The 3rd Installment Report on Talk Series on “Inequity, Stereotypes, and Stigma in Leisure”

Lim Dongwoo (Research Assistant of the B’AI Global Forum)

・Date & Venue: May 25, 2021 (Tuesday) 17:00-18:00 (JST) @Zoom Meeting
・Language: Japanese
・Moderator: Yuko Itatsu (Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo)
(Click here for details on the event)

The third installment of the talk series on “Inequity, Stereotypes, and Stigma in Leisure” was held on Tuesday, May 25, 2021. In this talk, Associate Professor Hiroko Kanoh had a presentation on “Disparities and Bullying in Online Games: E-sports Players Becoming Gladiators.”

Johan Huizinga introduced the theory of play. What attracted attention as the essence of his theory was “fun.” Many people have memories of Tamagotchi and virtual pets. Furthermore due to the pandemic, more and more children and young people are playing online games at home. Online gaming space has the leisure aspect that everyone can enjoy and easily achieve barrier-free regardless of gender, race, age, or physical disability. In addition, Nekama (a person who plays as an opposite gender of their original gender online) is allowed in the online games, and you can reflect your ideal appearance on your avatar regardless of your actual appearance to feel free from your complexes such as “fat” and “short.”

On the other hand, authoritarian populism is outspoken in the online games space, and it is easily dominated by meritocracy. In that sense, online game space can be said to be a microcosm of the real world. In addition, its fictional premise allows for rampant depictions of sex, discrimination, inequality, and bullying. In such online spaces, those who started playing games to kill time have become disillusioned, and those who aimed to become e-sports players have been becoming gladiators. In other words, just as gladiators fought for the prize money, e-sports players are also fighting to win the prize money.

In the Q&A session, a question was raised as to whether “gladiatorization” is a phenomenon that has also been seen in existing sports. Though we couldn’t have enough time for the Q&A session due to time constraints, but the audience responded that they didn’t know there is such an interesting world. The talk series will continue to study and discuss on leisure and disparity.