Pixelled Bonds::Digital Intimacies Formed Through Gaming Among Queer Youth in Denmark

This study explores how queer youth experience and cultivate digital intimacies through online gaming. Games are no longer solely spaces of competition or entertainment; they have become rich social environments for identity exploration, emotional connection, and community building. For queer youth—particularly those navigating heteronormative or exclusionary offline contexts—online gaming platforms may offer alternative, more inclusive digital spaces where self-expression and mutual recognition are more easily attainable.<br/>The research is based on in-depth, one-on-one qualitative interviews with queer individuals aged 16 to 25 living in Denmark. Through these interviews, the project examines how online gaming enables the formation of emotional and social bonds. Key questions include: How do queer youth represent themselves in online gaming environments? Which digital spaces feel safe and affirming to them? What kinds of emotional connections emerge during gameplay, and how do these affect their everyday sense of belonging?<br/>The study is framed theoretically by Sara Ahmed’s work on the sociality of emotions. Specifically, the concept of the “orientation of emotions” is used to examine how queer players are affectively drawn toward certain people, spaces, and communities within games. Additionally, Ahmed’s notion of “stickiness”—the idea that emotions adhere to bodies, objects, and ideas through repeated associations—is extended through an interpretative application: the "stickiness of intimacy." While not a term Ahmed explicitly uses, this formulation draws on her affective framework to explore how emotional connections formed in online play become meaningful and enduring over time. In this context, intimacy is not just a private experience, but a social and spatial process shaped by digital interactions.<br/>Thus, online gaming spaces are framed not only as sites of interaction but also as a emotionally textured environments where feelings of trust, comfort, and queer belonging accumulate. This project contributes to a growing body of work on queer digital cultures by highlighting how online games function as spaces for emotional connection, mutual care, and the cultivation of alternative forms of closeness.<br/>