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Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that the affective relationships that people develop with video game characters are not an escape from reality, but a route back to the intersubjective world, acting as intermediaries in transnational debates about contemporary subjectivity.

Paper long abstract:

Dreams can be seen as an alternative social world in which relations between self and other are imaginatively explored, rehearsed, and critiqued through symbolic characters (Mageo 2003). Understood by Mageo (2003:8) to be "the characters who populate the world of stories in which we develop," I suggest that such dream figures are not limited to our slumbering hours but can pervade our waking lives as well.

In this paper, I engage with the affective relationships that people develop with fictional characters while awake. Focusing on people who incorporate computer-controlled video game characters into their inner lives, I explore how these figures affect and reflect the self and its relations with others. Suspending pathological or fantastical explanations, I argue that these relationships are not an escape from reality but a circuitous route back to the shared, intersubjective world. When brought into the social media environment of Tumblr, these figures act as intermediaries within a transnational social milieu; as points of friction and connection in debates over what it means to live in the contemporary world.