Abstract
This paper works to examine the derivative user-implemented queer and feminine narratives that are exercised both through and post-gameplay in the lifestyle computer video game series, The Sims. Storytelling dynamics discussed include digitally fabricated custom content, specific interface-altering mods and cheat codes. All of these applications encompass a direct move from private, isolated individual gameplay into a semi-public, psychosocial pseudo-MMORPG (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game). I examine the period of The Sims 2’s release (2004-2008) and its explosion in popularity both as a disc-based game and as a burgeoning fan culture that directly predates and predicts now-traditional social media connection. I will also work to unpack the emotional capabilities that these combined experiences enable, invite, and offer as a resource for queer-questioning and feminine adolescent players to explore the game’s censored notions of virtualized adult social relations, which then open up psychosocial avenues to discover. I also assert and examine the varying differences in game-related sociocultural labor versus leisure for both feminine and masculine players. With a dissemination of now-archived Sims-related material and contemporary game criticism (all of which connect to concurrent LGBTQIA+ history), I argue that The Sims and its surrounding ephemera have been a hidden gateway both online and offline for formative escapism in a young queer, femme generation pre-Facebook/-Instagram/-Twitter.
Digital Media
This presenter hasn’t added media.
Request media and follow this presentation.
