Discourse Analysis of A Bunch of Dads (Gaming)
A Bunch of Dads (Gaming), or ABOD, is an online gaming community on Facebook. ABOD, as the name of the group implies, is a group for fathers who enjoy gaming of any type to come together and find others who share the same interests and similar life experiences, which can be difficult as a parent or even as an adult in general. Given that ABOD is a closed group, one must be approved by an admin or moderator to be able to join the group and then must be willing to abide by the rules set out by those same mods and admins.
The reason that I chose ABOD as my group to look into for this project was due to my own existing familiarity with it due to already being a member of the group, as well as my interest and enjoyment in video games as a whole. Since I joined ABOD, I have encountered and befriended several like-minded men who enjoy the same types of games that I do, who have the same concerns of being a good man and a good father that I have, and who joined the group specifically for the purpose of having a sense of community, which can be difficult to find as an adult.
Through the weeks leading in to this final analysis, it was required for me to actively engage with the group in order to get a feel for how the members of the community interact with each other, to understand what makes a successful post in the group, and to understand how the use of metadata effects the group, if at all. Given the recent release --though upcoming at the time of posting-- of Kingdom Hearts III, I decided to make my first interaction with the group about that and asked about what the other members of the group thought about it or were expecting/hoping from it.
(posted into ABOD on January 18th, 2019)
Given that the screenshot above was taken at the time of posting, the responses the post received are unavailable there; however, the attention that the post did gather was from only a few of the other group members. One group member said that he was concerned that, given the six years of being in development with only occasional progress updates and announcements regarding the game, that it wouldn’t live up the hype that had been generated for it, as well as that the game may only be enjoyable due to a sense of nostalgia due to the second main platform game (Kingdom Hearts II) had come out in North America in 2005. Other group members expressed their excitement for the game for the exact same reasons that the other member had his reservations about it. One member in particular stood out to me though; he commented that he had restarted the series with his kids so that they could play with him when the game was released. While he was absolutely excited for Kingdom Hearts III, it seemed that he was most excited about having the opportunity to share something he loved so much when he was younger with his kids. Personally, I felt the same way that the last member mentioned felt, as I too have been playing through the series with my oldest son.
(Uploaded into ABOD February 8, 2019)
Following the release of the game, I interacted with the community again in order to get some reviews of it and to see if people enjoyed as much as they thought they would. Unfortunately, as shown in the picture, the only comment from anyone in the group other than myself was the commented picture, which shows the characters Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Flynn Ryder, all at the highest level for the game. I came to find a few hours after I posted the original post that another member had already posted basically the same thing a couple of hours before I did. That, therefore, shows that repetitiveness of posts doesn’t make for successful interactions within the group.
One of the beautiful things about ABOD that I’ve found, however, doesn’t actually have to do with the games themselves as much as it has to do with the gamers. Earlier today (February 10th, 2019), I found a came across a post that was a screenshot of a post from a separate website. This screenshot dealt with the relationships developed between gamers and how they can be more real and meaningful than “real life” friendships. The comments on the post showed that the members of ABOD understood exactly what the original poster was talking about, and began to tell stories of their online friends who they had eventually been able to meet up with, who they eventually lost touch with, or who have died since they spoke last.
(uploaded to ABOD February 8th, 2019)
ABOD, while being a group that focuses on gaming predominantly, allows the members to actively seek advice and emotional support from other members. Of course, it also states in the rules for the group that none of the members are qualified to give professional advice, but it doesn’t disallow advice, person to person. There have been multiple occasions where I’ve seen members of the group looking for someone to talk to because they were going through a divorce, there was a recent death of someone they were close to, being nervous over the upcoming birth of another child, or the upcoming birth of a first child in the case of someone being in the group because they’re a stepfather, as was the case with me. ABOD is a group where the members are truly there to support each other through the highs and lows; it’s a group where any father can come and be accepted.
On a less serious note, ABOD also regularly has memes that get posted on all sorts of gaming related topics that spark all sorts of conversations on different topics ranging from different game systems and the games available on them, to tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and how these different topics effect each member’s day to day lives.
(Posted to ABOD February 10th 2019)
The previous meme ended up sparking a conversation on favorite games from the Playstation 2 era and past consoles in general. The whole post had a sense of nostalgia about it that actually made me want to set my old PS2 back up. ABOD lets people enjoy what it was that they loved growing up, as well as getting them excited for what’s to come, not only in the gaming industry, but in life as well.
The single best thing that ABOD has going for it, I find, is the actual sense of community that exists in it. The members are kind to one another, they look after each other and make sure they’re alright when something seems off, and though they may poke fun at each other on a regular basis, they never take it too far, and they all want the best for the rest of the group.
ABOD is a welcoming community to any and all fathers who enjoy gaming, and so long as you follow the rules of the community, you will be welcomed with open arms. The only things that will get you thrown out are blatant racism, blatant sexism, or just intentionally inciting arguments for no reason. ABOD is well and truly a good community to be in.
