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Chimeria:Grayscale: An Interactive Narrative for Provoking Critical Reflection on Gender Discrimination

COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES PROGRAM, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

We have chosen to model gender discrimination through the Chimeria platform (Harrell 2017), a platform that supports simulation of social category membership in virtual identity systems through: (1) modeling the underlying structure of many social categorization phenomena with a computational engine and (2) enabling players to build their own creative applications about social categorization using the engine as a backbone. Chimeria simulates experiences based upon social group membership using a data-driven approach and may take multiple forms (e.g., a 2D visual novel style game (Harrell 2014), a fictitious chat narrative set in a social network (Harrell 2013), or a 3D virtual environment).

Figure 1. Chimeria:Grayscale’s email interface. The labeled components are (A) the inbox pane, (B) inbox contents, (C) email contents, (D) response #1, and (E) response #2, respectively.

In our narrative, players take on the role of a newly hired Human Resource Manager at an inhospitable corporation eponymously called Grayscale [1]. The player character is afforded some agency through the use of the company’s email system (see Figure 1), including the ability to customize its interface. The narrative itself is presented as a sequence of emails, some of which the player can respond to.

The narrative’s central theme is that of the struggles produced by mediated communication in the face of gendered workplace microaggressions (Basford 2013). The protagonist is melancholic, though the story uses humorous satire. The story also explores accompanying social categorizations including “activism” [2], conformity, feminism [3], and misogyny. As the player receives both banal and incendiary fictional emails, their character will occasionally be on the receiving end of a microagression, or made to observe a microagression experienced by a peer. When afforded the opportunity to respond, the player is able to simultaneously engage with the systematicity of disempowering gendered interactions while exploring their affective and material repercussions. The narrative is driven by other characters’ reactions to the protagonist’s responses. Consider the excerpt in Figure 2. Choosing the first option results in the protagonist’s categorization shifting towards “activism” along a spectrum from “activism” to conformity. One character within the narrative becomes increasingly emboldened and empowered by observing such disruptions to the social order. Most characters, however, become increasingly hostile in response to threats to stability. Over the course of a single playthrough, players will experience several interactions like that of Figure 2, resulting in one of many narrative conclusions.

We use Chimeria:Grayscale to demonstrate how the Chimeria engine can be leveraged to create compelling, socially nuanced roleplay experiences. Chimeria’s ability to model the specifics and dynamics of identity allow it to portray social interactions with increasing nuance. This stands in stark contrast to a large swath of games that do not highly value complex models of identity for non-player characters. We hope taking on roles within Chimeria will agitate players’ critical awareness of the socially impactful themes raised by its narrative.

We would like to acknowledge the efforts of Chong-U Lim, Vinnie Byrne, Laurel Carney, Sofia Ayala, Jackie Liu, and Yao Tong in making this work possible.

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[1] We also refer to the system as Chimeria:Grayscale when emphasizing the platform used to create it.

[2] When we use the term “activism” in this paper, we are referring to one’s willingness to upset the social order.

[3] The category of “feminism” as implemented in Grayscale reflects a worldview of gender as performed and constructed (Butler 1990; Hooks 2014), but we recognize the diversity of (often contested) approaches to feminism.