Digital Media and Creative Works
Playful Counterknowledges: Leveraging The Last of Us Gameplay to Challenge Ideological Power
Gamer, Academic, Black Woman, Mom...
This research explores the meaning-making processes of video game players and media audiences within digital culture. Examining how embodied play can challenge capitalist alienation, the work investigates fan experiences, identity formation, and participatory culture. Through critical analysis of The Last of Us, the study reveals how players can negotiate cultural narratives, personal identity, and resistance through immersive media experiences.
Snippet of me playing as Abby
My photo mode shot of Abby
The Psychgeist of Popular Culture: The Last of Us
Editor and Writer
This collection features compelling, theoretically-supported arguments about the psychological underpinnings of The Last of Us, written by scholars and fans of the game and series. Leveraging television studies, game studies, audience studies, fandom studies, and spectatorship, the collection explores the critical and popular acclaim of TLoU video games and television series. It examines the various ways gamers and audiences express their appreciation through fandom, analyzing the gameplay, themes, story, and characters through an accessible lens.
Ellie and Joel
Playfully Perilous: Permadeath Streams of The Last of Us Part II as a Collective Playground
Writer
In the digital landscape of contemporary gaming, the merging of player agency
and communal engagement has created
a unique form of entertainment. This
project examines the captivating realm
of permadeath streams, focusing on The Last of Us Part II, where highly-skilled players navigate the perilous challenges
of the game on grounded difficulty with self-imposed stipulations: kill all, no
healing, no crafting, and no upgrades.
At the heart of this exploration is the
notion that the community gathered
around these streams transforms the viewing experience into a dynamic, collective playground.
Slaybase playing TLoU Part II in Hillcrest as Ellie
Belly of the Beast
Episodic Script
Creator and Writer
Raven, a rising star at a prison management firm designing the world’s tallest prisons, learns of the government's plan to accelerate its ongoing institutional extermination of African Americans. Now,
Raven risks everything to disrupt their plans, with only her childhood friend by her side.
