For the Horde: How One New Media Artist Challenges Sexism with a Game

By Eric Carltock

April 10, 2021

Exhibition Catalog 2016 angelawashko.com

    When you think of video games, your first thought might be the ultra-violent games we often see in the media. Games like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty, or perhaps online massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. These are popular games in which aggressive gameplay combined with the shield of anonymity can mask an underlying dehumanizing rhetoric by an overwhelming majority of cisgender male players. But there is more to it than this. Ultimately, these underlying aggressive traits can be connected to human sexuality, and game theory for males as we will see when we examine Washko’s work.

    In the virtual game space, Angela Washko brings forth a vision in which the victims of the aggressors turn the tables. Washko realized that avatars' use was often the vehicle for players to engage in blatant sexism and other forms of discrimination, using them as masks. So, to combat this toxic anonymity she would have to go into the depths of the male culture to find the root cause.

Angela Washko – PLAYTIME (pem.org)

    Washko, who played the famous Game World of Warcraft, noticed the toxicity of the game and was affected by it when she was harassed online by these toxic male players. Washko wanted to find out why this fantasy space tended to be so oppressive and misogynistic. To this, she created a project based on Gendered Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness. The investigation led her to find what the community dubbed the "Manosphere," where a loose network of blogs, websites and forums were dedicated to misogyny. From this Washko found the “manosphere” also known as the pickup artist community. 

    Using this as a teachable moment, Washko noted that all of the accounts she talked with did not contain the women's missing perspectives that the pickup artists slept with, so she decided to seek them out and find more information regarding these women players. Ultimately, this experience culminated in the artist making her own game, titled The Game: The Game. In this first-person text-based game, the player becomes the object of these various pickup artists, and your task is to explore and defuse them. This brilliant idea allowed players to confront and experience sexism and misogyny firsthand and gives a valuable teaching lesson. The game puts the victim of these male advances against "Boss" level men, who were trying to pick you up. Simultaneously, it is an art project.

   What is more, the idea also exposed the tactics of these pickup artists and how to defeat them. This inversion, which took years of research, highlights the logic and behavioral patterns of seduction coaching.  In a way, it is therapeutic for the players and a weapon against the faceless avatars who try to use sexism to shame or dehumanize those of the opposite sex. 

    The idea of turning the tables and showing the light on a problem is not new. Washko was able to apply Washko’s well-researched tactics to reveal the problem, opening new conversations previously unthought 

You can find more of Washko work on her website at https://angelawashko.com/