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British Food JournalEmerald Article: Fast food and fast games: An ethnographic exploration of food consumption complexity among the videogames subcultureJames M. Cronin, Mary B. McCarthy

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To cite this document: James M. Cronin, Mary B. McCarthy, (2011),"Fast food and fast games: An ethnographic exploration of food consumption complexity among the videogames subculture", British Food Journal, Vol. 113 Iss: 6 pp. 720 - 743

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Fast food and fast gamesAn ethnographic exploration of foodconsumption complexity among the

videogames subculture

James M. Cronin and Mary B. McCarthyDepartment of Food Business & Development, University College Cork,

Cork, Ireland

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how food is used to create identity andcommunity for gamers during core rituals. These meanings are to be explored within the broadercontext of subcultural experience in an investigation of the motives and the self-concept dynamicsunderlying this symbolic consumer behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses an interpretive research strategy and adopts amulti-method ethnographic approach that includes: netnography: multiple, in-depth, ethnographicinterviews; and prolonged participant observation. Interview informants are young Irish subculturalmembers aged between 18 and 23. Data analysis proceeds according to a constant comparativemethod.

Findings – The findings suggest that the social gaming ritual, when intersected with food, is closelylinked to issues of identity, community, fantasy and escape, gustatory rebellion and prolongedhedonism. Commensality during the core social gaming ritual contributes to a sense of communitas,while the “junk” nature of the shared food products helps to manufacture the hedonism of the event.The social ritual then is sovereign and bound by its own subcultural parameters, which opposemainstream culture’s norms and dietary regulations. From its role in helping to create a Utopian andrebellious experience, food is then leveraged as part of the gamers’ collective identity. Practitionerimplications of the results are discussed.

Originality/value – This paper investigates contemporary food consumption behaviour within apostmodern community. The main contribution pertains to providing an insight into a previouslyneglected group of food consumers.

Keywords Video games, Fast foods, Culture (sociology), Social psychology, Ireland

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionConsumer Culture Theory conceptualizes culture as the very fabric of experience,meaning, and behaviour (Geertz, 1983). Owing to its internal, fragmented complexity,consumer culture is played out by micro groups of consumers coming together to forgetheir own social solidarity and distinct, self-selected, and often transient culturalworlds through the pursuit of common consumption interests (Belk and Costa, 1998;Kozinets, 2002; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). In this article, we focus on the socialfood consumption behaviour of one particular micro group of consumer culture, thevideo games subculture, to better understand how the micro-cultural world one residesin affects his/her food consumption. The premise for this investigation is that throughculture – food, its preparation and consumption, become intricately interwoven withmany other central processes of social life (Warde, 1997).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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British Food JournalVol. 113 No. 6, 2011pp. 720-743q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0007-070XDOI 10.1108/00070701111140070

Many authors have agreed that the video game industry has become one of the mostactive and dynamic merchandisers of culture to consumers in recent years (see Sellers,2001; Newman, 2004; Yee, 2006; Mayra, 2008) and the consequential rise of the videogame subculture has been observed to transcend age groups as well as socio-economiccategories the world over. As an extremely influential power among consumers, videogames permeate their everyday lives and these individuals devote huge amounts oftime and effort in pursuit of their favourite activity (Mayra, 2008; Gentile andAnderson, 2003). While it is not something that has reached the echelons of public andsocial debate, the distinct food consumption practices of this subculture have beensparsely documented – or in some cases have been ridiculed – in popular culture.

Mainstream texts typically deride the gaming experience as a sedentary activitythat demands gamers spend hours of their day sitting in a chair, hunched over acomputer or TV screen during which time many of these individuals subsist on quick,high-calorie snacks. As a result of this portrayal, most people are familiar with thestereotypical overweight, introverted gamer and his affinity for take-out pizza andassorted junk foods. This has spurred much debate regarding the adverse effects videogames may have on physical activity, adiposity and nutritional intake (Vandewateret al., 2003; Robinson, 2001, 1999). However, contemporary debate on gaming andculture appears to be without any naturalistic study focussing on the true symbolicimportance of the food related aspects of these consumers’ game-playing experiences,how food fits into gamers’ lives and the kinds of meaning based food practices thatthese people are engaged in while gaming. This dearth in research may be accountableby the dismissive treatment video games have typically received by scholars. Acrossthe academic literature the gaming subculture has traditionally been painted as aheavily hedonistic, masturbatory affair that is readily denigrated as trivial –something that will be grown out of – and demanding no investigation (Newman,2004, p. 5). Nevertheless, Lupton (1996) calls for the exploration and appreciation of theunique and multifarious foodways of all cultures on their own grounds and withoutprejudice. In addition, Sanders (1985) argues studies of deviant subcultural activitywarrant attention as potentially vital information pertinent to wider cultural behaviourmay be observed:

Disvalued social activities are typically embedded in subcultural groups which providenorms and values which direct and shape patterns of cultural choice (Sanders, 1985, p. 17).

With this in mind, the purpose of this present article is to examine the foodconsumption behaviour of the gaming subculture through its members’ construction offood related practices, identities, and meanings to orient their experiences and lives.

While there is a wide spectrum of interaction within the gaming subculture, theemphasis of this study falls specifically on the social setting as social relations aretaken to define consumption experiences (Thompson and Troester, 2002), especiallywithin the context of subcultures. Clearly, the food habits of solitary gamers may varyand warrant investigation in its own right. This was beyond the scope of this study. Byinvestigating the gaming subculture as a rich and sophisticated postmodernexperience that carries multiple cultural, social and symbolic meanings this study willbe able to pursue two major research questions:

RQ1. What cultural functions do gamers associate with food?

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RQ2. More specifically, what are the current symbolic meanings they attach to foodconsumption?

To answer these questions, the gaming subculture’s socially organised food relatedactivities are read as a discussion and negotiation carried on symbolically throughconsumption (Venkatesh, 1995). It will be inherent within the objectives to offer “thickdescriptions” of the subculture’s food consumption activity, i.e. provide conceptualexplanation for findings.

The association between food and cultureEating, drinking and deciding what to eat are among the most frequent behaviours ofany given group of consumers. Hunger, of course, stands out as the obvious impetusfor eating but individual consumption preferences are not independent of culture(Rozin, 1996; Asp, 1999):

We have a biological need to consume a certain amount of calories and quantity of liquid; thisneed, however, does not define what to eat and with what, how to cook it, when to eat it and inwhat social circumstances (Askegaard and Madsen, 1995).

Veeck and Veeck (2000) go so far as to describe culture as an “invisible hand”influencing consumers’ daily behaviours. However, before we go any further it maybe astute to provide an overview of what constitutes culture and how it isconceptualised in the study of food consumers. Hofstede (1980, p. 19) defines cultureas “ . . . the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influence a group’sresponse to its environment”. With this understanding, the cultural approach toconsumer behaviour seeks to make sense of the imbricated layers of culturalmeaning that configure consumer actions in a specific social context or that formconsumers’ interpretations of their experiences (Arnould and Price, 1993; Fournier,1998; Holt, 1995; Thompson, 1996). Mennell et al. (1992) then specifically define“food culture” as a culinary order whose traits are prevalent among a certain groupof consumers defined from the micro-level (family, peer groups) to the macro-level(countries, regions, social classes). Food culture can be considered an insertedmechanism of convention specifically related to food within the broader concept ofculture.

Over the last two decades a mounting body of literature has emerged within thesocial sciences exploring the complex relationship between culture and theconsumption of food (e.g. Axelson, 1986; Murcott, 1989; Shepherd, 1989; Furst et al.,1996; Riley, 1994; Jamal, 1996, 1998; Wright et al., 2001). From pursuing such anapproach, Fieldhouse (1986) and Furst et al. (1996) posit that foods chosen, methods ofeating, preparation and quantities consumed, are an integrated part of a coherent andsymbolic cultural pattern. Rozin (1996, p. 83) supports this notion, arguing that withinmost, if not all cultures, food is laden with meaning and constitutes a major form ofsocial exchange and identity building. Like all culturally defined material substancesused by consumers in their pursuit to create and maintain social relationships andsocial identity, food performs a salient role in solidifying group membership andsetting groups apart (Mintz and Du Bois, 2002). This notion is dealt with at length byBarthes, in his structuralist analysis of French culture, in which he singled out forattention the nationalist properties of certain foods, arguing that wine is typicallyregarded as the “totem drink” of Frenchness, “a possession which is its very own, just

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like its 360 types of cheese and its culture” (Barthes, 1980, p. 65). Likewise, Adair (1986,p. 50) argues “fish and chips” constitute for the British what one may call. . . a force fornational unity”.

Subculture and the fragmentation of food cultureWhile it has been fairly well documented in the literature that commonalities anddifferences in food consumption exist across cultures on a macro-level (e.g.Lappalainen et al., 1998; Nielsen et al., 1998), there is also an acknowledgement ofthe presence of subcultures within cultures that possess their own distinctive foodrelated tastes and modes of socially shared meanings and practices (Wright et al.,2001). For example, Hindu communities all over the world consume a special sweetmade of sesame seeds symbolising life during Makar Sankranti, while for Muslims themonth of Ramadan requires mandatory fasting from dawn until dusk regardless ofwhich national or majority culture they are embedded in (Fieldhouse, 1986). Goody(1982) and Mennell et al. (1992) argue cultures with greater social differentiation have amore differentiated cuisine. Rozin (1996) posits that the source of this difference is aresult of social influences and the peer-groups we reside within i.e. micro-level socialarrangements.

Within the last 20 years, a postmodern paradigm shift has opened the road forinvestigations into how micro-social collectives can comprise of various andassorted persons linked only by a shared emotion and experience around specificconsumption activities (Cova, 1997). Fragmentation is one of the central themes ofthis postmodern understanding of consumer culture (e.g. Brown, 1995; Firat andVenkatesh, 1995; Firat and Shultz, 1997). Fragmentation consists of thedisintegration of markets into smaller and smaller groups divergent to themother culture from which they stem, each exhibiting distinctive modes of sociallyshared meanings and practices. The clustering of consumers driven by a similarpassion or ethos to form a group, thereby producing a subculture, has come to beseen as an object of study with relevance across the field of marketing however anyholistic examination of how food is used within these postmodern communities hasnot yet become fully developed.

Within food marketing and consumer research, the majority of existing studiesfocus on experimental or survey-based approaches to examine regional, ethnic orclass-based food attitudes (i.e. Verbeke and Lopez, 2005; Tomlinson, 1994), or nichemarkets such as organic and speciality food consumption (Squires et al., 2001;Wycherley et al., 2008; Pellegrini and Farinello, 2009), with a view to discoveringpotential new market segments. Little attention has been paid to how food is usedwithin consumer subcultures to convey identity or community among theselike-minded individuals. The closest investigation of how food is appropriated as animportant symbolic mechanism within a postmodern community is the work ofThompson and Arsel (2004) who attempt to investigate the consumption behaviour ofcafe flaneurs, coffee shop lovers who favour the experience of local shops as opposed tothe homogeneity of large chains. These authors pursue an analysis of the feedingpractices of a subculture of heterogeneous consumers whose intrinsic activities areinherently and exclusively based around a shared food culture. It is these consumers’mutual adoration for coffee, which is the centre-place for the creation of communityand identity within their subculture.


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This paper, however, leverages a richer postmodern understanding of how assortedand miscellaneous individuals of a broader – and less overtly culinary – subculturallifestyle appropriate food in the construction of meaning-based linkages and in theassemblage of their own cultural identity during the core consumption experiences.The investigation therefore resides with how food is interwoven with broad meaningbased consumer interests and activities within a subculture. Such contemporary foodconsumption practices have received relatively little attention in the literature,especially within a subcultural context, yet they present an opportunity to understandconsumers’ sense of identity and belonging (Warde, 1997). To this end the study ofpostmodern communities offers researchers the prospect to identify the linking valueof goods (such as food) among communal activities and how a group uses them (Covaand Cova, 2001). Having reported on the specifics of this study, a brief review ofresearch investigating the gaming subculture will be examined to provide abackground to why this particular postmodern consumer group was chosen forinvestigation.

The gaming subcultureThe notion of gaming as a specific subculture has existed in academic literature sincethe early days of videogame scholarship in the 1980s with Loftus and Loftus devotinga chapter to this topic in Mind at Play: The Psychology of Video Games (Loftus andLoftus, 1983). Mayra (2008, p.2 5) claims that members of the gaming subculture havetheir own language and rituals, they gather to play games and are often interested inartefacts (gaming merchandise) that can be used to mark identity. It is howeverdifficult to pinpoint exactly who constitutes the subculture and little is known aboutwho exactly plays video games (Griffiths and Hunt, 1995; Newman, 2004). As itspopularity has soared with consumers, gaming’s fandom is spilling over into multiplegenerations of users making identification, from a demographic perspective, of theaverage homogenous gamer decidedly difficult.

IGN Entertainment and Ipsos Media CT (2008) suggest more than 75 percent ofgamers play games with other people either online or in person indicating a strongsocial nature to gaming. Additionally, Morris (2002) suggests that videogame play isan inherently social event for members of the subculture. Many gamers have beenfound to socialise regularly at events known as “LAN parties” which consist ofparticipants bringing their computers or gaming consoles over to each other’s house tohost and play multiplayer games between which they establish a local area network(LAN) (Mayra, 2008). Newman (2004) argues however that the videogame subculturegoes far beyond just the act and moment of play itself, that sociality and interactiondoes not cease after the game is over. Taylor (2006, p. 56) specifically discusses theemergence of gamer guilds – small offline venues for online players to meet each other,most of which are organised by gamers themselves and “usually revolve aroundeating, socialising over drinks and reminiscing and talking about the game”. Thisobservation implies some centrality of food in social events but such observations areinfrequent in the literature. Green and Guinnery (n.d.), in their nocturnal ethnographyof LAN gamers also provide a momentary observation regarding the food relatedbehaviour of such gaming groups:

Organised LANs are round the clock 26-hour techno-fests fuelled by full-sugar coke and coldfast food runs.

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Similarly, an observation from Kozinets et al.’s (2004) multiperspectivical ethnographicengagement with the ESPN Zone Chicago, a sports, dining and entertainment mecca,allows for a fleeting glimpse of the centrality of food in gaming:

I feel that I’m being sucked into a black hole, where everything just turns and turns aroundme . . . noise, games, food—and people. We are given no reason to go anywhere else: ’Eat.Drink. Watch. Play. What more do you need?’ (Kozinets et al.’s, 2004, p. 662).

These observations allude to the importance of food as an integral device within thegaming subculture, however, little scholarly attention has been given to the foodrelated activity of this community. Thus, an exploratory study of this micro-socialcommunity’s culinary practices appears to represent the ideal canvas to mobilise aninvestigation into the contemporary food related experiences of postmodernsubcultures.

MethodsGeertz (1983) refers to the study of culture not as an experimental science in search oflaws, but as an interpretive science in search of meaning. Owing to this interpretivenature of the study and a focus on food consumption from a social symbolicperspective (Kniazeva and Venkatesh, 2007; Rook, 1985; Levy, 1981) it was decidedthat qualitative approach would be the most suitable approach. Levy (1981), inparticular, demonstrates how qualitative methods are particularly useful for revealingthe rich symbolic world that underlies needs, desires, meanings and choice. With thisin mind, the approach applied was based on involvement with consumers resemblingan anthropology of consumption (Sherry, 1995) that can be described asethnomarketing or marketing ethnography (Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994). Theappropriateness of an ethnographic method as an approach for this type of study isendorsed by its utilisation in studies of food consumption across many diverse cultures(e.g. Vialles, 1994; Anigbo, 1987; Trankell, 1995). This study however takes athree-tiered approach to ethnographic exploration. The first part of the researchconducted involved searching for the indication of themes from subcultural texts (i.e.the internet), the second part involved in-depth interviewing and the third part entailedimmersive participant observation among gamers at social gameplay events in Corkand Dublin, Ireland. The three stages of fieldwork were undertaken between December2008 and September 2009. Throughout all three stages, analysis of data wasincrementally carried out, by referring to the literature. In other words, the literaturewas not exhausted prior to entering the field, as it is in many studies (Goulding, 2005),rather it was consulted as part of an iterative, inductive and interactional process ofdata collection, simultaneous analysis and emergent interpretation. This researchapproach is represented schematically in Figure 1.

Stage 1: netnographyCova and Cova (2001, p. 71) emphasise that to study any form of community ofconsumers, the marketer is “well advised to cast aside the more traditionalmono-disciplinary, systematic approaches and to favour practices based on detectingsigns, foraging for faint hints and glimmers of shadow”. In following this advice, theinitial stages of the ethnography involved a review of subcultural members’ populardiscourse, including websites and Internet discussions on a number of gaming specific


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Figure 1.Research model

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forums to explicate structural patterns of food themes that are cultural or social(Arnould, 1998; Kozinets, 2002). Keeping in line with Kozinets’ (2002) netnographicconventions regarding the search for suitable research sites, all chosen spaces wereselected in tight accordance to the research questions i.e. only forums where the onlinedebate was focussed on gamers’ self professed food preferences and experiences weresought out. Locating such suitable research (web)sites can involve a considerableperiod of time (Maclaran and Catterall, 2002) and so over 100 gaming forums andelectronic bulletin boards were searched before selecting 20 suitable, high-traffic foodrelated threads and consumer posted blogs. From this netnography stage, a series ofcomparable events and themes were extracted which helped form the basis of a morestructured enquiry.

Stage 2: in-depth interviewsSuch textual resources as those explicated on the Internet were then supplemented byrecourse to “consumer voices” to generate accounts of the lived experience and foodconsumption practices of members of the gaming subculture. This was facilitatedthrough semi structured in-depth interviews designed in such a way to be moreconversation based as opposed to formal (Elliott and Jankel-Elliott, 2003). The intentionwas to allow the sequence of the discussion to follow a natural conversational flowwhile at the same time retaining an adequate level of control over what was discussed(Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995).

In relation to interviewee selection, Hammersley and Atkinson (1995, p. 139) statethat: “selection of informants must be based on the best judgements one can make in thecircumstances”. With this in mind, selection criteria were drawn up whereby eachinformant must admit to identifying oneself with the gaming subculture, playing morethan six hours of videogames every week, own at least one video games console, apersonal computer and live in an online-equipped home. Contact was originally madewith an initial two self-professed “hardcore” gamers who fit these criteria and agreed tobe interviewed about their consumption. This resulted in a snowball effect whereby fourother gamers who fit the prescribed criteria were identified and agreed to share theirexperiences and stories. This proved to be a successful recruitment method but is open tocriticisms of bias. No statistical inferences can be made from this sampling technique(Miller and Crabtree, 1999). Mason (2002) describes the technique as “illustrative”sampling, whereby the researcher is not making any representative claims about thedata, but suggesting that the results provide an example or illustration of what is goingon in the wider world. Furthermore, while the sample size for this stage of the researchwas quite small, the investigation fits with the conventions of postmodern orsocio-symbolic consumer research in that it concentrates on the phenomenon itself ratherthan on how many people shared that phenomenon (Jamal, 1996; Fournier, 1998; Mickand Buhl, 1992; and Erlandson et al., 1993). In other words: “the size restrictions on theinformant pool ensured the depth concerning life worlds and product relationshipportfolios necessary for thick description” (Fournier, 1998, p. 347).

Where possible, interviews were conducted as close to the central consumptionpractice of gaming and food intersection as possible. Each interview lasted between 2.5to 3 hours. Such ethnographic interviewing is a particularly effective methodologicalstrategy for examining consumption patterns. The interviewees included four malesand two females ranging from 18 to 23 years of age, all being Irish residents.


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Stage 3: participant observationThe hallmark of ethnography is participation; working with consumers in their naturalsettings (Fetterman, 1998; Goulding, 2005) and so finally, to gain a deeperunderstanding of the subculture’s food consumption behaviour, a third step offieldwork was initiated consisting of breaking from conduction of interviews andsimply immersing ourselves among gamers at their subcultural sites. Following phasetwo of the ethnography, e-mail contact was maintained with the first two interviewinformants and it was requested that they facilitate the researchers’ exploration ofgaming spaces. This methodological approach was inspired by Schouten andMcAlexander’s (1995) pioneering ethnographic engagement with a postmodernsubculture in which the authors embraced the tutelage of two subcultural memberswho took them “into their circle” and acted as their guides throughout their inductioninto the biker subculture. With the guidance of cultural chaperones, access into thegaming subculture was made unproblematic and the lead researcher met with thesepathfinders every fortnight for four months to attend various gaming venues toparticipate in the gaming/eating complexity and to discuss issues related to the study.A total of eight locations were frequented, six of these being home based “LAN events”at informants’ houses, the remaining two being excursions to gaming cafes. Throughthe conscious activity of actually consuming among consumers, one can trulyunderstand the nature of the event (Stewart, 1998; Fetterman, 1998). To quote Loflandand Lofland (1995, p. 3) “the epistemological foundation of field studies is indeed theproposition that only through direct experience can one accurately know much aboutsocial life”. An accumulation of approximately 65 hours of field immersion wasundertaken in total, which generated over 120 pages of field notes as well asphotographs and videotape.

Analysis and interpretationData analysis was carried out according to the conventions for the analysis andinterpretation of qualitative data as recommended by Spiggle (1994) and others(Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994) and continued in an iterative fashion across offline andonline environments. As new data was collected throughout all three stages of theethnography, it was discussed in the context of previously gathered data, coded andpoints of similarity and contrast was examined. As these themes emerged, they wereused to guide the researchers toward relevant literature and then to the revision ofcoded interviews and observations in light of perspectives from the literature (i.e.grounded reading in data). As it is one of the main objectives of this analysis to offer“thick descriptions” (Geertz, 1973, p. 10), similar surfacing themes were clusteredtogether from the patterns in an attempt to classify behaviours theoretically (Spiggle,1994).

What follows is a thick description as well as an interpretation of the data gatheredduring the study.

FindingsThe following four major themes emerged as a result of an interpretation of theethnographic data:

(1) communitas: interplay between food and social gameplay relations;

(2) “an excuse” – a hedonic escape;

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(3) rebellion: subversion of mainstream culture’s food norms; and

(4) food as subcultural capital.

Communitas: interplay between food and social gameplay relationsIn analysing data from all three stages of the ethnography, the theme that emergesmost forcefully is that of food’s role in imbuing communitas among gamers at coresocial gaming events. The idea of communitas in consumer behaviour refers to feelingsof connection and solidarity in a group and this phenomenon is typically developedthrough communal feelings of linkage, belonging and devotion (Arnould and Price,1993).

A prevalent view in popular culture is that “video gaming” is socially isolating anda solitary activity (Newman, 2004). However, as some studies suggest that rather thanacting as sites of solitary play, video games foster and enhance social relations (Brownand Bell, 2004). This view posits that videogame consumption is one way to acquireand maintain a shared sense of identity by attaching symbolic meanings to objects andactivities and anchoring behaviour in cultural and social orders. This perspective wascorroborated throughout the ethnography by evidence of gamers’ appropriation of thegroup gaming event as a social bonding ritual celebrated through the necessarypresence of food. As one informant Dan (aged 22, single) put it: There has to be drinksor food or something – no that’s how you make a session out of it. That’s what makesit as an event.

Heavy in-group cohesion and verbal interactivity was recorded among gamersduring a home console night where energy dense junk foods were passed around incommensal pattern between breaks and after games. Food sharing was typicallyrecorded during such social gameplay rituals where often the food products presentwere utilised symbolically and playfully as “trophies” or “rewards” to the victor duringintense onscreen competition between the group. This all appeared to serve as socialmechanism to garner a union with others, where conviviality establishes and reinforcessocial ties (Simmel, 1961; Symons, 1994). Such playful interaction is particularlyevident if we consider the following field note excerpt:

The host had the two couches pulled out from the wall and arranged around the coffee tablein such a way that all gamers had easy access to the plethora of Cadbury Moro bars, openedpackets of potato crisps and cans of Monster energy drinks. They are all sharing from the onesmall table. Between heavy onscreen fire, one would shout frantic commands to the others toprovide fire support while he broke play to reach for a handful of crisps. The others shootback frenetic comments of “Come on!!” (. . .) Once the online enemy had been defeated, thecomment of “Yeah! Throw me over a Moro, I deserve it!” rises up the most successful gameras another compliments him on his skill towards the end of the match, labelling his work as“leet” (i.e. elite). . . (Field notes, 31/7/2009 10.30 pm).

It has already been well established elsewhere that consuming food is one of the keyways in which cinema audiences embellish and enhance the experience of filmwatching and works to construct the meanings of movie-going as a social practice(Lyons, 2004; Acland, 2003). Much in the same way that food consumption is alliedclosely to the experience of cinema going, it became apparent throughout theethnography that food plays a comparably important role in the gaming ritual.Foodstuffs made available at the host’s party become tied intimately to nurturingcommunitas within the ritualised event.


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Indeed, sharing food has been found to be very characteristic of ritual consumptionbehaviour, and in that function food performs the symbolic task of sharing andcelebrating group identity through its bonding capabilities (Belk, 1988; Symons, 1994).The literature on shared consumption rituals shows that events in which participants actjointly may be used to communicate meaning, not only about the self, but also about therelationships among individuals that bind them together into a “small world” (Cheal,1988; Gainer and Fischer, 1991; Wallendorf and Arnould, 1991; Arnould and Price, 1993).One of the two female informants (Siofra, aged 20, single) described the playfulintersection between food and gameplay as a stimulus for interaction among gamers:

Firing up the Wii or the Playstation and dumping all this stuff (food) on the floor in front of usand then it turns into “Okay I’m going to kill you, but not yet – I need that chocolate!”(laughs) And the rest of the night would be kind of an orgy of eating and interactivity I guess!

The analysis of such recollections reveals that the major elements of a gaming sessioninclude food becoming utilised as a social connector in groups, as something thatreplaces the traditional “going out” night for these young consumers. Data from allthree stages of the ethnography assert that this “party” environment is a regularphenomenon among the gaming subculture. For Irish culture in general, party eventsare typically infrequent but the high junk food intake of social gaming tends to behabitual. The home based “LAN parties” appear to take place multiple times a month,insuring the word “party” is used loosely and operate more as the usual socialget-together ritual for these subcultural members. However, informants tended tovehemently disagree that their social gaming events are likeable to “trips to the pub” or“girls nights in” suggesting they hold their own subcultural salience.

Siofra noted that foodstuffs are recurrently used in the strategic deployment inmobilising sociality in gameplay and rarely do gamers eat as gratuitously on theirown:

The thing is I would never eat a whole pack of Doritos or a whole pack of Kinder chocolate,I’m talking about the 16 bar packs, ever on my own – and a full bucket of Ben and Jerrys(laughs) but this is what I like did one night every week last summer with friends (laughs). Itabsolutely happens in the company of other gamers.

It is possible here to draw on Beardsworth and Keil (1997, p. 251) who note that theself-indulgence and guilt of eating confectionary and sweet foods “is handled bysocialised and ritualised consumption which is more acceptable than individual,solitary use”. In addition, it should be noted that a social presence was not found to justincrease food intake but also found to alter the type of foods consumed by gamersduring their ritualistic experiences. This social influence on food consumption issubstantiated through some of the comments gamers posted on forums with regards totheir favourite foods during gaming. For example:

If I’m by myself, right now it’s a banana and an apple. If I have a buddy or two, its Salt &Vinegar chips and lots of cold beer (“DJ Machismo” posted June 24th, 2008 on “So what isyour preferred gamer food?” thread).

It is apparent that gamers eat more junk foods in the company of other gamers. Thisbehaviour can be interpreted practically as the social facilitation and of meals.Feunekes et al. (1995) suggest that the principal cause of social facilitation of humanfood intake is that social agents increase duration of meals and the amount eaten

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throughout the meals. The data does indeed evidence the eating of more, but also theconsumption of more junky foods than would be eaten privately. Communitas thus canbe taken on a pragmatic level as gamers’ tendency to alter their diet to higherquantities and more calorific, sweet foods with instant gratification.

“An excuse” – a hedonic escapeThe second emergent theme covers how gamers appear to use the social gaming ritual asa justification for eating in excess or perform what could be described as “binge-eating”.According to Rozin (2005), food is particularly potent at creating a hedonic experience forconsumers, or at least contributing to one. Khan et al. (2005) argue it is hedonism thatenables consumers to choose a rich creamy Haagen Dazs ice cream for dessert instead ofa healthy but perhaps less tasty bowl of fruit. The term hedonic means “having to dowith pleasure” and derives from the philosophy of Hedonism, which holds that pleasureis the ultimate drive for all consumer behaviour. All of this study’s informants’ socialfood consumption complexity reflected this drive for pleasure. It is interesting to notethat their food choices were mostly unconcerned with nutrition and healthiness, justflavour and suitability for commensality i.e. tasty food for sharing during the coregaming ritual. All informants elicited “junk foods” or “fast foods” as the preferred staplediet of a social gaming event, which was substantiated by data generated fromnetnographic research. Such sites as www.gamerchow.com where gamers can vote fortheir favourite food allude to the popularity of miscellaneous fast foods as the ideal“gamer food”. In interpreting such subcultural data, we must turn to Bourdieu (1984)who stresses that hedonism is socially and culturally constructed, with taste being thecrucial factor of pleasure. This means that whatever pleasure the consumer derives fromthe indulgence of food products may be seen as not only a matter of individual taste butalso social taste and socially embedded sensations.

This social dimension of eating during the gaming ritual involves a gathering ofpeople that usually has a well-defined purpose, or what the two female informantsreferred to as “an excuse”. Rachel (aged 23, living with boyfriend) explained that: “I’mnot just happily involved in this whole thing – what you refer to as a subculture – justfor the games but for the social aspect and treating myself”. She describes the relief andinherent bliss in taking things easy and cutting loose by enjoying an X-Box night withher friends or boyfriend and “Ben & Jerrys” (ice-cream). Similarly, the other femaleinformant, Siofra’s opinions appear to corroborate this notion:

I suppose what’s kind of funny is that food is it’s such a primitive pleasure and maybe we’reusing gaming itself as an excuse to indulge in a bit of that. Like for me personally, it is themoment of gaming with friends that I look forward to because it’s kind of an excuse! Anexcuse to be a bit of a pig!

In an early study of the gaming subculture, Turkle found that “for many people, whatis being pursued in the video game is... an altered state” (Turkle 1984, p. 79). This studyperhaps points to an extension of this theory – that the displacement of identity goesbeyond consumers’ transformation of their selves in the game itself and into their reallife behaviour. While the gamer may indeed look for an altered self within the gameitself (i.e. embody a strong protagonist, physically enhanced avatar), the ethnography’sdata points to the displacement of real life conduct during the gameplay – inparticular, diet. It appears that the gaming ritual offers consumers the opportunity to“cut loose” and enjoy foods that they ordinarily would try to minimise in daily life.


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Thus, it became evident that the excitement, passion and intense competition ofsocial gaming rituals represent for gamers the prospect for eating tasty foods, anescape from their regular diet. The consumption of such food then is one of thekey ways in which gamers embellish and enhance the experience of video gaming(Plate 1).

Rebellion: subversion of mainstream culture’s food normsThe third emergent theme draws on the work of the neo-Marxist cultural theorists suchas Kellner (1995), Hebdige (1979), Frith (1996) and Willis (1978) who conceptualisesubcultures as pockets of collective, ritualised resistance or rebellion. The gratuitousjunk food consumption of the gaming subculture during the core gaming ritual could inthis light be interpreted as a rebellious conduct. Lupton (1996, p. 127) proposes thatconsumers in experimenting with different types of cuisine is a symbolic gesture ofrebellion, a way to reject their parents’ habits and norms and so the gamingsubculture’s affinity for junky, greasy, fat food may be a communal representation ofthis gastronomic rebellion. One of the female informants directly elicited an escapefrom the foods she was raised with by her parents:

Your parents wouldn’t always feed you junk food, so if you want to throw a nice event ofgaming – you’re going to want to have everything you can! So it does make it kind of achildish treat. Childishness is an aspect to it. You’re not meant to spend hours of your dayplaying games and you’re not meant to spend hours of your day eating junk food so it is akind of . . . I don’t know, a naughty little secret thing going on! (laughs) So yeah, it has to bejunk food (Siofra).

Plate 1.Instruments of escape:game controllers and junkfood

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The second female informant then referred to the notion of “bad food”:

It’s taken that you’re going to eat bad food and not grapes or something like that . . . Gamingparties are meant to about just indulging in what you want to do most, having your friendsabout and tasty food (Rachel).

This informant’s labelling of junk food as bad indicates awareness that suchconsumption subverts her normative diet. A cursory browse through the literaturesubsequent to the emergence of this theme found that snacking on junk foods could beinterpreted as a behaviour that turns food from a functional duty of self- sustenanceinto a temporal and spatial interface marked by moderate subversion (Vannini, 2008, p.245). Moreover, this subversion were observed to be held as identity salient for thegamers as the following statement from Mark (aged 18, single) makes clear:

Let’s face it, gamers are not wine and cheese people y’know? I don’t sample the finestChardonnay and some type of cheese on crackers while blowing someone’s head off in Call ofDuty, I’ll probably be balancing a tube of smokey bacon between my legs as a buddy throwsme over some dip! That’s how it is. That’s all that is like. We are gamers and don’t portrayourselves as foodies or vegans or whatever, we are who we are.

A further indication of subversive food consumption was evidenced throughobservation of “speed eating”, which Chitakunye and Maclaran (2008, p. 219) define as“a fast rate of movement or action when young people put food into the mouth, chewand swallow, in order to finish their food as fast as possible”. Speed eating was codedin the following quote from field notes during one of the early games console parties:

Just past 11.15 and the gamers are all guns blazing in a new match. The action is intenseonscreen and off, frequent swear words are blasted by the gamers as their avatars are slainonscreen. Match over – gamers were defeated but booting a rematch quickly. During thisshort interlude Dan quickly unwraps a Cadbury “Twirl” bar and shoves the chocolate fingerin his mouth with the side of his hand still holding the games controller. He munches hardand fast as Des is slurping down his can of coke with one hand, his other and on the controllerstill. His eyes not leaving the screen – can is put down. Back into the game (Field notes,18/7/2009, 11.20 pm).

Rushing food in this way defies traditional table manners that parents and popularconsumer culture itself may encourage. This can be interpreted as an attempt to escapefrom parental and mainstream expectations regarding conventions at mealtimes. Also,more practically, this behaviour can be interpreted in the light that members of thegaming subculture will sacrifice typical mealtime etiquette in favour of expedientintake during core rituals. In this manner, speed-eating insures gamers will not missout on valuable gameplay while they feed.

Food as subcultural capitalThe fourth emergent theme to arise from the data is that there are rules and norms ofgood taste in food that solidify the consumer’s place in the subculture (Bourdieu, 1984;Thornton, 1995). Bourdieu refers to taste as a socially accepted characteristic thatdefines what a culture’s food consumption is and more importantly – what it is not.While informants were keen to promote that the gaming ritual is guided by no writtenliturgy, certain politic was found to surround the gaming ritual feast however. Notknowing how to eat properly is universally a sign of outsider status (Lupton, 1996).


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A certain unspoken mandate to eat heartily and to eat only certain fun and filling junkfoods during the event was observed throughout the ethnography. When Siofra wasquestioned about her response to a friend refusing to eat the provided food at a gamesconsole night in favour of his/her own snacks such as celery brought from home, shehad difficulty accepting such a move:

No pumas or celery at my event, put that away! (laughs) That doesn’t make sense to me, it’sdifficult to picture that. It would be strange, I can’t imagine any of my friends doing that (. . .) Ithink it would ostracise the gamer a little. They would definitely be subject to some ribbing ifthey didn’t partake in living it up with all the goodies we usually have at games night. Thewhole point of the gaming thing is to work together even if in the game you are competing.The second you remove yourself from the little community you have set up in front of thetelevision, you become an island.

Schouten and McAlexander (1995) acknowledge that such prohibition or strict outlawof behaviour is not uncommon in subcultures as cultural norms within consumercommunities dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable (see Plate 2).

In order to investigate this food politic of the gaming subculture, the lead researcherbrought along a choice of celery sticks and fruit juices to the observation of the homeconsole night with informants 2 and 3, Dan and Des. Once the junk food errands hadbeen completed and a copious selection of rich and varied bars of chocolate, brandedpotato crisps, pizza and litre bottles of soft drinks were arranged for consumptionduring the networked gameplay, the researcher produced the frugal choice of modest,healthy alternatives and asked who would like to try them. Jokes, a telling culturalform (Freud, 1960), were instantly made. Dan frivolously passed comment that the

Plate 2.Pizza and (micro)chips:symbolic rebellion

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researcher was there to observe “a hardcore gaming party, not the minutes of a veganmeeting” while Des suggested he “leave that stuff outside for the birds”. Food itself is aterm which makes cultural distinctions between acceptable and non-acceptable organicmatter for human consumption and so Falk (1991, pp .758-759) argues the term can beused to denote different material in different cultures. Des’ flippant use of the word“stuff” as opposed to acknowledgement of the introduced items as food points towardsa (sub)cultural dissimilarity with foodstuffs outside of those accepted within theconsumer community.

Such frivolous responses help to substantiate the existence of a set foodconsumption value system within the gaming subculture. This system appeals to whatThornton (1995) calls “subcultural capital” to describe the way in which identity andsocial distinction are formed within subcultures through the assessment of socialinteractions and symbolic goods against a set of group-specific values. Sean (aged 22,single) described the movement of food related values from the individual to matchthose of the group and his statement can provide evidence that reveals both socialorder and aesthetic socio-culturally shared beliefs:

Well normally I wouldn’t eat a bunch of chocolate bars on my own but when you get a groupof friends together, you don’t say let’s all go to the shop and we’ll get a bunch of apples andwe’ll have a big party with apples – it’s like what you just get used to. What you’re familiarwith having at the event. And yeah you’re familiar with having the junk food at a gamingevent. But like if someone brought in an apple into a gaming environment saying they usuallyhave apples while playing, that might assimilate in but personally I haven’t seen that.

The data reveal that food is a marker of inclusion within the gaming subculture andexpressive of internalised identities. Or as Mintz and Du Bois (2002), p. 2) puts it: “Thebehaviour relative to food repeatedly reveals the culture in which each of us is inserted”and your place in culture depends on your appropriate use of food.

On a practical level, gamers’ subcultural capital can be interpreted as normativeenforcement of behaviour. Gamers will consume foods in a social setting in ways theyordinarily would not because everyone else is behaving that way – it becomes the norm.

ImplicationsResearchers contend that culture has a substantial effect on consumer behaviour interms of influencing the effectiveness of advertising messages (Aaker andMaheswaran, 1997) and determining product and brand choices (Spiggle, 1986).Furthermore, subcultures can be considered as promising potential social units forsegmentation (Zaltman, 1965, Schouten and McAlexander, 1993) due to their relativehomogeneity of norms, values, and behaviours. Insights from this ethnography mayprovide some guidance into how food marketers and those concerned with improvingdietary behaviours may be able to effectively communicate with this postmodernconsumer group via techniques that illustrate how their offerings ormessages coordinate with the subculture’s activities. In particular, clear andsomewhat concerning patterns of food motives emerged throughout this study thatsuggest a blatant and dissident use of food within the subculture. Further to this use,food holds a central role within the community’s social conduct. The cultural meaningsattached to food in terms of “rebellion” and “hedonism” are counter to what could bedescribed as good dietary patterns and are reflected in the quantities (gorging) andqualities ( junk) of foodstuffs consumed. These worrying dietary patterns naturally


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present significant challenges for public health groups. Furthermore, these challengestake on more significance when we reflect on Sanders’ (1985) argument regarding thepotential spill-over of subcultural values and norms into wider society. Should gorgingon excessive quantities of energy dense, nutrient poor foods become morecommonplace while sedentary behaviour like that of gaming rituals become morenormative for general social events; policy makers could face an increasing societalchallenge in addressing food-related health issues. With the intensification of theseproblems on a macro-level, pressures will certainly mount on food manufacturers andthe ingredients industry to isolate the damage of their products.

Notwithstanding the rejection of “traditional” healthier foods as “stuff”, the insightsoffered by this ethnographic engagement suggest that opportunities may exist for foodmanufacturers to provide healthier foods for consumers involved in the gamingsubculture. The development of healthier alternatives for gamers should offer “fuel forsuccess” in the form of convenience (fit seamlessly within the gaming activity),performance (mental functioning and dexterity) and offer some sensory pleasure (tomaintain the hedonic element of gameplay). Furthermore, in order to be successfulthese healthier alternatives need to expropriate certain symbols to appeal to thegustatory rebellion associated with the gaming subculture. The findings revealed thatgamers’ sense of self identity is played out through their food consumption tastes andthe rebellious stance this has against mainstream culture’s food norms. Theoppositional stance is solidified in Mark’s quote maintaining “We are gamers and don’tportray ourselves as foodies or vegans or whatever, we are who we are”. This kind ofidentity salience and its link to behavioural enactments creates a task for marketers tobe able to relate their healthy offerings to such nonchalant food consumers. Marketersneed to create a rebellious and irreverent tone around their products in order to appealto gamers’ self-identity.

Practitioners must also consider the need to load their marketing communicationswith relevant subcultural values. According to Escalas (1994), to target a particularsubculture, one must relate to its members through realistic cultural messages.Observations of the core gaming rituals within the subculture expound on sets ofactions practiced by members to follow cultural values and norms. It has beensuggested that practitioners might consider such values and norms appropriate to theirtarget market when marketing to specific consumer subcultures (Deeter-Schmelz andSojka, 2004). For example, because communitas and the subcultural capital of foodwere witnessed repeatedly throughout the ethnography – this translates clearly into avalue for a “sense of belonging” and therefore products advertised should emphasisegroup behaviour. The food product should be shown being consumed in a groupsetting. Furthermore, the normative politic surrounding the consumption of certainfoods during the ritual are of particular importance to marketers in showcasingbehavioural ideals in their advertisements. Informants argued that fellow gamers thatchose not to share in the rich foods present for a gaming event would find themselvesalienated. This suggests an instant normative pressure that can be leveraged inadvertisements.

Conclusions and limitationsWith a growing public interest in contemporary food consumption and anintensification of municipal health concerns regarding obesity in recent years, the

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videogame subculture’s affinities for junk foods has received its own spotlight in theattention of popular media. The present article has sought to explore, in terms ofconsumer behaviour, the various meanings attached to social food consumption withinthis community and how food plays a role in the reification of communal experienceand identity. In doing so the article has explored culturally constructed foodconsumption practices and symbolic meaning among gamers during core socialrituals. It is crucial to note that by taking a cultural standpoint in pursuing this initialinvestigation it was able to assist the authors in achieving a comprehensiveinterpretation of a consumer group that has not received much scholarly attention withregards to food consumption behaviour in the literature.

As the findings have shown, this article provides evidenced thick descriptions forthe food consumption complexity of the videogame subculture. Therefore, the researchquestions can be answered with reference to these descriptions. In relation to the firstquestion: what cultural functions do gamers associate with food, the interpretationsreveal that approved foodstuffs such as snack and junk foods represent ceremonial andsocial governance functions for gamers. In terms of a ceremonial function, thefoodstuffs act as artefacts, which offer a level of hedonism through taste and delight toa ritualistic community that is perceptibly pleasure-seeking – therefore the junk foodsserve an integral purpose in contributing to this space. Then pertaining to food servinga function as a social governance mechanism, we can return to the findings in relationto subcultural capital and Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of taste to argue food, like in anyculture, is a strong indicator of one’s place in that community. The norms and socialpolitic surrounding what type of foods to consume during a gaming event largelyaffect a consumer’s place in the subculture.

In relation to the second question: what are the current symbolic meanings gamersattach to food consumption, it can be argued that food values and habits function askey cultural expressions that are central to the processes by which gamers establish,maintain, and reinforce their subcultural and individual identities (Reilly andWallendorf, 1987; Penaloza, 1994). Junk foods offer rebellion and fun, which areattributes that gamers want to be associated with. What is then witnessed when thesefood consumers perform their food related rituals and practices is “the emergence of ashared and tribal happiness” (Maffesoli, 1996) whereby they experience the pleasureand consciousness of kind of consuming together.

Since this article is based on purely interpretive work, it acknowledges all thelimitations attached to this particular approach. It does not seek to offer any firmconclusions but simply interpretations in line with the postmodern enquiry. While thesample size for this exploratory investigation was quite small, the focus was on depthrather than breadth in data collection. The interpretations generated by this researchcould form the basis of hypotheses, which can be tested in future studies of the gamingsubculture’s food behaviour. Furthermore, in keeping with many postmodern enquiries(Schouten and McAlexander, 1995; Goulding and Saren, 2007; Miklas and Arnould,1999; Goulding et al., 2002; Kates, 2002; Belk and Costa, 1998; Kozinets, 1997, 2001), thisresearch fixated on one consumer group and explored their behaviours on their owngrounds. Thus, comparisons with other consumer communities were not undertaken.In further studies a comparative approach may provide additional insights into theuniqueness or otherwise of the observations made here.


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Other limitations include the fact that secondary and tertiary stages of theethnography (interviews and participant observation) were conducted exclusively inIreland, a country which in general has been found to comprise of a significant numberof hedonistic food consumers who are particularly uninterested in the quality aspectsof health and freshness of foods. Gamers living in other geographic areas may exhibitdifferent consumption behaviour in their social contexts. Additional research is neededto determine if gamers’ food consumption complexity transcends national boundariesand, if so, how is it affected by different core cultural food values and norms.

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Further reading

Beard, F.K. (2007), Humor in the Advertising Business: Theory, Practice, and Wit, Rowman &Littlefield, Lanham, MD.

Green, L. and Guinery, B. (n.d.), “Play up! Play up! And play the game!” Edith Cowan University,Perth, available at: www.unaustralia.com/electronicpdf/Ungreen&guinery.pdf (accessed3 March 2009).

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Mintz, S.W. (1996), Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture and the Past,Beacon Press, Boston, MA.

About the authorsJames Cronin is a PhD fellow in the Department of Food Business & Development, UniversityCollege Cork, Ireland.

Mary McCarthy is a Senior Lecturer in Food Marketing in the Department of Food Business& Development, University College Cork, Ireland. Mary McCarthy is the corresponding authorand can be contacted at: [email protected]


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