(Re)Platforming subcultures: Sinosphere board game geeks

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that while regional platformisation often takes a utilitarian role, replacing services which are not offered as readily outside of global platforms’ strong reach, there is also an underemphasised performative role as these same online websites become integral to platform-dependent subcultures and their identity formation. I look at board game geeks, who share a culture as much about playing games as it is about performing an identity through collecting games, discussing new releases, and sharing knowledge and enthusiasm with other geeks. Through this I argue that as geek culture becomes increasingly platformed and offline-first communities transfer increasingly online, regional efforts to participate in board game geek culture often require replatformisation for reasons ranging from solving pragmatic issues to replicating global board game geeks’ platformed experience. Through data collection efforts on Modian, China’s largest crowdfunding website, as well as an interdisciplinary literature analysis, I argue that as platformisation assumes a non-existing globality, Sinosphere board game geeks find themselves excluded from this increasingly online-first interconnected subculture, and they ultimately have had to find different ways to renegotiate their identities as geeks. They do this through ill-fitting platformisation, constantly enduring structural friction from online platforms made for western audiences; as well as replatformisation, where I show how regional users find new means to perform the online-first board game geek.