Abstract
Video games are an understudied sport featuring social interactions both similar and dissimilar to those in offline sports. While anonymity in online video games could create a space where minoritized groups experience more equitable treatment, offline social inequalities are translated into online video game interactions. Drawing on 20 semistructured interviews and 2,694 survey responses from self-identified queer men, I build a framework for understanding gender, sexuality, and racial/ethnic harassment in online video games. I argue that nerd masculinity is a protest masculinity that uses symbolic harassment to reframe masculine hierarchy online and enforce hegemonic nerd masculinity. With this study, I illustrate the prevalence of symbolic harassment and the channels it may follow to become direct harassment.
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