Over the last few decades there has been an increase of diversity within geek culture. With the changing times the face of geek culture has changed. In fact, the geek subculture has become more accepting and even supported in mainstream media with shows that focus on video games, fantasy, and science fiction. The straight white middle class male is no longer the main targeted audience or demographic when it comes to marketing Geek culture. For this essay, we are going to look at the gamer subculture under geek culture as rhetors like Extra Credits and Anita Sarkeesian use different medium to display a need for diversity and ways that diversity can be used in media specifically games. This essay will explore Extra Credits and Sarkeesian’s use of rhetorical concepts through their videos. Also we will explore tumblr as a cyberpublic and hybrid public involving gamer subculture.
Diversity has several different meanings in the dictionary. Or at least several different ways of looking at the same meaning. For example in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, diversity means a pointorrespectinwhichthingsdiffer. In the Collins English Dictionary, diversity means the state or quality of being different or varied. Also it says that diversity means therelationthatholdsbetweentwoentitieswhenandonlywhentheyarenotidentical;thepropertyofbeingnumerically distinct. All of these meanings are valid but hold different meanings from one person to another. This falls under Language as a symbolic action.
When talking about the rhetoric of diversity in games or rather game design, language is important. The different game design terminologies and jargon used are explored in different manners for the sake of argument and exploration. When thinking about language especially, when it comes to rhetoric, an important rhetorical components come to mind.
Public vocabulary
In Rhetoric in Civic Life, public vocabulary means “culturally established and sanctioned” terms that compose people’s taken-for-granted understanding of the world. An example of this in the book was words like “equality” and “justice” were related to civil rights. The vocabulary was also used as a way for enacting and calling on social change.
The same can be said for the words used in the video. “Diversity” is called on as a way of pointing at the big issues in game design: The lack of diversity in games. Other words used to point at the big issues in games were: Stereotypes, Token Characters, Gender Roles, Sexuality, Classism, and Race.
Public vocabulary used in the video is important because it helps change the mindset of the audience that it is talking to. It also gives the audience a different way of understanding the world. The word stereotype is important in this video because it highlights one of the problems seen in game designs. No one wants to be a part of something that is stereotypical so the use of the word makes the audiance not want to associate with things that are stereotypical.
Another thing that should be looked at is the comments on the video. (This youtube video being better than most when it comes to comments.) The word choices used in the video are reflected in the comments and are able to get people talking about the issues. The public vocabulary used in the comments are important because it signifies who is on one side of the argument or on the other. Also it shows the different interpretations of the public vocabulary used.
