Nice job!
I surveyed this forum for a paper I wrote. Here's the paper.
Sort:
This was well written and researched! I am new to this community and am currently writing a paper on the chess community global and in Cincinnati specifically. Loved reading this and gave me some insight on the resurgence of the game since the pandemic!
Also LOVE the article on Chess in pop culture!
Chess Boom: Possible Reasons for the Game’s Growth in Popularity
Discourse communities are strangely fluid and dynamic, they grow, die out and change so much that they branch off into something completely new. One discourse community that has a very long history but has just recently gained new life is the chess discourse community. This is a discourse community I am a part of, and I will inquire into the fluidity and the boom into more mainstream pop culture that the chess discourse community has taken. As I inquire further, there may be a glimpse into how discourse communities’ function and some latent idiosyncrasies that may arise when you investigate these kinds of things. So, how did chess become so popular recently? My standing theory is that the nature of pop-culture tied in with the contextual situation that has arisen from the pandemic. This has led to the chess boom. These dynamics may shed light on the nature of evolving discourse communities and the evolving state of knowledge associated with them.
Let’s start with some data that proves there is in fact a chess boom. According to the article. "'Queen's Gambit' ups cool factor for chess--and sales; The show took home two Golden Globe awards, giving the game another pop culture bounce." After one month, 62 million households streamed the Queen’s Gambit, an extremely popular chess mini-series. In October 2020 the search rank for “chess set” on amazon increased 857%. Chess streaming has also boomed. 22 million hours of chess was streamed on twitch in February of this year. Daily users went from 1.5 million a day at the start of pandemic, to 5 million a year later. These unbiased facts point broadly to a chess boom. There was a clear pattern of increased popularity directly associated with the pandemic and the Queen’s Gambit. Naturally, with this data in mind, I question: is pop culture, being guided by the liquidity of contextual situations in large scale society? And is the contextual change linked to the pandemic responsible for the increase in chess’s popularity, specifically? Or is it random chance?
To provide some context and begin chipping away at the inquiry process, let’s start with the history of chess and how the game got to the point it was at before the chess boom. The game, or a form of the game, originated in the middle east around the 6th century and spread in all directions, reaching the island of England by the 11th century (Britannica). The game held a semblance of elitism and seemed to be primarily reserved for rich and powerful people. The very old game then slowly became cool and intellectual as it persisted after the advent of mass media. There was a slow and steady trickle of chess in mass culture. The specific lexi of chess was already used in mainstream vernacular for example saying “checkmate” or saying “you’re just a pawn for my master plan.” Chess also satisfied a love of nostalgia in popular culture, to a degree. For example, Star Wars chess sets did that by letting Leia checkmate Darth Vader on a chess board. Commercialization is a sign of pop culture; pop culture icons like Super Mario Bros, Coca Cola, and the Simpsons all have sold chess sets. Still, the elitism associated with chess persisted to a degree within the community.
This elitism and prestige associated with chess is what Hikaru Nakamaru attributed as a reason for chess not being as mainstream as it could be, historically speaking. Nakamaru, a super grandmaster who is easily a top 20 worldwide chess player, was interviewed about the game’s meteoric rise in recent times and provides a fitting understanding of how it likely happened, for the most part. He joined a new group of new chess players who aren’t top level but provided very interesting chess games according to him. Believing that chess has become an esports mainstay, like popular video game League of Legends. He believed this was bound to happen due to the pandemic forcing chess to the online e-scape. Hikaru notes that lower rated players and lower time controls in chess makes the game much more interesting, which will cause mainstream viewers to enjoy the competitions more. This is because high level classical games follow chess theory so closely, “the games end in boring, sloggy draws,” more often than not.
Hikaru notes the interesting dynamic of how chess has been around for so long as “an elitist sport, an intimidating game associated with legacy and high culture.” The snooty old ways of chess are being challenged by newfound popular interest. Chess is now being commercialized and not taking itself too seriously (a sign of pop culture interfering with and changing conservative folk and high culture). As a result, the barrier for entry is lower. Now you can access and learn chess theory with abundant content from youtubers like GothamChess who caters to the everyman’s chess player, with 98% of his audience being rated under 2000. Overall, due to the new online chess world, the elitist nature has changed, launching a new era of chess, where lower rated players are more welcome. (kotaku) (philosophynow.org)
With Hikaru’s clear love of the game, he provides very good reasons for the chess boom. However, Hikaru’s answer to my question of inquiry was too reductionist for my purposes as he doesn’t delve specifically into the reason chess was chosen by mainstream interest, as opposed to say, Chinese checkers or some other arbitrary popular interest. So, to inquire further, I want to talk about the nature of pop-culture that I think philosophynow.org explained well: Industrialization increased the convergence of diverse systems of social, discoursal, and cultural exchange, which gave rise to the advent of ‘pop-culture’. Nowadays, omnipresent media brings people closer and closer, making pop culture that much more prevalent. Pop culture consists of things that masses of people do and they tend to rise and fall. Forms of expression that are commonly liked, forge a sense of identity, and enhance prestige in peer groups. So, with pop culture’s function in a society in mind, why chess? I might be taking a leap here, but if the sociological function of chess is to allow expression, then maybe the chess boom is a sign of increased individualism due to social distancing. It is a one versus one contest. Is it just a coincidence that it became popular when people had to come to terms with their own individualism due to social distancing? And is chess an outlet for the expression of this individualism?
Another pop culture fad I think is the antithesis of chess is Pokémon Go, which saw its prevalence before the pandemic. Surveys report that people with a motivation to make new friends, enjoyed the game and played much more as compared to those with the motivation to bond with pre existing friends. According to the journal of epidemiology and community health, reports indicate that weak ties are less likely to effectively switch to online following the social distancing protocols. People that are more prone to high amounts of networking, like college students, don’t keep in contact as much with newer friends when everything is online. This has resulted in more social isolation. So, if Pokémon Go was a fad used for self-expression that garnered new friendships before the pandemic, then my argument is that chess is a fad used for self-expression in a time when garnering new friendships seems impossible.
I’ve only reached this as a possible conclusion through the inquiry process, as I have researched many aspects and contextualized complex social dynamics involved with my chess discourse community. I think this theory is certainly wishy washy to an extent and is up to interpretation and will leave it at that as I continue my inquiry unless this theory remains pertinent. I think that for the purposes of my inquiry, the extensiveness required to truly answer such a nuanced, almost metaphysical, question will not be met. Even being more exhaustive, proving this theory is a challenge, especially lacking a longitudinal study on a society centralized around internet connection. The final section of my inquiry will revolve around my own field research.
On chess.com’s forum I posted a survey. To my surprise I passed my goal of 10 responses on my first post. Pretty much everyone was on the same wavelength, besides one person who used the word “scamdemic”. Everyone who responded watches chess media of some sort. And everyone agreed that the Queen’s Gambit, Twitch, and the pandemic has led to the chess boom. Also, more than half of the respondents got into chess during the pandemic. I did find one response very interesting. They said that they really got into chess during their zoom classes. Maybe it is as simple as people being lonely and bored, wanting to stimulate their brain that is lacking social stimulation. Overall, the survey falls in line with all my other research and surprisingly I see no discernable gaps. People tend to agree that the popularity stems from normal cultural processes, and specifically the pandemic.
Simply put, chess started getting popular during the pandemic and more people found themselves enjoying it. It has provided me with a fun and challenging hobby and has been very helpful during the past two years. Overall, I think I uncovered some interesting points through my inquiry process, and I am excited to see how much this game will bloom in the future.
Citations:
“Chess History.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/chess/History.
“Chess Is an Esport, According to Twitch Star and Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.” Kotaku, 14 Sept. 2020, https://kotaku.com/chess-is-an-esport-according-to-twitch-star-and-grandm-1845027560.
“Everybody's Game: Chess in Popular Culture.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 27 July 2018, https://worldchesshof.org/exhibit/everybody%E2%80%99s-game-chess-popular-culture.
Gothamchess: How Levy Rozman Became the ... - Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5X-_Ya8efI.
Long, Emily, et al. “Covid-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Social Relationships and Health.” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, 18 Aug. 2021, https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2021/08/18/jech-2021-216690.
Mje. “The Queen's Gambit, the Chess Boom, and the Future of Chess.” Michigan Journal of Economics, 14 Apr. 2021, https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2021/04/05/the-queens-gambit-the-chess-boom-and-the-future-of-chess/.
Saladino, Valeria, et al. “The Psychological and Social Impact of Covid-19: New Perspectives of Well-Being.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 1 Jan. 1AD, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.577684/full.
Liffreing, Ilyse. "'Queen's Gambit' ups cool factor for chess--and sales; The show took two home Golden Globe awards, giving the game another pop culture bounce." AdAge, 8 Mar. 2021, p. 0005. Gale OneFile: CPI.Q, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A654611713/CPI?u=ucinc_main&sid=summon&xid=e7f 5a163. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021.
Halliwell, Rachel. "'Genius can be Achieved by any Child' as a Study Exposes the Myth of the 'Male' Brain, Chess Star Judit Polgar Tells Rachel Halliwell Women-Only Contests must End." Sunday telegraph (London, England), 2015, pp. 35.
Evans, Jocelyn, et al. "Motivations for Social Interaction: The Case of Pokémon Go After the Fad Ended." Social Science Quarterly 102.1 (2021): 547-551.
“Pop Culture: An Overview.” Philosophy Now: a Magazine of Ideas, https://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_Culture_An_Overview.