Between Dream Jobs and Real Jobs: The Passionate Careers of Professional Gamers

My dissertation takes an in-depth look into the lives and careers of professional competitive video gamers. At the intersection of sport, technology, and entertainment, esports has created a market for professional gamers— those who make a living playing video games. Esports is a rapidly growing billion-dollar industry capturing a broad global audience. Technology has been essential to its growth, with high speed internet and digital platforms connecting players, developers, sponsors, and audiences. But professional gaming is more than a job; it is an immersive lifestyle that demands arduous work and personal sacrifices in exchange for fun. Despite the risks, some gamers are willing to take a chance on living out their dream.

For this qualitative project, I interviewed 75 esports professionals alongside digital ethnographic practices. As a new occupation and industry, esports acts a "cultural space" to make sense of an activity that suddenly becomes work.

Pro gamers, like many of us, are navigating the changing nature of work. We want to pursue a career we feel passionate about, and are willing to make financial, professional, and personal sacrifices. At the same time, our careers are increasingly precarious and uncertain. Professional gaming offers a unique take on how technology and the blurred boundaries of leisure/labor are making it harder to untangle the meaning and value of our time, effort, skills, and selves.

Experts without Expertise: Professional Identity During the AIDS Epidemic

We build our professional identities around our "what we do"— the specific knowledge and skills that help us solve complex problems. But how do you define your professional identity when your expertise is suddenly useless?

The HIV/AIDS epidemic challenged deeply held assumptions about medicine and society. AIDS not only affected highly stigmatized and marginalized populations, it was practically untreatable for over fifteen years. Nevertheless, a small group of physicians, later known as AIDS Doctors, saw it as their moral duty to care for these patients. But they soon found themselves at a loss for how to treat and cure patients. Unable to use their expertise, AIDS Doctors questioned the "meaning of medicine"— the foundations of professional identity.

Drawing on in-depth oral histories of over 100 physicians, my co-authors and I explore how AIDS Doctors redefined their professional identity in the absence of expertise. Little did we know when we started this project that these questions would become painfully relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the world.

Digital Data / Digital Contexts

Today, digital and physical activities are not singular acts or moments; they are seamlessly embedded into our everyday life. Interactions are not only mediated by technology, they are structured by the tools themselves. Studying digital data and digital contexts forces us to re-examine fundamental assumptions and practices about traditional qualitative research methods that were premised on physical co-location or co-present interaction.

Modern ethnographic practice is at its best when digital and physical spaces are not only considered in parallel, but are treated as mutually constitutive. In unpacking digital ethnographic practices, I explore themes around the temporal and spatial boundaries of dynamic data; the possibilities and limits of interactivity with people and/or machines; the circumstances around production and consumption of digital data; and ethical concerns including accessibility and privacy.