In this article I learned a lot of cold statistics and evidence that gaming has a lot of stereotypes and influences adolescents. In this article, there is extensive research done on multiple factors and areas. This study includes a lot of new perspectives. This isn’t just about race, it also speculates on gender, LGBTQIA+ individuals, disability, age, and body size. This study starts to talk about how toxic masculinity and manhood fit in online gaming. Thanks to the help of COVID-19, video game play and the online world has a 75% more player rate. Since companies have been making more money, more games and advanced technology have been able to be released to the public. The study had “analyzed 27,564 characters in 684 fifteen-minute gameplay segments from sessions with the top 20 Twitch streamers. “ Majority of characters in video games are male. The male to female ratio is 7.9 : 1.1. Only 27.6% of lead characters are girls/women. These numbers are extremely low and women aren’t being represented for some reason. In some games, there are more monster like characters than non-white. One study showed that “only 0.1% of characters are shown with a physical disability; far below the 19% of the US population” (6). The streamers and influencers are also a big reason why toxic masculinity has been spreading through young adolescents. “Streamers used homophobic or transphobic language in 10.1% of segments” (7). These numbers aren’t acceptable for children and young teens watching these streams. The streamers and creators who make content for kids and young adults to watch are just as responsible for influencing beliefs on people. Streamers are able to teach their audience new opinions and spread false information. These influencers tend to influence their audiences in a negative way that can impact their ideology and prejudices. The audience can also learn new stereotypes that impact the way they feel about a certain group of people. Young adolescents and children who watch these streamers tend to learn new vocabulary that are offensive and impolite. After the pandemic, Twitch was the biggest streaming platform, this led to millions of viewers across all ages. Twitch had to start reinforcing rules and giving warnings to creators. Eventually, Twitch would ban famous influencers and create an environment where kids under 13 could enjoy.
Source: https://seejane.org/wp-content/uploads/gaming-study-2021-7.pdf
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