Esports events & hegemonic masculinity: Reflections on participant-observation at Evolution Championship Series 2019

Abstract

Using critical theory and self-embodiment, as well as Bourdieu's concept of habitus and the social field, this ethnographic project documents the various ways that hegemonic masculinity manifested at the 2019 Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the largest fighting video game tournament in the world. Participant-observation was utilized to analyze the embodied experience of attending and participating in the tournament. The findings suggest that EVO's hyper-competitive culture reifies hegemonic masculinity and marginalizes femininity. The findings suggest that esports competitions reclaim masculinity through cyber-rituals and sexual objectification of women's real and digital bodies, in lieu of the absence of physical real-world male athletic bodies.