Ecologies of Friends: Boy Masters of Craft, Live-Streaming Jocks, and Pockets of Others

This article argues that online video knowledge sharing economies centered on challenging  personal computer games like Minecraft are not gender neutral because the performative, social aspect of game building, as well as the time-consuming knowledge acquisition of game skills, are understood as a boys’ and men’s play prerogative. Over the days, months, and years spent playing, boys turn into men, into cadres of boy geeks and live streaming jocks, and these gendered identities have implications beyond games. Paradoxically, while modding and sandbox gaming are more democratic and participatory than unmodifiable commercial games because their content creations are largely player-driven, rather than industry controlled, these are the very games that usually require the largest investment of technical skills, leading to the absence of those who are undemocratically excluded from such geeky pleasures. Gamers rely on disposable leisure time and the help of friends who share game knowledge and immaterial play labor within digital ecologies like YouTube and Twitch. In both ecologies, in ecologies of heuristics, the how-to videos that are shared over YouTube, and in the more fraternal communities of Twitch performers and their subscribers, male friendship and collaboration is key. Although some crafters have fabricated amazing digital gizmos and play worlds, they have done so with knowledge gleaned through Minecraft’s ecology of tutorials, forums, add-ons and mods. I do however also discuss a few exceptions to this pattern such as young girl players’ YouTube videos, and women live-streamers on Twitch.