Bioshock’s paranoid states: The gamer within a history of white male victimization

This article looks at Bioshock and Bioshock 2 as games through which to explore the construction of the ‘gamer’ as a particular subjectivity within political discourse. In thinking about the historical moment when an understanding of gaming as an act performed by male adolescents emerged, the 1980s and its ‘myth of individualism’, it is possible to use and go beyond previous studies of Bioshock, which look primarily at dystopia and Objectivism, to offer a critique of the gamer as an ambivalent category in conversation with but divergent from libertarian politics. Discussing Bioshock and Bioshock 2 at the same time exposes the complex space beyond revolutionary and left/right politics offered to gamers. Broadening these concerns out into the larger history of gaming and to the formation of paranoid political styles, this article is invested in critically engaging with the myths and tropes of white male victimization that circulate through video games.