Kiri Miller - Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance

Playing Along

Daniel Goldmark, Series Editor

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Ron Rodman

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Louis Niebur

Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Film Scores

Peter Franklin

An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal

John Richardson

Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance

Kiri Miller

Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance

Kiri Miller

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Kiri.

Playing along : music, video games, and networked amateurs / Kiri Miller.

p. cm. (Oxford music/media series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-19-975345-1 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-19-975346-8 (alk. paper)

1. Video games. 2. Video gamesSocial aspects. 3. Interactive videos. 4. Video game music. 5. Popular music. I. Title.

GV1469.3.M55 2011

794.8dc23 2011018803

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

I am hooked on the charm of making the dumb machines sing.

Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, 1997

The flesh of even the virtual performer remains too solid, and will not melt.

Steve Dixon, Digital Performance, 2007

Like an episode of digital gameplay, this book is a collaborative performance. I cant hope to name all the individuals who have contributed their time, ideas, and support, but I can make a start at thanking those who have played leading roles. The reference list at the back of this volume should be considered a continuation of these credits.

First, my thanks to the players, practitioners, designers, entrepreneurs, and teachers at the heart of this book: Freddie Wong, Rob Kay, Shaun Scovil, Mike Dadmun, Brian Shandra, David Taub, Nate Brown, Nate Torres, John Dean, Grimmly, and all the volunteers who completed surveys, participated in gameplay/interview sessions, graciously replied to my follow-up emails, and commented on draft chapters. You made this book happen.

My Oxford University Press editor, Norm Hirschy, has been unfailingly generous and uncommonly discerning, and he has demonstrated sustained enthusiasm for this project over several yearspure manna to an author slogging through drafts. Thanks are also due to series editor Daniel Goldmark, production editor Erica Woods Tucker, copyeditor Elliot Simon, and the Oxford University Press editorial, production, and promotions staff for all their work on this project.

My two extraordinary undergraduate research assistants, Kate Reutershan and Emily Xie, made direct and substantive contributions to this book. I was very fortunate to have their help, which was made possible through the support of Browns UTRA program and Radcliffes Research Partnership Program.

Many mentors and colleagues in academia (including several dedicated journal editors) helped me refine my arguments and offered crucial encouragement along the way. They include Harry Berger, Katherine Bergeron, Bettina Brandl-Risi, Gabriele Brandstetter, Mark Butler, Tim Cooley, Kai van Eikels, Jessica Enevold, Dana Gooley, Tomie Hahn, Judith Hamera, David Josephson, Henry Klumpenhouwer, Leta Miller, Marc Perlman, Regula Qureshi, Butch Rovan, Simone Pereira de S, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Jason Stanyek, Michael Steinberg, Jonathan Sterne, Rose Subotnik, Jeff Titon, Kay Warren, Todd Winkler, and several anonymous peer reviewers.

Thanks to all of my departmental colleagues at Brownparticularly Jim Baker and Shep Shapiro during their terms as department chairfor offering the personal and administrative support that made it possible for me to bring this project to completion. The peerless staff of the Brown Music Department helped me keep my head above water in my first years on the tenure track. My thanks to Jen Vieira, Kathleen Nelson, Mary Rego, and Ashley Lundh. In the Orwig Music Library, Ned Quist, Sheila Hogg, and Nancy Jakubowski offered fantastic research support, sending me a steady stream of scholarly and popular references that I could never have tracked down on my own. I am also indebted to the students in Musical Youth Cultures, Music and Technoculture, and Ethnography of Popular Music for helping me think through the core issues in this book over the yearsand particularly to Colin Fitzpatrick and Liam McGranahan, whose thesis and dissertation projects on technoculture topics taught me a great deal. Rameen and Sarah Peyrow, Dan Boyne, and Jill Manning, my ashtanga teachers, offered me a complementary education in sensational knowledge that informed every page of this book.

Many friends have sustained me and offered invaluable insights over the course of this project. They include (roughly in order of appearance): Jesse Kurlancheek, Molly Kovel, Lilith Wood, Megan Jennings, DJ Hatfield, Te-Yi Lee, Carolyn Deacy, Aaron Girard, Christina Linklater, Myke Cuthbert, Mary Greitzer, Victoria Widican, Natalie Kirschstein, Petra Gelbart, Anneka Lenssen, Sindhu Revuluri, Jon Bernhardt, Kevin McCoy, Sheryl Kaskowitz, Ben Shaykin, Cindy Boucher, Niyati Dhokai, Jessica Keyes, Heather Hutchinson, Vanessa Ryan, Paja Faudree, Sandy Zipp, Peter Torelli, Joshua Tucker, Jessa Leinaweaver, Betsey Biggs, and Katherine Mitchell.

I finished this book during a dreamlike year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. My thanks to Judith Vichniac, Sharon Lim-Hing, Melissa Synott, Marlon Cummings, and all my brilliant colleagues in Byerly for making this such a productive and inspiring research leave. I am also very grateful for the material support I received from a Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alberta in 200507, a Strothman Faculty Research Award at Brown in 200910, and a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 201011.

Thanks as always to the many branches of my family (virtual and actual). My partner, James Baumgartner, has been the perfect muse for this book. A gamer, DJ, cellist, radio producer, bike blogger, and master parodist, he has influenced my work more than he knows.