“Our world is worth fighting for”: Gas mask agency, copypasta sit-ins, and the material-discursive practices of the Blitzchung controversy

Abstract

In 2019, video game giant Blizzard banned a competitive e-sports player who made a pro-Hong Kong statement during a post-game interview. The international game community responded with outrage, organizing both on- and offline actions to provoke change within the organization. This article examines the #BoycottBlizzard gaming counterpublic via deceptively discrete mixed methods: a new materialist investigation of protest gear and a distant reading of a Reddit dataset of 3500 posts between October 7 and 10, 2019. The investigation concludes that gas masks demonstrate nonhuman aleatory agency in the #BoycottBlizzard protest movement, by inserting subversive subtext into costumes and gameplay. Online, protestors relied heavily on other resistance tactics, including using Twitch copypasta spam; this article suggests this form of resistance functions similarly to a sit-in. Finally, the article iconographically tracks the rise and dissemination of a particular meme image representing the movement's appointed mascot, a Chinese climatologist named Mei. Ultimately, the Blitzchung counterpublic achieved only modest success; the player's ban was reversed and his prize money reinstated, but many protestors considered Blizzard's response milquetoast. However, this analysis proposes that the Blitzchung counterpublic likely emboldened the 2021 #BoycottBlizzard movement and may in some measure be responsible for its success.