ABSTRACT
The last chapter illustrated the complexity and challenges associated with making sense of counterplay without access to the protagonist or process, largely because of its ambiguity of meaning. In response this chapter will explore grief-play by looking at objectified counterplay (like the incendiary user-generated content) but also by talking with grief-players, those who have been victimized, and exploring the processes and wider contexts that frame it. It should be stressed that this process of research stops at the direct performance and participation of grief-play on ethical grounds. For more on the implications of not doing so, it is worth looking at the scholarly outcry at David Myers’ adoption of the vindictive and annoying City of Heroes (2004) character Twixt (Plunkett 2009). Grief-play is therefore approached by interview and analysis but not direct participant observation, on the grounds that grief-play causes distress.
