This paper examines the rise of the #1ReasonWhy hashtag on Twitter during November 2012. It looks at how the @replies and RTs used within the hashtag built a picture of the issues facing women within the field of game development. The discourse and sharing of experiences amplified through the hashtag provide a broad picture of gender discrimination and sexism within the industry’s culture, along with potential community-driven methods for confronting these entrenched traditions of harassment. In particular this paper uses the conversations developed by women during this period to understand how Twitter acted as a tool to build solidarity and amplify the message of gender discrimination within the industry.

1. Hearing "Lady Game Creators" Tweet:
#1ReasonWhy, Women and Online Discourse
in the Game Development Community
Bridget M. Blodgett
Anastasia Salter
Simulation and Digital Entertainment
University of Baltimore
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@bblodgett

2. Industry Background
● Game development remains a male dominated industry
both in actual composition and public perception
● Women comprise:
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3% of programmers
13% of artists and animators
11% of designers
6% of audio developers
5% of QA testers
@bblodgett

3. Industry Background
● Discussions about why this occurs tend towards one of
two conclusions
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A leaky pipeline in which women drop out of the either the educational
pre-career or early career
○ Women don’t naturally enjoy games and shun the academic studies
that lead to that career path
According to a 2013 study by the Entertainment Software Association, 45%
of game players are women
○ This is an increase of 3% since the 2011 survey
○ Women account of 46% of all game purchases
@bblodgett

4. #1ReasonWhy
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@bblodgett

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@bblodgett

6. ● It’s sad how many people in my company think I’m a
secretary… and still do
● Because men still ask me if I play “real” games after
knowing I’m a developer
● A manager in a full meeting said, “This character needs
to be fuckable”
● My feedback is dismissed on games actually targeted at
women because i’m not “normal”
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@bblodgett

7. Methods
● Tweets were collected using the Twitter Archive Google
Spreadsheet (TAGS) template (Hawksey, 2013).
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A google spreadsheet scripted with a time based trigger automatically
collects twitter data from an owner-defined hashtag
Used 1.0 Twitter GET Search API to pull all the data available
● The data was collected hourly from November 26th
through November 30th
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~8,000 messages were archived during this period
● TAGS Explorer creates an explorable visualization of
Twitter interactions
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Allows for replay of conversations over time
@bblodgett

8. Methods Limitations
● Twitter API does not necessarily return all tweets
between data collection calls
● Tweets which exclude the hashtag are not collected
● Google spreadsheet has a limit of 400,000 cells
requiring splitting collection between several
spreadsheets
● Collected data excludes the March resurgence that
resulted from GDC panel
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@bblodgett

9. Mentions
One-sided messages were
common
Intense conversation arose
between dissenters and
supporters of the hashtag
Overall there was little discussion
among participants uninvolved
with dissenters or news media
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@bblodgett

10. Retweets
As the hashtag took off RTs of news
articles became common
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@bblodgett

11. Retweets
Dissenters talked and RT’d
heavily amongst one another
Overlapping groups of
supporters engaged with the
dissenters
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Others ignored dissenters and
focused upon sharing as many
messages as possible
@bblodgett

12. Women’s Invisibility
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@bblodgett

13. Women’s Invisibility
● One major point raised repeatedly by dissenters within
the hashtag was that male nerds also have difficult lives
and face adversity
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Within this viewpoint women speaking out regarding their experiences
was seen as whining or expectations of special treatment
● Game spaces were framed as men’s retreat from the
stresses of their lives and as a form of deserved
escapism
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The anticipated escape not only meant a lack of women’s voices but
continued inclusion of sexist and misogynistic content
@bblodgett

14. Women’s Invisibility
● Rejection of the developer’s lived experiences in the
industry or false equivalence to male gamer’s
experience of rejection help to render the lives of
women in the game development industry invisible
● The strong reaction and echo chamber like support of
dissenters underscores the desire by this group for a
lack of women’s participation
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As an acceptable “compromise” women are allowed to exist but
should remain silent
@bblodgett

15. Resistance
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@bblodgett

16. Resistance
● The attempts by dissenters to end or derail the
conversation were met with heavy resistance by
supporters of the hashtag
● Critiques were addressed in detailed responses and
more obvious trolling behaviors called out
● New hashtags include #1ReasonToBe and
#1ReasonMentors were created to answer more
substantive criticism
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@bblodgett

17. Resistance
● Women and supporters connected and emphasized
their messages
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Either through the use of alternative hashtags like #1ReasonMentors
or through Twitter actions like retweets
● The interconnected graphs of retweets show that many
people were interested in supporting women’s voices
even if they did not have a story of their own
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@bblodgett

18. Patching the Pipeline
● Themes including dismissal of skills, questioning of
legitimacy, sexualization/sexual hostility, and implied
violence show that many issues arise not with the
women
● Multiple messages of support from male developers and
players began after the rise of dissension
○ “The ugly #1reasonwhy? Men are often guilty of silent complacency.
We need to speak up and tell others that sexism isn't cool.”
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@bblodgett

19. Conclusions
● #1ReasonWhy showed that reports of bad experiences
weren’t related to one individual, time period, or
company but systemic to the industry
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Helped to counter traditional methods used to rhetorically minimize
this view and cause those who speak up to doubt their experiences
● Structure of communication over Twitter not only
allowed for amplification of messages but quantified
support and resistance through mentions and retweets
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@bblodgett