The Future of Young Blacktivism: Aesthetics and Practices of Speculative Activism in Video Game Play

Our study examines the collective ingenuity of Black young people as they develop speculative activist stances in the context of video games. Drawing on an Afrofuturist perspective, we center hope and possibility by exploring how Black people leverage their histories as a resource in the present to imagine radically new Black Futures in games such as The Sims and Grand Theft Auto V. We offer a framework for how youth develop fugitive and abolitionist imaginaries and practices that remix technology, resistance, and social relations, thereby re-articulating the possibilities of video game play, collaboration, and activism toward consequential forms of learning.