experienced players particularly when matched together in the same game, as players in high skill brackets have a different set of competencies that allow more complicated character builds to be successful. Similarly, strategies used at the lower skill brackets of play are easily countered by higher skilled players due to their know-how and technique. Thus, in the context of algorithmic consumer culture, the game design exacerbates the toxicity new consumers face as they are placed in the same games as more experienced consumers due to the matchmaking algorithm.

Well this is different. This case is more like, you’re an experienced boxer, and you decide to enter a competition, and no one asks you if you have previous boxing experience. In fact, you’re not even given the option to. They then proceed to stick you in the ring with a newbie and you KO him in one punch. That’s not cheating, it’s just a poorly designed system. reddit user . (League of Legends)

Furthermore, the new player is understood within the teleoaffective structures and meanings of gaming where they are expected to be master of the game before they begin. The complexity of the game coupled with the availability of information through third-party websites creates a conundrum for new players – they have little experience with the game yet are expected to play as if they have a high degree of competencies from prior research. As the following quote illustrates, these unrealistic expectations create tensions between new and experienced players who are often matched in the same games through the matchmaking system:

It’s a strawman argument and what aboutisms. The new player experience for Dota is absolutely shocking, and when new players are being matched with players with 100s if not 1000s of games under their belt and when they underperform, they’re getting flamed more than average regardless of their own attitude. reddit user (Dota 2)

For new players, this leads to a negative experience as they are often flamed by all other players in the game, including teammates. As Sphealbug discusses in the following quote, the abuse that new players receive due to high expectations can be hurtful and demoralising:

That’s one of the hardest parts of trying to get into esports is that the community is usually very, very toxic. And you don’t just have salty people on your team, you have people on the other team who would flame you as well if you’re not good. Like I feel like one of the challenges for esports types of things is that if you’re trying to get into playing the way that professional players would play, it’s almost impossible unless you’re already very good and who starts off like that? Unless you have really, really thick skin and you can tolerate that kind of abuse, I think it’s quite hard to really get into it … Obviously there’s reasons why you would do that kind of thing, it’s just that how people teach you is very hurtful … And then there’s me getting killed 7, 8 times and getting no kills. Like I understand their frustration, but there is no need for them to be mean about it. Sphealbug (female, 25, interview)

While new players are the practitioners engaging in learning, the meanings of the practice are shaped by the broader collective who expect new players to be masters at the game, particularly as other practices intersect with learning through the use of common materials. The practice of learning aligns new players with the expected skill levels of the collective, requiring new players to navigate material resources and develop competencies with the game and player-to-player interactions. However, new players are expected to have a high degree of competency despite their lack of experience; the discrepancy between expected competency and actual performance often erupts in toxicity. Through their learning practices, new players develop the shared understanding that toxicity is not only a norm, but required for survival within the collective.

Smurfing

Smurfing is the practice where experienced players intentionally misalign competencies by creating new accounts (known as smurfs) to play against opponents with less skill. This practice utilises similar material components as learning, though the competencies and meanings of the practice differ. Conflict occurs due to the different configurations of elements that comprise the practices of learning and smurfing. While new consumers aim to learn the game in an ideally safe environment, smurfs play to win and beat less experienced players in the process, resulting in conflict between the practitioners of each practice. As the following comment illustrates, there are various reasons why players engage in smurfing, though most of these reasons share the same aim of disturbing the gaming experience of other players: ‘

Yeah, there’s a few reasons to smurf on a lower elo account.

1. You are banned on primary 2. You have friends who are lower elo and want to play with them 3. You want to feel better about your skill at the expense of others. 4. You are a streamer/content creator and want to make some silly video. 5. You are trying to sell accounts or something.

With the exception of reason #2. All of those types of people are deciding that what they want is worth ruining the game for everyone else. So, telling that person “hey you don’t have to ruin other people’s experience” means pretty much nothing to them. Because the response of “but I want to” is literally in line with their prior actions. I’d also say that a decent amount of the people smurfing to play with their worse friends are less likely to flame people for being bad, since their group has a bad player most likely. So yeah, in short; the people this message is directed towards won’t care about this message’. reddit user. (League of Legends)

For new players, smurfing creates two key challenges. Firstly, smurfing is a common practice, creating meanings around the practice that shapes how new players are perceived by the collective. The game is a core material component of the practice, with the free-to-play nature of games such as League of Legends and Dota 2 facilitating smurfing, as new accounts can be created without purchasing anything – meaning players previously banned for toxicity can continue playing the game without difficulty. This allows smurf accounts to be created easily, contributing to the practice being understood as common within the collective. As smurfing is so widespread, it hijacks the teleoaffective structures around the practice of learning as new accounts are assumed to be smurfs. For new players, this creates the additional challenge of disproving the assumption they are a smurf or a troll – a person who deliberately antagonises others for a reaction typically in the digital space (Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017). As the following quote illustrates, new players sometimes need to remind other players that genuine new players exist in the lower skill brackets.

Hey you diamond club players and challenger [one trick ponies]. When you come smurfing into my bronze games with your level 30 account, can you just take it easy and recognise I’m learning the game and playing champs I want to play that I don’t have mastery 7 on. Just let me play the game, quit the spam pinging, pre and post-game flame, and just let me learn how to play ranked better. reddit user Hey you diamond club players and challenger. [one trick ponies]

Secondly, smurfing as a practice utilises the matchmaking system, a component shared by all players, including those learning the game. However, while the matchmaking system is part of the configuration of both learning and smurfing, smurfing takes advantage of the system’s flaws as a key component of the practice. Airoldi and Rokka (2022, p. 10) note that ‘algorithms are also subject to consumer adaptation, negotiation, and new forms of resistance to marketers’ control’, where consumers have a degree of agency over the information presented by algorithms. Smurfing illustrates an additional dimension to algorithmic consumer culture, where consumers are actively taking advantage of algorithm design to facilitate this practice. As the matchmaking system requires a certain amount of data on a new account in order to assign it a rank, there are a number of games that can be played without being detected as a smurf account. Genuine new accounts are placed in games with smurf accounts, creating tensions between these practices as they compete within the same space though with differing competencies and meanings. Many games containing new players also have smurfs, resulting in an imbalance of skill, and with the smurf typically dominating the game. The differences in competencies between the practice of learning and the practice of smurfing often triggers toxicity and conflict.

‘What I don’t understand is people who are toxic to people who aren’t smurfing. This is honestly ruining the game for me, and I know that I can’t be alone in this experience. I don’t want to play League after getting abuse from people for 30 minutes. Yes, I mute, but the damage is already done for me when they start because I know they’re still doing it, I just can’t hear them. Their toxicity makes me tilted which makes me play worse, and because of it I just had one of the worst games I’ve ever had. Sometimes I feel like going [away from keyboard] but then I know that I’ll get punished for it and they won’t get reported in the end because (as far as I know) there’s no way to report people after matches’. reddit user. (League of Legends)

These challenges to new players suggest the practices of smurfing and learning interact with one another in a network of practices. For new players, the practice of smurfing exposes them to a disproportionate number of toxic players as they engage in the practice of learning. This conveys a shared understanding that toxicity is normal within the collective. Conflicts occur when practices (such as learning and smurfing) utilise similar materials, while carrying a different set of meanings and competencies. However, as illustrated by smurfing, design flaws in the material components of a practice make it susceptible to hijacking; the failure of gatekeeping systems such as matchmaking enables toxicity to erode safe spaces intended for learning practices. While Thomas et al. (2013) find that conflict resulting from heterogeneity within a community can be overcome when members depend on each other for resources, our findings suggest that sharing resources between heterogeneous groups can result in conflict. In the case of smurfing, sharing resources such as new accounts and the matchmaking system contributes to a distorted view of how learning is framed by the collective – new accounts are either smurfs or trolls and are expected to be competent at the game.

Scaffolding

Within the conflict-ridden collective, scaffolding is the practice where experienced players create resources and spaces to socialise new players and accelerate learning practices, similar to the socialisation practices seen in the hunting subculture (Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011) and clubbing consumer tribe (Goulding et al., 2013). Prominent streamers and content creators provide a range of video tutorials explaining game basics for new players that act as a replacement to developer-created tutorials that often lack vital information. Additionally, the collective compiles game-related information on external websites such as wikis. However, resources by themselves are insufficient, particularly as new consumers may be unsure of where to look for information. In these cases, new consumers rely on experienced players to indicate which guides and websites would be beneficial, with experienced players often providing popular guides that they themselves have used. The following quote illustrates how advice from the collective such as ‘mute all other players’ and ‘play with friends’ allowed a new player who had been experiencing toxicity in their first few games to improve their gameplay:

Edit. This really blew up! I will seek out groups for people to play with. The positive comments really made me see that there are a lot of friendly people in this community. Thank you everyone! Edit 2. I had my first pentakill yesterday! I’ve improved a lot since this post and I’m very close to being able to play ranked. reddit User (League of Legends)

Experienced players engage in scaffolding practices through collective-created initiatives that aim to provide new players with a thorough introduction to the game. Subcommunities such as Dota From Zero use a configuration of materials, competencies, and meanings that create a safe space for new consumers learning the game. Discord – a communication platform often used by gamers – allows players to create private servers for text and voice communication. Coaches guide new players within the subcollective and act as a point of information for any questions. As Shove et al. (2012) note, practices require space to be enacted, though space may also be an outcome of a practice. Custom game lobbies allow scaffolding subcommunities to gather a group of similarly skilled players, bypassing the matchmaking system and its challenges of smurfs and the matchmaking algorithm. New players can thus engage in the practice of learning, facilitated through the space created by scaffolding. As the following quote illustrates, subcommunities through the practice of scaffolding provide a safe space for new players to learn and improve:

I joined [Dota From Zero] in February. I’d played a few bot matches and one devastating Turbo match and I swore I’d literally never go into unranked again. Now I’ve played for over 500 hours, I’ve met some really cool people who I regularly play with, and I’ve gone from losing literally every game I played in unranked to winning at least half the time.

Playing the lobbies has been kinda invaluable. My first ever 5v5 lobby I played a Windranger against a Skywrath Mage and was owned so badly, but the other day I played the same match-up and felt ready for it. This has happened a lot and it’s really helped my confidence. Being able to ask a coach to go over replays of difficult matches has been utterly invaluable. Anyway, I highly recommend the server for new players, and it’s just a pleasant place even if you’re not brand spankin new!’ reddit user. (Dota 2)

Within the game itself, the Dota 2 collective in particular has attempted to create in-game tutorials through the custom games section. However, one challenge of creating a tutorial – as noted by collective members – is the liquidity of the game. As the game is constantly changing, the tutorial would need to be frequently updated to account for changes in required competencies, otherwise it would become outdated or equip new players with incorrect competencies. Another challenge is the visibility – as tutorials are not created by the official game development team nor easily accessible in the game menu, new players would have to know where to look in order to learn from the tutorials. These collective initiatives partially address the lack of in-game learning resources provided by the developer, though still require some form of developer support:

[Creating a tutorial] will need more collaboration from Valve beyond the altering custom game requirement to play X amount of normal matches. Looking at it from the perspective of a new player they won’t know they have to download a custom map to learn the basics of the game. No other game does that. This needs to be a “hey, you’re new to the game, would you like to play the tutorial?” kind of deal with a popup or something. reddit User. (Dota 2)

Scaffolding provides a positive configuration of elements that interacts with the practice of learning and helps socialise new players to the collective, insulating new consumers from toxicity. New players are provided with a safe space to gain competency with the game and develop parasocial relationships with experienced players who act as supportive mentors. Paradoxically, new players need to develop a degree of competency to know where and how to find these safe spaces. However, an alternative configuration of elements presents a negative practice – indoctrinating – that also socialises new consumers, though helps to reproduce and normalise toxicity.

Indoctrinating

In addition to scaffolding, the esports collective also engages in indoctrinating practices – where new collective members are taught to accept an unquestioned set of beliefs (R. M. Taylor, 2017) – to ensure new consumers behave appropriately and to prepare them for the reality of competitive gaming. The practice of indoctrinating is where experienced players encourage the taken-for-granted acceptance of toxicity as part of the collective. In contrast to the positive socialisation practices seen in the hunting subculture (Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011) and clubbing consumer tribe (Goulding et al., 2013), indoctrinating often includes flaming, harassment, and purposely targeting or killing new players in games. Having gone through the experience of learning the game from the beginning, experienced players see the toxic collective as a trial that must be overcome – new players need to ‘harden up’ and not rely on ‘hand holding’ when learning the game. Experienced consumers recommend that new players quit the game unless they are capable of handling toxicity and the steep learning curve. In some cases, experienced consumers believe that new players ‘deserve’ the toxicity directed towards them and will often use the excuse of ‘saving’ the new consumer from the game before they become too invested. This toxicity arises in-game through trolling, toxicity, and bullying.

How about you stay the hell out of ranked games until you improve. These “smurfs” you’re crying about are most likely just “better than you” bronze players who are looking to climb themselves. New players think they can shout the word “toxic” and magically all their horrendous gameplay is forgiven. Maybe it’s you kid; maybe it’s you’. reddit user. (League of Legends)

Indoctrinating practices extend beyond in-game interactions to sites such as reddit, where even a positive post is responded to with toxicity towards new players. One user explained how they and their friends had encountered a new player on the enemy team. Rather than killing the new player repeatedly, as is often the case when experienced players recognise a new player on the enemy team, the user allowed the new player to enjoy the game. However, other users were less supportive of this and noted that they would ‘destroy’ the new player to ‘teach them the reality of Dota’. Being kind to the new player in this case was also viewed by other users as a form of toxicity – allowing the new player to have fun creates a false perception that they are good at the game. Other users noted that if they were in the new player’s position, they would find this patronising rather than enjoyable. Additionally, some users noted that allowing a new player to win a game is the ultimate form of toxicity as it affects their matchmaking score (new accounts calibrate to a skill rank after a set number of games), making it likely they would be matched with more skilled players in subsequent games.

‘Like spoiling a child. The best way is to f*ck him up a new a**hole. If he leaves dota he doesn’t deserve it here. If he sticks around, he will find ways to not let it happen to him again and he will strive to improve’. reddit user (Dota 2)

Material components such as game design also contribute to indoctrinating practices. As games often last upwards of thirty minutes, players can feel as though they are ‘held hostage’ when a new player is on their team. For players with little time to play, this creates frustrations as penalties are incorporated into the game’s design for leaving a game before its conclusion. Due to their lack of competencies, new players are seen to be the cause of mistakes that occur in a game. This creates conflict between the groups, particularly as the competitive and multiplayer nature of these games allows players to attribute failure to others (Adinolf & Turkay, 2018). New consumers become practitioners of indoctrinating practices and help perpetuate the negative culture. For example, Joe discussed how new players become toxic themselves as this is seen to be acceptable behaviour.

‘For one, it could just nurture them to be toxic themselves cause that’s the environment they’re playing at. So, if I play a game and someone started swearing at me right away, I’ll just take it that that’s the game and I’ll start swearing at people right away’. Joe (29, male, interview)

In addition to the overt toxicity towards new players, experienced consumers also provide advice to new consumers that reinforce the meanings that enable toxicity to be reproduced in the collective. Having gone through the trials of learning the game themselves, experienced players often tell new players to ‘deal with it’, ‘git gud’ (slang for improve at the game), or to accept that the collective is toxic. Practical pieces of advice such as mute all other players in games are common and considered to be very important for the new player experience, reinforcing the collective’s negative culture by telling new players to ignore toxicity. This suggests that toxicity is normalised in part by indoctrinating new players into a negative culture. As the following quote illustrates, it is necessary to mute all other players when learning:

‘If you wanna play somewhat competitive games nowadays, you have to mute enemies by default and possibly 1 or 2 randoms from your team. I love that you can basically disable anything from the enemies in CS:GO. Nicknames, profile pictures, voice, chat. It’s sadly necessary. I despise it, but there is not much you can do except lead with a positive attitude and don’t let the toxic people drag you down to their level’. reddit user (Dota 2)

As practices are passed on through practitioners (Reckwitz, 2002), new players themselves become practitioners of indoctrinating practices and continue to normalise toxicity within the collective. Indoctrinating practices desensitise new players to toxicity from the beginning of their journey and promote an understanding of toxicity as a trial to be overcome. From this perspective, new players who cannot tolerate toxicity are framed as deserving targets, suggesting indoctrinating also serves the purpose of ensuring new players align with the collective’s shared understandings. Alternatively, new players who persevere in the face of toxicity and strive to improve their gameplay are deemed ideal practitioners of the collective’s legacy. By promoting individual-level coping (such as ‘mute all’), the outcome of indoctrinating practices is that it dampens organised resistance to toxicity at the collective level.

Discussion and conclusion

What are the practices that shape new consumer socialisation in conflict-ridden consumption collectives? Our study utilised a qualitative approach that revealed four practices that shape new consumer socialisation: learning, smurfing, scaffolding, and indoctrinating. Practices that shape new consumer socialisation are learning and scaffolding, with scaffolding creating safe spaces for new consumers to engage in the practice of learning. While learning and scaffolding equip new consumers with the competencies, materials, and meanings necessary for esports participation, in contrast the practices of smurfing and indoctrinating shape new consumer socialisation, revealing the darker side of consumption collectives and how anti-social practices such as toxicity are normalised with the collective. These practices hijack and corrupt elements of other practices that shape socialisation, resulting in conflict between new consumers and experienced consumers. In doing so, we advance three main contributions to the consumption collectives literature. First, we extend the emerging stream of literature on the darker side of new consumer socialisation, where consumption collectives are permeated by conflict which negatively shapes socialisation. Second, we expand current knowledge of anti-social practices beyond trolling and hostile consumer-to-consumer interactions to include smurfing and indoctrinating as practices that shape new consumer socialisation. Finally, we explain why anti-social behaviour remains difficult to eradicate through a practice theory lens (Shove et al., 2012), illustrating how supportive and corrosive practices of new consumer socialisation remain interlinked through similar practice elements.

Theoretical contributions

First, this study extends the emerging stream of literature on the darker side of consumption collectives, where consumption collectives ‘exert effects of exclusion, estrangement, discrimination, control, and coercion’ (Moufahim et al., 2018, p. 561). While studies have illustrated how new consumer socialisation processes can evoke transformational learning experiences (Goulding et al., 2013; Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011; Schau et al., 2009; Ulusoy & Schembri, 2018), our study advances the darker side of new consumer socialisation, where conflict permeates consumption collectives and negatively shapes new consumer socialisation. Specifically, by adopting a practice theory perspective, we illuminate a network of practices that not only assist but also disrupt new consumer socialisation. On one hand, echoing positive socialisation practices (Celsi et al., 1993; Goulding et al., 2013; Littlefield & Ozanne, 2011; Schau et al., 2009), scaffolding as a practice assists socialisation by providing safe spaces for learning, with mentors often being either content creators who provide informative tutorials or experienced consumers who give advice on how to deal with toxicity within games. On the other hand, indoctrinating practices within conflict-ridden consumption collectives erode this feeling of safety and instead promote an antagonistic culture within the consumption collective. This research augments prior work on online anti-social practices (Demsar et al., 2021; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017) by offering a novel explanation of how such misbehaviours emerge as part of a network of practices for socialising new consumers. The outcome of these practices is that consumers are enrolled early into a taken-for-granted understanding of these practices in support of a dominant ethos, characterised by a singular focus on rewarding competence and, conversely, punishing competence misalignment.

Second, our findings broaden current understanding of anti-social practices within consumption collectives by uncovering additional practices that disrupt new consumer socialisation and create conflict between practitioners. Prior research shows that anti-social practices such as trolling (Cruz et al., 2018; Golf-Papez & Veer, 2017) and hostile consumer-to-consumer interactions (Dineva et al., 2017) give rise to conflict within a collective. Extending this stream of literature, we provide insight into new practices of smurfing and indoctrinating that negatively shape new consumer socialisation and provoke conflict within the collective. Smurfing corrupts new consumer socialisation in two ways: not only by exposing them to asymmetrical skill levels that are inappropriate for their level of experience, but also by corrupting the way that new players are perceived by others in the field. While Thomas et al. (2013) illustrate how sharing resources between heterogeneous groups promotes harmony, indoctrinating practices normalise toxicity by recruiting new players as practitioners and encouraging them to accept toxicity as a normal part of the collective. Through indoctrinating practices, new consumers are considered to be fit for the collective and help continue to routinise toxicity. Similar to Martin et al., (2021) research on marketplace violence shaping the LGBTQ collective, these indoctrinating practices within esports perpetuate and normalise violence within the collective.

Finally, the practice theory perspective (Shove et al., 2012) provides a novel explanation for why anti-social practices remain difficult to eradicate: supportive and corrosive practices remain interlinked because they rely on the same practice elements. For example, smurfing hijacks the matchmaking system’s flaws, illustrating how consumers can take advantage of algorithms (Airoldi & Rokka, 2022; Kozinets, 2022) to facilitate practices that fuel toxicity within a consumption collective. Material elements that are intended to support learning practices can be co-opted by smurfs, bringing users with divergent teleoaffective structures and competences into the same shared space. Smurfing intentionally misaligns competencies, creating tensions between practitioners as new players are unfairly matched against opponents of greater skill and experience. Furthermore, as smurfing is common, this creates the expectation that all new accounts are smurfs, fuelling anti-social practices towards new players who are assumed to be smurfing or trolling when unable to perform to expectations. Matchmaking algorithms reinforce and normalise smurfing as a common practice (Airoldi & Rokka, 2022), allowing predatory practices (e.g. smurfing) to shape the meanings of constructive practices (e.g. learning) by utilising similar elements. Due to the interrelatedness of practice elements and the reinforcement of this relationship through algorithms, parasitic practices may arise that are difficult to disentangle from constructive practices.

Implications and future research

For managers, this research has a number of implications to both encourage positive practices and interrupt negative practices that promote toxicity, as outlined in Table 2. To encourage positive practices such as learning and scaffolding, managers could provide a suite of materials such as video tutorials and collective-created guides within the game so that new players have immediate access to a range of resources to support their learning practices. As our findings illustrate, new players need to develop a degree of competency to find and use collective-created learning resources and safe spaces. Therefore, managers could include information on how to access and join third-party learning communities within the game to enable more new players to reap the benefits of scaffolding practices. Conversely, managers should consider how to interrupt practices of smurfing and indoctrinating that promote toxicity. To combat smurfing, managers could create additional barriers to smurfing such as requiring new accounts to undergo an extensive learning/tutorial process before they are able to play against other players (both in ranked and unranked games). As our findings indicate, players are indoctrinated to engage in individual-level coping strategies to deal with toxicity, therefore collective leaders and game developers should promote alternative ways to address toxicity at the collective level. Managers could also collaborate with the collective to re-sensitise players to toxicity and encourage collective leaders to call out instances of toxicity when they occur.

This study focused primarily on the Dota 2 and League of Legends esports titles to provide a deeper understanding of the practices within these collectives that shape new consumer socialisation. However, because esports collectives vary in their approach to new consumer socialisation, exploring how other esports collectives interact with new consumers may provide additional practices to further our understanding of the context more broadly. A different yet related future research question could be: what makes a consumption collective toxic? For example, participants involved in the Pokémon esports collective noted that it is less toxic than other esports and discussed how experienced consumers explain elements of the game to new consumers. This may in part be due to the game being targeted towards a younger demographic, whereas games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends generally have an older audience. Future research could also further explore the role of toxicity in a collective – while this study touches on indoctrinating practices ensuring new members are fit for the collective, this could be expanded upon in a future study. Furthermore, why are players toxic towards their own teammates? Neto and Becker (2018) and Monge and O’Brien (2022) indicate that toxicity directed towards teammates erodes team performance. Yet players are still toxic towards teammates even though this seems contradictory to the goal of winning a game.

While this study illustrates the practices that shape new consumer socialisation, further research could explore why consumers stay within a toxic collective. The esports context provides some insight into why consumers stay within a toxic collective as it can be conceptualised as an epistemic consumption object, where consumers are motivated to engage and form relationships with a continuous knowledge project (Zwick & Dholakia, 2006). As an epistemic consumption object, esports consumers are motivated by a game’s complexity and liquidity, where enjoyment is found when more is understood. While the toxic environment creates challenges to overcome, the constant change and intricacy of esports allows consumers to increase their consumption as they gain knowledge. Future research could expand on this conceptualisation of esports as an epistemic consumption object to provide further insight into why consumers persevere in their esports consumption despite toxic collective practices.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Monash Business Behavioural Lab for their assistance with participant recruitment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clarice Yi Huston

Clarice Huston completed her PhD at Monash University in 2022. Her research interests include esports, consumption communities, and consumer culture. In her spare time, Clarice enjoys playing her favourite video games and trawling discussion forums for interesting stories.

Angela Gracia B. Cruz

Angela Gracia B. Cruz is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Monash University. Her research is focused on theories of consumption, marketing communication, and branding at the boundaries of markets – referring to liminal market spaces where complexities, ambivalences, and transformations abound. Angela frequently draws on cross-disciplinary, critical, and poststructuralist modes of theorizing.

Eloise Zoppos

Eloise Zoppos is the Research & Engagement Director at the Australian Consumer and Retail Studies unit in the Department of Marketing at Monash University. She specialises in retail and consumer behaviour research, using applied marketing and psychology research to deliver insights and strategic solutions to clients across retail and service-based industries.