Gamer identities of video game live streamers with disabilities

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the strategies video game streamers with disabilities employ to navigate their identity as gamers as it relates to their subject positions as persons with disabilities. Through an analysis of online videos featuring eight streamers with disabilities, this study reveals four themes around how streamers establish their identities regarding both disability and gaming: establishing gaming capital, acknowledging disability, gaming to overcome challenges, and feeling empowered to ‘inspire’. Our analysis discusses how the four themes coalesce around a co-constitutive identity of ‘disabled streamer’ that is unique from both gamer and disability identities yet informed by and negotiated through each of these in various ways. The study sheds light on the ongoing mutual creation and transformation of gaming and disability identities on the internet.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability
• video games
• streamers
• identity
• Twitch.tv

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sky LaRell Anderson

Sky LaRell Anderson is an assistant professor of digital media arts in the Department of Emerging Media at the University of St. Thomas. He is also an independent game designer. For more information, visit SkyLaRell.net.

Mark R. Johnson

Mark R Johnson is a Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, where his research focuses on game live streaming and Twitch.tv. He is also known for designing the roguelike ‘Ultima Ratio Regum’, and is an active games blogger and podcaster. His homepage is markrjohnsongames.com.