Young YouTubers - Gaming Grandparents: A Case study of Intergenerational Interactions on YouTube

The parasocial bonds that a young YouTube audience may form with the performers on YouTube are generally well-discussed. The general assumption in business seems to be that the young audience form a parasocial bond in which they view YouTubers as approximations of older siblings (Winge 2017). What is less explored is the perception of older adult media producers on platforms such as YouTube. In fact, older adults seem to be almost completely overlooked as media producers in academic literature (see Givskov and Deuze 2016). Even less explored is the reception of older adults as media producers in fields not usually associated with their age bracket. Here I am particularly concerned with subculture(s) surrounding video games, which has a history of lacking inclusion of certain social groups (e.g., e.g. Shaw, 2012; 2015), including the elderly (e.g. Williams 2009). When older adults are discussed in relation to video games, the case studies often focus on older adults with no previous experience with video games with younger people being the guides for the older adults and the older adults having little to no experience playing (e.g., Gamberini et al., 2006; Kern et al., 2006; Khoo & Cheok, 2006; Abeele & De Schutter, 2010; Abeele et al., 2008). Just as older adults are usually non-agents within gameworlds (Williams 2009), they are also assumed to be non-agents within the real world of playing video games. This falls in line with the research pointing towards the negative associations ageing has within Western culture, and for the visibility older women in the media in particular (e.g. Woodward, 2006).Similarly, older adults are rarely discussed as producers of media content (Givskov and Deuze, 2016) only positioned as consumers. This paper will seek to illuminate this blind spot in the existing research by exploring a case study of one older adult producing gameplay-based content for YouTube. The objective will be to outline the reception of this case through a consideration of both its portrayal in media outlets, the creator’s own statements and a sampling of comments on her videos. As has been argued by Adrienne Shaw, in order to normalize video games for all audiences, the goal should be to find “ways to emphasize their 'everydayness' in contemporary media culture” (2012, 40). Here the Let’s Play becomes a powerful tool towards normalizing the everydayness of video games. The increased production and circulation of these can lead to “more negotiated, more queer, more subversive, more failed, and more confusing game play and player personalities as widely recognized and legitimated sites for making meaning of video games and playing” (Nguyen, 2016: para 5.3). I therefore deem it worth exploring how an older adult woman has been received in this field where the identity of the performing player matters a great deal (Postigo, 2014), and where that performing player is often assumed to be only slightly older than their young or young adult viewers (Winge, 2017). As has been rightly pointed out, the seeming lack of relation between older adults and video games is based on a lack of consideration for process of aging. As has been asserted by De Schutter and Abeele “the older player of digital games has already arrived.” (2015:112). Individual tastes in media are often solidified in a person’s early years, and their tastes may be deemed as fairly continuous from then on in (Himmelweit & Swixx, 1976). The general consensus seems to be that older adults are more skeptical toward newer media (e.g., Mollenkopf & Kaspar, 2005; Norris, 2001; Westlund & Weibull, 2013). Recent research seems to suggest that a person’s generation plays a huge part not only in whether they play digital games, but also in whether they are more inclined to hold or endorse negative beliefs about the medium as a whole (Ferguson & Colwell, 2017). This goes for both the general public (Przybylski, 2014), and for clinicians as well (Ferguson, 2015). Largely, academic research focused on older people and video games has been centered on the perceived psychological and physiological benefits of playing these games and would seem that the “hidden message is that it is acceptable for older to play digital games in order to achieve a higher goal of maintaining health” (De Schutter & Abeele, 2015: 112) at the expense of a focus on more fun and hedonic aspects. Iversen (2016) builds on this conclusion in her review of the available literature on older adults in games, in which she concludes that ageing adults are “largely portrayed as ailing, hesitant, in need of encouragement to do what is good for them as well as requiring the care of others” (2016: 20) and that this is coupled with a “mainly functionalistic approach to the use of digital games, where the beneficiality [sic] of playing in terms of health maintenance is central rather than, for instance, enjoyment, pleasure, or creativity” (Ibid.) The usual assumed identity of a video gamer is one of a young, straight white male, though it is consistently shown that this is a rather misleading image, which is ultimately harmful to the inclusiveness of the medium (e.g., Shaw 2012, 2015; Nakamura 2012). In summary, this paper finds that the presence of older adults as video producers, older adults as players of video games and the overlaps of these two fields are largely overlooked in both popular and academic discourse. The case study at hand proves that there is a market for older adults as visible producers of video game related content on YouTube. The scale of the operation at hand can by no means be compared to any larger YouTube gaming presence. However, it is notable for the unusual parasocial relationship of grandchild-grandparent which is bred in the YouTube comments section. Furthermore, the content and comments also provide an opportunity for a young audience to consider themselves as old people in training, as is recommended in much of the literature on aging (Applewhite 2016) Abeele, Vero Vanden, and Bob De Schutter. 2010. “Designing Intergenerational Play via Enactive Interaction, Competition and Acceleration.” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 14 (5): 425–433. 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