Virtual Identities and Digital Culture

Section I: Online Identity and Connections

1) "Hey Handsome": Gay Dating Apps and a Critical Digital Pedagogy of Identity

Sean Michael Morris

2) "We’re here for you during this pandemic, just not financially or emotionally": What TikTok Reveals About Student Life During the Pandemic

Sharon Lauricella and Emily Small

3) Mediated Identities: How Facebook Intervenes in the Virtual Manifestation of our Identities

Luis A. Grande Branger

4) Reassessing Clicktivism: A Tool of the (Pandemic) Times

Adiki Puplampu and Iain Macpherson

5) "Victims of the System": Anti-Government Discourse and Political Influencers Online

Michelle Stewart, Maxime Bérubé, Samuel Laperle, Sklaerenn Le Gallo, and Stéphanie Panneton

6) From Networks to Assemblages: An Analysis of Feminist Activism Against Digital Violence in Mexico

Marcela Suárez

7) Navigating Nii’kinaaganaa (All My Relations) Online

Joey-Lynn Wabie and Michelle Kennedy

8) Virtually Authentic? Digital Bodies, "Blank" Squares, and Staring Online

Victoria Kannen

9) From a Group of Friends to a Mainstream Audience: Critical Role and New Media Publics

Betsy Brey and Elise Vist

Section II: Games & Play

10) Not All Fun and Games in #MyPokeHood: The Politics and Pitfalls of Universal Game Design in Pokémon GO!

Kiera Obbard and Abi Lemak

11) Lip Dubbing for Fido: Listening to the Internet through Viral Pet Video Memes

Kate Galloway

12) ‘Turn Off That Friggin’ Radio!’: The Canadian Soldier Figure and Identity Formation in Videogames

Jason Hawreliak and Venus Torabi

13) Inventing with Zoom: How Play and Games Uncover Affordances in Digital Environments

Jacob Euteneuer

14) Interfaces and Their Affordances: Critical Game Design, Identity, and Community in MMORPGs

Chris Hugelmann

15) Better than the Real You? VR, Identity, Privacy, and the Metaverse

Iain Macpherson and Adiki Puplampu

16) Our War Game: Hacker Games as Laborious Play

Alex Dean Cybulski

17) Listening to and Playing Along with the Soundscapes of Videogame Environments

Kate Galloway

Section III: Reimagining Traditional Media

18) Netflix as the New Television Screen: A Queer Investigation into Streaming, Algorithms, and Schitt$ Creek

Lauren McLean

19) The Missing Live Ingredient: The Search for Ephemerality in the Screening and Streaming of Theatre

Amanda Di Ponio

20) From Video Tape Exchange Networks to On-Demand Streaming Platforms: The Circulation of Independent Canadian Film and Video in the Digital Era

Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte

21) Platforms and Poetry as a Popular Form of Engagement

Tanja Grubnic

22) Lil Nas X, TikTok, and the Evolution of Music Engagement on Social Networking Sites

Melissa Avdeeff

23) "No Friends in the Industry": The Dominance of Tech Companies on Digital Music

Kristopher R. K. Ohlendorf

24) Say Their Name: How Online News Reports the Death of Transgender People and its Intersection with Transnormativity

Rachel Patterson

25) The ‘Affinityscapes’ of Young Adult Dystopias: A study of The Hunger Games Series’ Participatory Culture

Zahra Rizvi

26) Reboot and Rebirth: Artificial Intelligence and Spiritual Existence in The Good Place

Liz W. Faber

Biography

Victoria Kannen is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisor of Research at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. She is the author of Gendered Bodies and Public Scrutiny: Women’s Stories of Staring, Strangers, and Fierce Resistance (2021). She is also the co-editor of The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture (2019).

Aaron Langille is a Professor and Coordinator of the Game Design program at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. He is a regular columnist on CBC radio where he talks about games, technology, and the impact of our digital lives. He is currently writing two textbooks, one of which is on learning to program through analogies and, the other, is on learning to program through games.